Philip Strick

Nov 15, 2024 | bfi.org.uk | David Parkinson |Craig Mann |Philip Strick |Juana Albina

Spoiler warning: This article gives away elements of the plotAndrea Arnold’s latest film is steered by a sense of wonder you don’t find in your typical family drama. The story of a young girl on the brink of coming of age navigating a hostile family life in north Kent, Bird is anything but one-dimensional. Throughout her career, Arnold has often been pigeonholed as a social realist. Although her skills as a director shine in social realism, reducing her to that label oversimplifies her talents.

Nov 12, 2024 | bfi.org.uk | David Parkinson |Craig Mann |Philip Strick |Lisa Kerrigan

Louis Feuillade is not an easy sell. A Catholic monarchist with a military background, he had championed bullfighting as a journalist before becoming a screenwriter at Gaumont. Here, he quickly rose to succeed Alice Guy-Blaché as artistic director in 1907 and transformed the company’s fortunes with a string of hit crime serials. Unpersuaded by the merits of stylistic experimentation, Feuillade was convinced that cinematic truth was best conveyed by melodrama.

Nov 8, 2024 | bfi.org.uk | Craig Mann |Philip Strick |Lisa Kerrigan |Lara Callaghan

It’s fair to say that the mainstream action film as it is typically thought of today – the kind of narratives in which musclebound action heroes single-handedly take on entire armies of bad guys – was forged during a particularly conservative period in American history. Following Ronald Reagan’s victory over Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential election, the nation lurched to the right politically, socially, culturally and economically.

Nov 8, 2024 | bfi.org.uk | Nick Bradshaw |Kate Stables |Roger Luckhurst |Philip Strick

It’s a tale as old as the hills, the kind that international law says should have long been buried in them: ordinary people menaced on their land by raiding parties, invaders and occupiers waving weapons and new rules or expulsion orders.

Nov 8, 2024 | bfi.org.uk | Roger Luckhurst |Kate Stables |Philip Strick |Tony Rayns

The Pittsburgh Cycle of ten plays set in ten decades, by the African American playwright August Wilson (1945-2005), is a towering artistic record of the Black experience across the 20th century. In 2015 Denzel Washington announced that he would direct a film adaptation of Fences (1985), and co-produce films of the other nine. Fences came out in 2016, and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (staged in 1984) in 2020.