News

Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2024, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.

2024 was my year of big, blustering cinema. The kind of movie that makes you realize what a movie is fundamentally supposed to be: Loud, epic, enveloping. You know, Big. The majority of films I responded to most this year were craft masterworks, from the sound design genius of films like The Brutalist, Dune: Part Two, and Civil War to the immersive photography and editing of others like Furiosa, Wicked, and The Substance. Even the “smaller” and quieter of this year’s crop, such as Memoir of a Snail and Janet Planet, reverberated in their background details.

How lucky it is to say to yourself not once but multiple times a year at the theater, “Now this is Cinema!”

Without further ado, the best movies I watched in 2024.

Honorable Mentions: Femme,...

The Skeleton Dance.George Eastman Museum senior curator Peter Bagrov was buying time for a projector to be repaired before the Nitrate Picture Show’s opening-night screening of Intolerance (1916). He told the audience that a fellow archivist had once compared the event, held annually at the Museum’s Dryden Theatre, to a feast where the bourgeoisie dine on otherwise extinct animals. That archivist isn’t the festival’s only critic: I have heard others liken the wide-eyed worship of cinema’s mostly defunct physical materials to a necrophilia of sorts. After all, if nitrate prints are the last vestiges of an otherwise forgotten industry standard, the best indicator of what a film was supposed to look like, does their projection to enthused cinephiles over a long weekend in Rochester, New York, not constitute the defilement of some of film history’s most precious materials? Even if the prints do not go up in flames,...

When people think of open-air ice skating in New York City, well, they probably conjure up the festive Christmas-y confines of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Unless they're old. Baby Boomer old. For members of the generation that protested the Vietnam War before turning into conservative zombies who treat Fox News as an informational IV drip, there is first and foremost the image of the late Ryan O'Neal's Oliver Barrett IV gazing forlornly at the Wollman Skating Rink in Central Park as Francis Lai's brilliantly overwrought main theme jerks tears from our ducts with a vicious intensity worthy of Pinhead.

Most Boomers won't get that reference. And for those born as early as the Reagan era who are generally incurious about movies, you probably haven't watched Arthur Hiller's "Love Story." It is a film of its time, but, oh, what a film it was, at least commercially. Based on Erich Segal...

Taylor Swift could be one step closer to an Egot.

It turns out that the singer-songwriter, who already has 11 Grammys and 1 Emmy, has a real Oscar contender on her hands with her short film “All Too Well” that she released late last year.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Swift’s short “received an Oscar-qualifying run,” making it eligible to be nominated for the Academy’s ‘best live action short’ award. What’s more, Swift seems to have her eyes set on taking home Oscar gold. THR reports that Swift is “working with a top consulting firm to guide its awards campaign.”

Read More: Taylor Swift Thanks Dwayne Johnson For Using 2 ‘Taylor’s Version’ Hits In ‘League Of Super-Pets’

The “August” hitmaker wrote and directed the 14-minute short which debuted on November 12 online and at the AMC Lincoln Square in NYC. The film continued to screen at Lincoln Square for one week.

Click here to read the full article.

The three Oscar categories that recognize films which run 40 minutes or shorter — best live action short, best documentary short and best animated short — are often regarded as “minor,” but this year’s contenders for them will include some major names.

On the heels of recent Academy Awards ceremonies at which Oscars for short films were taken home by the likes of retired NBA legend Kobe Bryant, former NFL player Matthew A. Cherry and Hollywood A-lister Riz Ahmed, The Hollywood Reporter has learned that Taylor Swift’s filmmaking debut All Too Well: The Short Film — which the pop star has described as “a film about an effervescent, curious young woman who ends up completely out of her depth” — received an Oscar-qualifying run, making it eligible for the best live action short Oscar, and is working with a top consulting firm to guide its awards campaign.

Commissions

“The Freedom Orchestra” (working title), a documentary film presented by Clive Myrie, will tell the story of Ukraine’s newly formed Freedom Orchestra. In the midst of the ongoing war with Russia, 75 of Ukraine’s noted musicians have come together to bring a message of defiance and hope. Some of their family members are on the frontlines, and many have fled Ukraine since the war began.

Myrie follows the stories of the musicians from rehearsing, often alone, in Ukraine, to coming together for their first rehearsal as an orchestra in Warsaw for their inaugural concert — ahead of a tour of Europe and the U.S., including a performance at the BBC Proms on July 31.

Myrie said: “There has always been a cultural frontline in this war and I wanted to reflect that struggle. This documentary, I hope, shines a light on Ukraine’s artistic achievements as well as creative spirit,...

The film has been restored by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

A restoration of Henry King’s silent film Stella Dallas from 1925 has been announced as the pre-opening film to this year’s Venice Film Festival (August 31 - September 10).

This film will play at the Sala Darsena on August 30. It is the first time Venice will screen a film before the festival officially starts.

Stella Dallas has been restored in a 4k digital version by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the Film Foundation chaired by Martin Scorsese. The screening will be accompanied by a...

Oscar certainly loves mothers. All five of this year’s Best Actress nominees — Jessica Chastain (“The Eyes of Tammy Faye”), Olivia Colman (“The Lost Daughter”), Penelope Cruz (“Parallel Mothers”), Nicole Kidman (“Being the Ricardos”) and Kirsten Stewart (“Spencer”) — play mothers. Ditto four out of five supporting nominees: Jessie Buckley (“The Lost Daughter”), Judi Dench (“Belfast”), Kirsten Dunst (“The Power of the Dog”) and Aunjanue Ellis (“King Richard”); the fifth contender is Ariana DeBose (“West Side Story”).

Actresses love getting maternal sinking their teeth-and sometimes claws-into mother roles whether they be good, bad, ugly or downright evil. Here’s a look at some early memorable mother performances that made Oscars history.

The mother of all mothers was Ruth Chatterton. Though she is not as well-remembered as other actresses from the Golden Age of Hollywood, she was extremely popular in the late 1920s and early ‘30s. Though no nominations were officially announced for the second annual Oscars,...

On Sunday the next Supporting Actress Smackdown and its companion podcast arrive, with a discussion of the 1937 Oscars and the Supporting Actress nominees. You know what that means. For maximum enjoyment (re)watch Best Picture nominees the Bogart noir Dead End, the actress-stuffed dramedy Stage Door and the epic In Old Chicago as well as two films that were both nominated for two acting Oscars, the thriller Night Must Fall and weepie classic Stella Dallas (all of which are readily available online) and send in your votes by Friday October 1st. Let's meet your fellow panelists, shall we? 

Please Welcome...

We're about to enter the prime Oscar-hopeful months of the year. Excited? But before we do, here's a quick look back at August at Tfe. In case you missed any of this baker's dozen...

Some Highlights

• Interview Nine Perfect Strangers Abe interviews Michael Shannon

• Emmy Categories -we've analyzed many of the top races

• Spencer tease - will Kristen Stewart be up for gold?

• Jennifer Hudson in Respect a big new role for a fine singer

• The Green Knight -Matt has a big crush on Dev Patel

• Phil Tippet -Elisa meets the "mad god" of vfx

• Jeanette Goldstein in Aliens Nick gives a strong genre turn its due

• Gay Best Friend: Chuck and Buck - with White Lotus all the rage, Christopher looks back at Mike White's breakout

• A Room With a View a long-read team retrospective

• How had I never seen...Blue Velvet Ben has never been a...

While long-running TV favorites have dominated the Emmys, series that ran for one season or less have also won over the academy. They often faced strong competition in their time slots or were ahead of their time. These shows are generally just faded memories but many are available on YouTube. Do you remember any of these Emmy winners?

“The Barbara Stanwyck Show”

Barbara Stanwyck, who was nicknamed Missy by her friends and co-workers, was a formidable presence during the Golden Age of Hollywood earning four Oscar nominations for 1937’s “Stella Dallas,” 1941’s “Ball of Fire,” 1944’s “Double Indemnity” and 1948’s “Sorry, Wrong Number.” In 1960, she starred in her first TV series: an anthology show for NBC. Directors included Arthur Hiller, Richard Whorf and Stuart Rosenberg. And guest stars ran the gamut from Anna May Wong to Lee Marvin.

Though the anthology series format worked like gangbusters for another classic Hollywood legend,...

by Cláudio Alves

Despite being one of Old Hollywood's most electrifying actresses, Barbara Stanwyck feels somewhat forgotten (apart from cinephiles) when compared to her contemporaries like Bette Davis, Joan Crawford or Ingrid Bergman. The one role that arguable does keep her immortal with the mainstream is the devilish Phyllis Dietrichson in Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity, the noir to end all noirs starring the greatest femme fatale of them all. Still, to believe that Stanwick was essentially a noir vixen is unfair to her grand legacy. More than many actresses of her time, she rejoiced in hopping from genre to genre, unencumbered by exclusive contracts to studios that might want to pin her down to one type of role.

Because of that, she was able to experiment with the extremes of Pre-Code libertinism (Baby Doll), weepy melodrama (Stella Dallas), historical epics (Titanic), tragic romances (There's Always Tomorrow) and even camp...

By Jacob Oller

Adaptation theory through three takes on a novel. live Higgins Prouty’s 1922 novel Stella Dallas became one of the first radio soap operas, creating the melodramatic form that would continue on through TV and film. Most directly, it inspired three adaptations: a silent film in 1925, a Barbara Stanwyck film in 1937, and a 1990 […]

The article Melodrama Through The Years: Three Versions of ‘Stella Dallas’ appeared first on Film School Rejects.

Mother-daughter relationships have always been the stuff of great drama. And the Oscars are no exception. Three decades ago the “Moonstruck” acting duo Olympia Dukakis and Cher both won gold for playing a strong-willed New York Italian mother and her feisty daughter. Six years later, as a mute Scottish teacher and her de facto interpreter in New Zealand, Holly Hunter and Anna Paquin repeated that twofer triumph with Jane Campion’s “The Piano.”

Onscreen mother-daughter conflict has resulted in other dual Academy Award nominations: selfless Barbara Stanwyck tricked Anne Shirley into marrying rich in tearjerker “Stella Dallas” (1937); Meryl Streep’s big mouth inspired a rebellious Julia Roberts in “August: Osage County” (2013); Piper Laurie was literally crucified by Sissy Spacek in “Carrie” (1976). At the start of this decade, Mo’Nique won an Oscar portraying the sexually abusive parent of fellow “Precious” nominee Gabourey Sidibe. Back in 1984, both Shirley MacLaine and...

If you’re one of the thousands of people who are forced to stay home on Tuesday due to Winter Storm Stella, there is a bright spot amidst all that snow —getting caught up on all the things you’ve been meaning to stream.

If you’re looking for ideas — or just don’t know where to start — we’ve put together a handy guide on the best TV and movies to stream on Netflix, Amazon, iTunes and more. And we’ve broken them down by your moods — from wishing you were on a sunny beach somewhere (then-teenaged Lauren Conrad...

Telluride Film Festival programmers Tom Luddy and Julie Huntsinger pride themselves on curating the cream of the Hollywood crop, which has included Best Picture Oscar-winners “The King’s Speech,” “Slumdog Millionaire,” “Argo,” and “12 Years a Slave.”

However, even a Telluride hit needs amplification from noisy Toronto as they head into awards season.

Launched at Venice and Telluride, Lionsgate’s “La La Land” has propelled Emma Stone and, possibly, costar Ryan Gosling into awards contention. How the audacious musical fares with critics and audiences will impact how far it goes with the Academy, who will give “Whiplash” nominee Damien Chazelle points for ambition and a relatable showbiz story. This film boasts passionate supporters, while many others don’t get the movie at all. The larger media presence in Toronto and New York will continue to ripple out and build must-see for the movie. So far I am discerning a slight generational divide,...

Telluride Film Festival programmers Tom Luddy and Julie Huntsinger pride themselves on curating the cream of the Hollywood crop, which has included Best Picture Oscar-winners “The King’s Speech,” “Slumdog Millionaire,” “Argo,” and “12 Years a Slave.”

However, even a Telluride hit needs amplification from noisy Toronto as they head into awards season.

Launched at Venice and Telluride, Lionsgate’s “La La Land” has propelled Emma Stone and, possibly, costar Ryan Gosling into awards contention. How the audacious musical fares with critics and audiences will impact how far it goes with the Academy, who will give “Whiplash” nominee Damien Chazelle points for ambition and a relatable showbiz story. This film boasts passionate supporters, while many others don’t get the movie at all. The larger media presence in Toronto and New York will continue to ripple out and build must-see for the movie. So far I am discerning a slight generational divide,...

Going live at the Hippfest launch Photo: Lisa Evans

The full programme for Hippfest 2016 was revealed today at the Hippodrome Cinema in Bo'ness, Scotland's oldest purpose-built cinema. There was music from Herschel-36 and Jane Gardner, who are composing new live scores for festival films, and it was announced that the opening film will be 1930 Soviet classic Earth, rarely seen but widely considered to be one of the best films ever made.

Wunder Der Schöpfung

The festival, which secured funding in November, is the country's only event dedicated entirely to silent film. It will close with the original Stella Dallas, starring Belle Bennett, which was later reworked as a vehicle for Barbara Stanwyck. Also in the programme are a Laurel and Hardy triple bill, a Buster Keaton short whose ending has only just been discovered after being lost for decades, and 1925 German documentary Wunder Der Schöpfung (literally 'the miracle of creation'...

Top Ten Scream Queens: Barbara Steele, who both emitted screams and made others do same, is in a category of her own. Top Ten Scream Queens Halloween is over until next year, but the equally bewitching Day of the Dead is just around the corner. So, dead or alive, here's my revised and expanded list of cinema's Top Ten Scream Queens. This highly personal compilation is based on how memorable – as opposed to how loud or how frequent – were the screams. That's the key reason you won't find listed below actresses featured in gory slasher films. After all, the screams – and just about everything else in such movies – are as meaningless as their plots. You also won't find any screaming guys (i.e., Scream Kings) on the list below even though I've got absolutely nothing against guys who scream in horror, whether in movies or in life. There are...

'Sorrell and Son' with H.B. Warner and Alice Joyce. 'Sorrell and Son' 1927 movie: Long thought lost, surprisingly effective father-love melodrama stars a superlative H.B. Warner Partially shot on location in England and produced independently by director Herbert Brenon at Joseph M. Schenck's United Artists, the 1927 Sorrell and Son is a skillful melodrama about paternal devotion in the face of both personal and social adversity. This long-thought-lost version of Warwick Deeping's 1925 bestseller benefits greatly from the veteran Brenon's assured direction, deservedly shortlisted in the first year of the Academy Awards.* Crucial to the film's effectiveness, however, is the portrayal of its central character, a war-scarred Englishman who sacrifices it all for the happiness of his son. Luckily, the London-born H.B. Warner, best remembered for playing Jesus Christ in another 1927 release, Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings, is the embodiment of honesty, selflessness, and devotion. Less is...

Teresa Wright-Samuel Goldwyn association comes to a nasty end (See preceding post: "Teresa Wright in 'Shadow of a Doubt': Alfred Hitchcock Heroine in His Favorite Film.") Whether or not because she was aware that Enchantment wasn't going to be the hit she needed – or perhaps some other disagreement with Samuel Goldwyn or personal issue with husband Niven Busch – Teresa Wright, claiming illness, refused to go to New York City to promote the film. (Top image: Teresa Wright in a publicity shot for The Men.) Goldwyn had previously announced that Wright, whose contract still had another four and half years to run, was to star in a film version of J.D. Salinger's 1948 short story "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut." Instead, he unceremoniously – and quite publicly – fired her.[1] The Goldwyn organization issued a statement, explaining that besides refusing the assignment to travel to New York to help generate pre-opening publicity for Enchantment,...

His dad was one of Hollywood’s founding fathers. If there is something that Samuel Goldwyn Jr should be remembered for following his death on Friday night, it’s this, according to Tom Rothman: “For the 20 or so years before Disney put money in Miramax or we started Fox Searchlight with NewsCorp money and other studios got in the game, the independent film business really began with Sam in the late 70s.” Rothman, a lawyer in New York who repped Jim Jarmusch when he made the deal with Goldwyn Jr for Stranger Than Paradise, was hired by Goldwyn Jr to become president of The Goldwyn Company before moving on to Fox where he became the first president of Fox Searchlight.

“People forget what a seminal figure Sam was, and how many filmmakers broke through because of him,” Rothman said. “There was Kenneth Branagh, Anthony Minghella, Ang Lee, David Lynch and John Sayles.

Honorary Oscars have bypassed women: Angela Lansbury, Lauren Bacall among rare exceptions (photo: 2013 Honorary Oscar winner Angela Lansbury and Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award winner Angelina Jolie) September 4, 2014, Introduction: This four-part article on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Honorary Awards and the dearth of female Honorary Oscar winners was originally posted in February 2007. The article was updated in February 2012 and fully revised before its republication today. All outdated figures regarding the Honorary Oscars and the Academy's other Special Awards have been "scratched out," with the updated numbers and related information inserted below each affected paragraph or text section. See also "Honorary Oscars 2014 addendum" at the bottom of this post. At the 1936 Academy Awards ceremony, groundbreaking film pioneer D.W. Griffith, by then a veteran with more than 500 shorts and features to his credit — among them the epoch-making The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance — became the first individual to...

The title star's conscience may have been Jiminy Cricket, but his voice in the 1940 Walt Disney animated feature Pinocchio belonged to 10-year-old Dick Jones, who made millions of fellow youngsters cry when his screen character was reunited with his father and then turned into a real boy. Jones, not only the voice of Pinocchio but the veteran of 40 movies before he landed that role, died Monday night after a fall in his San Fernando Valley, California, home, his son, Rick Jones, told the Los Angeles Times. He was 87. Inducted in 2000 as a "Disney Legend" at the studio that produced the beloved movie (which,...

My mother would have preferred a mother more like Beulah Bondi in "It’s a Wonderful Life." My daughters would have preferred a mother more like Susan Sarandon in "Little Women" or Natasha Richardson in "The Parent Trap." Much as I love Barbara Stanwyck in "Stella Dallas" and Claudia McNeil in "Raisin in the Sun," I would have preferred a mother more like Frances McDormand in "Almost Famous" or like Marcia Gay Harden in "Whip It" than the one I had and loved and was more like Debbie Reynolds in Albert Brooks’ "Mother." I’ve been reading Richard Corliss’ "Mom in the Movies," a sprightly survey of cinemamas, as though it were a catalogue of mail-order moms. Read more here.

Above: Us poster for Forbidden (Frank Capra, USA, 1932)

In honor of the month-long retrospective of the films of the great Barbara Stanwyck starting today at Film Forum in New York, I thought I’d select my favorite Stanwyck posters. Brooklyn-born Ruby Catherine Stevens made 85 films over 37 years in Hollywood so there is an awful lot to choose from. But the remarkable thing about looking back at these posters is how artists seemed to have had a hard time capturing her likeness. The poster for one of her earliest films, Capra’s 1932 Forbidden, above, captures her beautifully, but the poster for Stella Dallas (1937), her first Oscar-nominated role (she never won, shockingly), seems to be of a different actress entirely. As for the sexed-up illustration on the flyer for The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933), in that she looks more like Jean Harlow. Some of my favorite posters for her films are the Swedish and Danish designs,...

Angela Lansbury talking show tunes!

That's why you should be excited about a new season of Michael Feinstein's American Songbook.

News

FX has issued an apology to fans of The Americans who found their DVR recordings cut off early. The episode ran for 67 minutes but listings had the run time going for an hour, meaning many viewers missed vital scenes. FX is putting the full episode online for viewers to catch up.

The next target for Adult Swim — 80s detective shows. Deadline reports that the late night block has ordered a new live action series, Hole to Hole, that will parody 80s detective shows.

Since I find Artie one of the more toxic characters on Glee, I didn't expect to be excited at the thought of meeting his mother, but she's going to be played by Katey Sagal (who was once one of Bette Midler's Harlettes) which suddenly has...

When it comes to old movies, don't mess with Cher. The Oscar-winning uber-diva and passionate film buff is helping Turner Classic Movies launch its new weekly film series Friday Night Spotlight (8/7c), which kicks off this week. Each month will showcase a different theme and guest co-host. First up is A Woman's World: The Defining Era of Women in Film, a collection of 17 classic movies — handpicked by Cher — that illustrates the evolving roles of women from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Among them: Stella Dallas, Mildred Pierce, Bachelor Mother, So Proudly We Hail, The Devil in Miss Jones and the 1946 Best Picture Oscar winner The Best Years of Our Lives. (For a full list go to tcm.com). Cher and TCM host Robert Osborne will talk shop and intro the films, which air in four categories — Motherhood (April 5), War Effort and the Homefront (April 12), Working Women (April...

Cher, the Oscar®, Emmy®, Grammy®, Cannes Film Festival and three-time Golden Globe® award winner is set to be the first host of Friday Night Spotlight, a brand new film showcase launching April 5 on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). TCM host Robert Osborne will join Cher to kick off the franchise with A Woman’s World: The Defining Era of Women in Film, a collection of 17 films handpicked by Cher to illustrate the evolving roles of women from the late 1930s to the early ’50s. Each month thereafter, Friday Night Spotlight will feature a celebrity or expert host who will take viewers through a collection of films focusing on a specific topic.

A Woman’s World: The Defining Era of Women in Film will start Friday, April 5, at 8 p.m. (Et) with Cher and Osborne hosting a night of movies focusing on motherhood, beginning with Joan Crawford’s Oscar®-winning performance in...

As the Academy celebrates 85 years of great films at the Oscars on February 24th, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is set to take movie fans on the ultimate studio tour with the 2013 edition of 31 Days Of Oscar®. Under the theme Oscar by Studio, the network will present a slate of more than 350 movies grouped according to the studios that produced or released them. And as always, every film presented during 31 Days Of Oscar is an Academy Award® nominee or winner, making this annual event one of the most anticipated on any movie lover’s calendar.

As part of the network’s month-long celebration, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has graciously provided the original Academy Awards® radio broadcasts from 1930-1952. Specially chosen clips from the radio archives will be featured throughout TCM’s 31 Days Of Oscar website.

Hollywood was built upon the studio system, which saw nearly ever aspect...

Frederica Sagor Pt.2: Women Screenwriters in 1920s Hollywood [Photo: Emil Jannings in The Way of All Flesh.] Frederica Sagor's reported final Hollywood screen credit was the scenario for the 1928 slapstick comedy The Farmer's Daughter, directed by Arthur Rosson at Fox. Marjorie Beebe, previously featured in several comedy shorts, had the title role (no relation to Loretta Young's 1947 Oscar-winning Congresswoman-to-be). In her book, Sagor says she was paid $750 a week (approx. $9,700 today) to write the story for this programmer — one she hated — about rural lovers and piles of manure. The previous year, Sagor had married screenwriter Ernest Maas, who held an executive post at Fox. In her autobiography, she states that the couple wrote a story named Beefsteak Joe, inspired by the life of Maas' father, that was misappropriated by Paramount and released as The Way of All Flesh. Directed by Gone with the Wind's Victor Fleming, the now-lost melodrama — Madame X meets Stella Dallas in...

A classy dame. A dynamite broad. A tough cookie. The language is definitely un-pc…and yet, it seems not only proper but singularly apt when talking about Barbara Stanwyck. It was the language of the day when her star soared off into the ascent, and it would remain so her over the course of a 60-year career on stage, film, and TV, it would be criminal to clean it up for politeness’ sake. It was the kind of language she unabashedly used herself in her later years, describing herself frankly, bluntly, and with characteristic modesty – as was her wont – as “…a tough old broad from Brooklyn.”

And, kiddo (as she’d probably say), she was. She had to be.

She was four-year-old Ruby Stevens when a drunk pushed her mother off a streetcar killing her, and her father, unable to cope, ran off. She bounced from one foster home to another,...

The close-up is one of the few areas in which cinema genuinely demonstrates the maxim 'show, don't tell'. So will Botox put it at risk?

Towards the end of The Leopard, there's a 20-second close-up, in which Burt Lancaster stares into a mirror and a tear runs down his cheek. And we feel his pain. It's of a different order to the close-ups in The Expendables, where the beaten-up mugs of Sylvester Stallone and Mickey Rourke have evidently known pain, but we don't share it. I, at any rate, was too preoccupied with trying to map the strange, rugged topography of their faces.

Let us put aside for now the distinctions between medium close-up, close-up and extreme close-up, though I did recently stumble across the pleasing information that, in French, the medium shot is also known as the plan Américain – so-called because in westerns it allows us to see the...

I Am Love (15)

(Luca Guadagnino, 2009, It) Tilda Swinton, Pippo Delbono, Flavio Parenti. 119 mins

The result of a seven-year collaboration between its star and director, I Am Love is an extraordinary fusion of tradition and modernity that's a good deal more original than it might seem at first glance. Calling to mind (although not exclusively modelled on) Luchino Visconti's 1963 Italian classic The Leopard, with a dash of Barbara Stanwyck's immortal Stella Dallas for good measure, this is a powerful and stylish dynastic melodrama that works on many levels. On the surface, Luca Guadagnino's bold, aggressively contemporary direction attacks an age-old story from all angles, zooming, tracking and tilting as John Adams's affecting symphonic score booms. But at the centre of this storm, Swinton gives a superb, sympathetic performance as Emma, the Russian wife of a Milanese textile magnate, whose reckless affair with a working-class chef sends her privileged life into turmoil.