Articles on Film and Television

When magicians are omnipotent there is no magic. Heroes need a flaw and the chance to fall or there is no story. Complete plenty eliminates desire, and when everything is visible imagination dies. So

Double Indemnity and Chinatown The movie mogul Sam Goldwyn rightly growled through his cigar to a screenwriter, “If you want to send a message use a telegram.” Didacticism in storytelling is always a disaster

The Clash of Secular and Sacred Stalin famously asked how many battalions had the Pope. Today, with the Catholic faithful numbering over a billion, the answer might be, “Not battalions but billions.” In every

As I enter a darkened cinema I'm often reminded of Plato's myth of the cave. There people sat chained in darkness watching the shadow images of the real world shimmer across the wall before

If there is any literary film adaptation worth adding to one’s library it is the Granada TV version of Brideshead Revisited. It really is the most perfect screen adaptation of any novel ever. The

The Witness of Alec Guiness In Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing the illegitimate Don John plots to spoil the happiness and prosperity of all. His skullduggery springs from the brooding dark moods, resentment and