The late American indie film auteur Monte Hellman was fond of a quote from Jean Cocteau that poetically summed up the fate of any real work of art: “A work of art should also be ‘an object difficult to pick up.’ It must protect itself from vulgar pawing, which tarnishes and disfigures it. It should be made of such a shape that people don’t know which way to hold it, which embarrasses and irritates the critics, incites them to be rude, but keeps it fresh. The less it’s understood, the slower it opens its petals, the later it will fade.”
Cocteau’s dictum certainly applies to Hellman’s 1971 film, “Two-Lane Blacktop.” It opened its petals 50 years ago today and still confounds not only the critics but its fans and friends, including the film’s unit publicist Beverly Walker, whose groundbreaking campaign for the film included getting Esquire magazine...
Cocteau’s dictum certainly applies to Hellman’s 1971 film, “Two-Lane Blacktop.” It opened its petals 50 years ago today and still confounds not only the critics but its fans and friends, including the film’s unit publicist Beverly Walker, whose groundbreaking campaign for the film included getting Esquire magazine...
- 7/7/2021
- by Steven Gaydos
- Variety Film + TV
Veteran film critic Leonard Klady has died after a brief illness. Klady was a staff writer/critic/columnist for such publications as Variety, the Los Angeles Times, American Film and Entertainment Weekly. He was the box office reporter for moviecitynews.com for the last 18 years, a senior contributing editor of Screen International and a critic and columnist for Below the Line.
Born in Canada, Klady was a founding member and first president of the film co-operative the Winnipeg Film Group. He wrote prolifically about the Canadian film industry and was host of a national arts television series prior to relocating to the United States in 1985. He also produced and wrote several award winning shorts and radio and television programs. He was working with the BBC at his passing.
Peter Bart, who was Klady’s editor-in-chief at Variety, praised Klady’s passion, knowledge and commitment.
“No Variety staffer ever cared more...
Born in Canada, Klady was a founding member and first president of the film co-operative the Winnipeg Film Group. He wrote prolifically about the Canadian film industry and was host of a national arts television series prior to relocating to the United States in 1985. He also produced and wrote several award winning shorts and radio and television programs. He was working with the BBC at his passing.
Peter Bart, who was Klady’s editor-in-chief at Variety, praised Klady’s passion, knowledge and commitment.
“No Variety staffer ever cared more...
- 1/19/2019
- by Bruce Haring
- Deadline Film + TV
Chicago – “Where is it that we were together? Who were you that I lived with? The brother. The friend. Darkness, light. Strife and love. Are they the workings of one mind? The features of the same face? Oh, my soul. Let me be in you now. Look out through my eyes. Look at all the things you made. All things shining.”
These hardly appear to be the sort of words one would expect to end a war film. And yet, in the haunting final moments of Terrence Malick’s intimate WWII epic, “The Thin Red Line,” Pvt. Train (John Dee Smith) delivers these lines as if they were erupting out of his very soul. It’s the sort of poetic prose that only a bona-fide artist such as Malick could pull off without seeming pretentious. His entire oeuvre is poetry of the highest caliber, from the ever-exploring lens of his...
These hardly appear to be the sort of words one would expect to end a war film. And yet, in the haunting final moments of Terrence Malick’s intimate WWII epic, “The Thin Red Line,” Pvt. Train (John Dee Smith) delivers these lines as if they were erupting out of his very soul. It’s the sort of poetic prose that only a bona-fide artist such as Malick could pull off without seeming pretentious. His entire oeuvre is poetry of the highest caliber, from the ever-exploring lens of his...
- 6/3/2011
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
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