Shock Corridor

for many years i believed that old hollywood was filled with happy endings and stereotypes and generic acting and motivations. yet as i watch more and more 'classics' i am discovering that i was misguided. sure there are plenty of films that fall into that but then there are films like don't bother to knock or shock corridor. that this was made by a hollywood studio in 1963 is not only surprising but shocking as well. although somewhat tame today i can only imagine the stripper scene, the acting, the plot, the ideas being controversial and unlike anything the audience had ever scene. there is... read more

Last Sunday, after a week spent immersing myself in the solemn, rigorous austerity of Robert Bresson's A Man Escaped, I posted my review of Criterion's recent Blu-ray release of the film. As loaded as that disc is with illuminating supplements on Bresson's principles of cinematographe, and through the sheer power of his arrogant confidence in his methods, I was easily converted to champion his cause and adopt, if only for the sake of a column, his condescending attitude toward conventional cinematic methods. Attracted to the purity of the Bressonian vision, in which all the non-essential read more