The Big Picture Magazine
In Steve McQueen’s Shame, sex addict Brandon (Michael Fassbender) sees his secretive, psychologically damaging affliction eat into his outwardly successful life. A sophisticated, high flying businessman with a modish New York apartment he may be, but underneath Brandon is crippled by spiritual, emotional and existential crises, thwarting his attempts at anything resembling a functional, meaningful […]
Forget put-upon, would-be journalist, Andy Sachs (infused with subtle innocence by Anne Hathaway), bitchy PA Emily Charlton (the wonderfully acidic Emily Blunt) or Priestly herself (a career defining turn from Hollywood icon Meryl Streep) – it was really ‘The Book’ which played the pivotal role in The Devil Wears Prada, director David Frankel’s acid sharp pastiche on the fickle […]
From the moment Jack Lemmon’s C.C. Baxter dons his new bowler hat in Billy Wilder’s The Apartment the film changes into a very different beast to what has come before. Baxter’s rise from struggling clerk amid the core of the 19th floor to 2nd administrative assistant with his own office is swift. The endless nights […]
Directors often rely on composers to provide key signature passages in their film scores to aid the audience’s journey through a narrative – think John Williams’ iconic themes for Indiana Jones or Superman - but objects, and the sounds they make, can often become just as effective in helping to support character recognition, thematic progression […]
In attempting to scare the grey flannel trousers off its original 1950s audience, Jacques Tourneur’s deliciously dark little frightener Night of the Demon, based on the M. R. James story Casting the Runes, employed a number of devices to instil fear – the effectiveness of the stick puppet demon itself, insisted on by executive producer […]
Malignant horror can most effectively be found through forums which are accessible to all, no matter who or where you are. So how better to transfer its influence than by means of such an innocent, yet so intrinsic, part of modern-day life – the humble television set. Over the years there have been countless cinematic representations of portals to […]
Mary Poppins, the mysterious nanny who blew in on an easterly wind changing forever the lives of the assorted inhabitants of Cherry Tree Lane, had only two requirements to work her magic – her caustic wit and a parrot headed umbrella. Her deceptively large carpet bag may have held fathomless possibilities for her young charges, […]
It’s often been said that a car is the outward visualisation of the inner man – the embodiment of everything he is, or at least imagines he is. This mantra could well have been written with James Bond’s silver Aston Martin db5 in mind as it is, in effect, the super-agent himself embodied in gleaming glass and metal. Though only […]
Jerzy Skolimowski’s Deep End evokes universal memories of the heady days of first love, as fifteen year old Michael (John Moulder-Brown) becomes ever more infatuated with his co-worker, the raven haired temptress Susan (Jane Asher). Erotic, atmospheric and off-kilter, Deep End washes over the viewer with a lightness of touch that belies the narrative’s dark […]