Film Matters Magazine

Left to Right: Jodie Foster as Penelope Longstreet and Kate Winslet as Nancy Cowan. Photo by Guy Ferrandis, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

The medium of film is an interesting one, because it combines both visual art and narrative development.  Not only can a compelling and personal narrative be distributed to a wider audience, but it also allows the artist to experiment with subtlety in performance and framing. This is something that director Roman Polanski has mastered in films such as Repulsion, The Pianist, and Chinatown, all very different films that have a firm grasp of the slow burning psychological effects of confinement. However, Polanski’s latest film Carnage lacks this grasp, it is not a film, as much as it is a prerecorded play. Continue reading →

THOMAS HORN as Oskar Schell in Warner Bros. Pictures' drama 'EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE,' a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo by Francois Duhamel

The successful construction of a dramatic prestige picture is similar to that of a horror film. An intelligent director takes the time and consideration to create an atmosphere and developed their characters to have their audience fully invested in the story. Then there are films that just use cheap tricks to force an emotional response. In that regard, Stephen Daldry’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2011), is not different to a film such as Hostel (2005). Both rely on circumstances not characters to get their audience invested and neither is particularly compelling because of this. Continue reading →

A solitary Mia contemplates in her room.

It is difficult to generically classify Andrea Arnold’s second feature film, Fish Tank, without omitting something crucial. Undoubtedly an entry in the cycle of British social realist films in the tradition of Ken Loach, Mike Leigh, and Stephen Frears, Fish Tank also combines elements of the melodrama, particularly the women’s film, and the social problem film. Continue reading →