Tag: history
Corsage
Friday, February 10th, 2023 Film Reviews,Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1837-98) was the original ‘people’s princess’. She hated the pomp and ceremony of the Habsburg Court and would absent herself from Vienna for months on end. She was known for her charitable works and her affection for the common people. A famous beauty, she kept her weight down to a terrifying […]
Tár & Babylon
Friday, January 27th, 2023 Film Reviews,Last week I thought Michelle Williams was unbeatable for Best Actress at this year’s Oscars, but after watching Tár, it’s hard to see Cate Blanchett coming second. Todd Field’s film about a musical genius who falls for the seductions of fame and power, is a classic Faustian tale. Blanchett’s Lydia Tár doesn’t exactly sell her […]
Triangle of Sadness & The Lost King
Friday, December 23rd, 2022 Film Reviews,There’s a kind of shameful pleasure in seeing one’s own prejudices played out on screen, and this is precisely what we get from the films of Ruben Östlund. The Swedish director has struck the right note at Cannes, where his two most recent features – The Square in 2017, and this year, Triangle of Sadness, […]
The Woman King
Friday, November 4th, 2022 Film Reviews,Viola Davis is known as a character actor who strives to bring psychological depth to the roles she plays. Who would have imagined that all Viola really wanted to do was get a cool aircut, dress up in battle gear, and go around waving a huge sword? This is pretty much what she does in […]
Lost Illusions
Friday, July 1st, 2022 Film Reviews,Everything is taxed, everything is sold, everything is manufactured, even success. […]
Gabrielle Chanel: Fashion Manifesto
Thursday, February 10th, 2022 Sydney Morning Herald Column,“I am not a heroine,” Gabrielle Chanel told one of her biographers. “But I have chosen the person I wanted to be and am. Too bad if I am disliked and unpleasant.” Like most things this famous couturiere said, this statement requires unpacking. Madame Chanel could be extremely unpleasant, but also wildly generous. She was […]
The Last Duel
Thursday, October 21st, 2021 Film Reviews,Clang! Crunch! Swish! On leaving the cinema after seeing Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel, the sounds of battle still ring in one’s mind. Over two-and-a-half hours Scott unleashes a series of ferocious battle scenes, and a final showdown between two armoured combatants that leaves nothing to the imagination. As we remember from features such as […]
How to Become a Tyrant
Saturday, July 17th, 2021 Film Reviews,Politics is a fascinating game, but hard to win. Under the yoke of a tyrant people clamour for democracy but after generations of democratic rule they hanker for a strongman to come and make all their decisions for them. As we watch the United States careening towards a complete crack-up, with millions of people obsessed […]
Martin Eden
Friday, June 18th, 2021 Film Reviews,Pietro Marcello’s Martin Eden is getting a limited release in Sydney and Melbourne but it deserves a much bigger audience. It’s a huge film – not in terms of running length, but in its themes, its characters and ambitions – the latest in an outstanding sequence of foreign-language titles that have overshadowed anything produced by […]
De Gaulle
Friday, May 7th, 2021 Film Reviews,Charles De Gaulle was an imposing figure, both physically and morally. Standing at 196 cms, he was a man almost everyone looked up to. As leader-in-exile of the French Resistance, the head of the provisional post-war government, and the nation’s dominant political figure of the 20th century, De Gaulle enjoyed an unshakable power and prestige. […]