Word: cinema
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...member of the Visual and Environmental Studies (VES) and English departments this year, he’s teaching two film theory courses—English 164c, “Literature and Visuality in America” and VES 195, “Contemporary Hollywood Cinema.” His English course is generating so much buzz that there is talk of it becoming a core class, Connor says...
Since the beginning of cinema, directors have been falling for their leading ladies. At least in this sense, Quentin Tarantino is a traditionalist. "People talk about beautiful actresses," says Tarantino. "Like Cameron Diaz--she's a beautiful girl. But I went to high school with three girls who look like Cameron Diaz. Uma Thurman is a different species. She's up there with Garbo and Dietrich in goddess territory." Like a 3-year-old, Tarantino demonstrates his affection through inventive cruelty. In Pulp Fiction he gave Thurman an adrenaline needle to the heart (a nice metaphor for love, Tarantino style...
...course, Thurman was also supposed to be generating a character amid all the physical mayhem. Tarantino tried to guide her performance with an avalanche of Hong Kong cinema and female-samurai movies, but, says Thurman: "As much as he might have wanted me to see stuff, I wanted to make something new." So director and actress argued almost daily about just how to portray the Bride, with Thurman lobbying (often successfully) for everything from wardrobe changes to dialogue rewrites. "Quentin's actually kind of great to argue with," says Thurman. "He's a tough character, but he's not stupid...
...they wouldn't be caught dead having their cameras merely gawk at women. They make movies with morals-sad ones about a woman's wiles and vulnerability, her rough handling by society, an infernal temptation or a curse. Art films, of course, take the woman's side; in serious cinema it is always the Year of the Victim...
...Iranian cinema has been investigating hard truths for more than a decade; that's why it's the favorite international cinema of critics and enlightened cab drivers alike. But not always of Iranian censors. Abolfazl Jalili, director of the wonderful coming-of-age drama Abjad, was told he could not leave his country to attend the Venice and Toronto festivals. Set in the late 1970s, Abjad is about a teenager (clearly a stand-in for the director) torn between artistic ambitions and the pressures of his parents and the new Islamic Iran. Since art is personified by a pretty neighbor...