The Big Picture MagazineAda writes the blog Classiq, where she funnels her lifelong passion for cinema and her interest in fashion in film, of which she is a fervent proponent as one of cinema's most far-reaching influences. She is an optimistic by nature, but she hates forced happy endings. Maybe that’s why film noir is her favourite genre. She regards it as a prime contributor to restoring the balance disrupted by the traditional notion of a Hollywoodian happy ending.
It was September when A Streetcar Named Desire, the film, premiered in New York City. The year was 1951. Almost exactly seventy years ago. Marlon Brando had reprised his role from the Tennessee Williams Broadway play of the same name that had propelled him to the attention and acclaim of theatre goers and critics alike. […]
LA at dawn. Silhouettes of high-rises, bungalows and lines of palm trees merge together into a glowing mist. The urban jungle created through light and shadow, and new dreams that are always rising up, and old dreams that have turned to concrete. That’s the opening image from Michael Doster’s book Doster 80s/90s. And, for some […]
I recently re-watched The Letter (1940) on what was one of the summer’s first hot nights. Actually I may make it a summer tradition, to watch on an unbearably warm night. Because noir is the genre that offers the perfect contrast to my favourite season, to the bright and euphoric summer days. Watching noir films during […]
A rectangular swimming pool framed by shaded stones and trees under the blinding sun, each element a character in itself. Marianne and Jean-Paul live freely, the lazy, good times in a magnificent villa in the South of France. Directed by Jacques Deray and starring Romy Schneider (Marianne), Alain Delon (Jean-Paul), Maurice Ronet and Jane Birkin, […]
A silhouette in white seen from behind. Wide-legged white trousers and a white shoulder-padded blazer. Low white kitten heels clattering on the tiles of an empty apartment overlooking a similar tall building of flats. From behind oversized sunglasses she sizes up the apartment and begins to list the electronic appliances that could fit in a […]
From the very beginning, Mickey Rourke was one of the four actors Alan Parker had on his list to play Harry Angel in the film Angel Heart (1987). “We arranged to meet in New York. I picked Mickey up from his hotel looking, as he always does off-screen, like an unemployed gas station attendant. We had […]
Monsieur Klein is an art dealer living on the Left Bank in Paris, on Rue de Bac. Played by Alain Delon, with his good looks, refined clothes, stern haircut and minimal mimic, he looks at ease and undisturbed in his generous apartment, lavishly decorated in rich colours and trimmed with paintings. Dressed in a luxurious […]
What remains if people let go of their illusions, or delusions? In one of the best films of last year, Sean Durkin’s The Nest (2020), Jude Law is Rory, a high-risk investment specialist who moves back to his native England from New York with his American wife, Allison (Carrie Coon, in a wonderfully paced performance), and […]
They are men who are staring down death as they are flying dangerous missions over treacherous mountain terrain, come rain, shine or fog. The short landing strips are no less hazardous. They have poor navigational equipment and makeshift planes, but they are hard-shelled and have an unconquerable spirit. It’s an electrifying, fast-paced, past-the-edge-of-yourself world, one […]