Observations on Film Art No. 27

Master director Kenji Mizoguchi’s final film, STREET OF SHAME—a wrenching portrait of women working in a brothel in Tokyo’s red-light district—employs intricate mise-en-scène to create an almost hypnotic relationship between viewer and image. In this episode of Ob...

Observations on Film Art No. 26

The first Cuban film to garner international attention in the years following the nation’s 1959 revolution, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s MEMORIES OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT remains one of the most important works of the influential Third Cinema movement that emerged in the ...

Observations on Film Art No. 25

Professor David Bordwell illuminates how Julien Duvivier’s haunting, exquisitely bittersweet romantic drama deploys intricate, subjective flashback sequences to enhance its sublime emotional impact.

Observations on Film Art No. 24

Professor Jeff Smith explores how François Truffaut harnesses the 2.35:1 aspect ratio in his wildly playful gangster-movie pastiche, a giddy high point in the French New Wave’s assault on cinematic convention.

Observations on Film Art No. 23

Professor David Bordwell traces the ways in which director Alain Resnais and screenwriter Marguerite Duras retooled cinematic language to evoke the texture of memory in their 1959 masterpiece.

Observations on Film Art No. 22

Professor Kristin Thompson explores the ways in which dissolves allow Terence Davies to mimic the fluidity and emotional texture of memory in his elegiac coming-of-age film.

Observations on Film Art No. 21

Jeff Smith unpacks Robby Müller’s handheld camera work in Lars von Trier’s wrenching fable, showing how it alternates choppy realism with calculated stylization.

Observations on Film Art No. 20

Professor Jeff Smith walks us through the basics of continuity editing and shows how William Dieterle’s faustian fever dream adheres to that code while testing the limits of its expressive potential.

Observations on Film Art No. 19

Professor Kristin Thompson breaks down the lush palette of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s sensuous masterpiece, showing how set designer Alfred Junge and cinematographer Jack Cardiff use splashes of color to trace the film’s emotional arc.

Observations on Film Art No. 18

Professor David Bordwell explores the “expressive movement” that animates one of Sergei Eisenstein’s boldest experiments in film form, demonstrating how the director draws on the language of dance and painting.

Observations on Film Art No. 17

David Bordwell unpacks Wong Kar-wai’s intricate approach to double-pronged storytelling in one of the defining works of nineties cinema.

Observations on Film Art No. 16

Professor Kristin Thompson explores how Raymond Bernard evoked the horror and despair of battle in his shatteringly realistic World War I film.

Observations on Film Art No. 15

Jeff Smith walks us through Robert Altman’s most intricately allusive film, a satire that enlists genre tropes in order to send up the Hollywood assembly line that spits them out.

Observations on Film Art No. 14

David Bordwell shows how Harold Lloyd helped silent comedy evolve from gag-based skits to increasingly intricate narrative forms.

Observations on Film Art No. 13

Professor Kristin Thompson explores the intricate chronology of Victor Sjöström’s innovative ghost story.

Observations on Film Art No. 12

What do actors do when they act? Few aspects of film craft are as widely discussed—and as little understood.

Observations on Film Art No. 11

Listen closely: Fritz Lang’s claustrophobic thriller has one of the densest, most skillfully layered soundtracks in all of early sound film.

Observations on Film Art No. 10

Professor Jeff Smith illustrates how Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s deliberate blocking and tableau compositions accentuate the social divisions that crisscross his 1974 masterpiece.

Observations on Film Art No. 9

From tramp to serial killer: find out how Charlie Chaplin reinvented himself for this pitch-black comedy.

Observations on Film Art No. 8

Professor Jeff Smith demonstrates how Claude Chabrol manages to play his audience like a piano, evoking suspense, isolation, and class conflict through an expertly tuned soundtrack.

Observations on Film Art No. 7

Jean Renoir’s THE RULES OF THE GAME is famed for its deep-focus photography and intricate staging. Professor Kristin Thompson analyzes the elaborate construction—and mesmerizing chaos—of Renoir’s symphonic tragicomedy.

Observations on Film Art No. 6

Professor Jeff Smith shows us how Krzysztof Kieślowski’s THREE COLORS: RED uses camera movements to establish elusive connections between two characters who are largely unaware of one another.

Observations on Film Art No. 5

Using the great Spanish film THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE, by Victor Erice, professor Kristin Thompson shows how restricting us to a child's point of view can make the familiar seem strange and emphasize the horrors of war.

Observations on Film Art No. 4

Professor David Bordwell applies his analysis of film language to Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’AVVENTURA, illustrating how the director uses careful staging and methodical framing to keep us guessing about his characters’ feelings and motivations.