The Big Picture Magazine
Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. As for family, well… Towards the end of Francis Ford Coppola’s tenebrous portrait of a family eating itself from the inside, an aghast Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) asks his adopted brother Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) why he wants to wipe everyone out when he’s already won, to […]
The family has always been a notable thematic absence from the shadowy, suspicious world of classical American film noir. To understand why this is the case is to understand the impact of the second world war upon Hollywood and the nation at large, but these are broader concerns than shall be addressed here. If film noir can be crystallised […]
This article contains film spoilers. Discouraged and temporarily defeated, detective Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford) leans heavily, hands in pockets, against the doorway of his young daughter’s room. “That’s the most beautiful castle in the whole world”, he says, referring to the child’s impressive building block creation sprawled across the bedroom floor. She grins, immediately bounding up into her […]
Family has always been the preferred subject of Yasujirô Ozu; the subtle daily dynamics of the typical Japanese home, and the small moments of drama that may be glimpsed as a fly on the wall. Or perhaps, more accurately, as a fly hovering three feet from the floor: where Ozu’s static camera was always placed, emphasising the […]
In partnership with Park Circus films, we’re giving away three exclusive posters for festive films that have become as synonymous with the Christmas season as Santa Claus or injuries at a black Friday sale. The holiday wouldn’t be complete without a cosy revisiting of Frank Capra’s 1946 gem It’s A Wonderful Life, Brian Henson’s mischievous rehash The […]
Criticisms of Wes Anderson’s filmmaking often centre on a lack of warmth and humanity, as if his style is a façade and that emotional content is something that is neglected or ignored, willfully or otherwise. But this doesn’t ring true; in this, his third film, the story reaches an emotional crescendo that the design, cinematography […]