by Vanessa X. Sun Deeply mesmerizing and arresting all at once, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, directed by Céline Sciamma, is a powerful film of queer love, the female gaze, and ultimately the representation of women and how they live together. Throughout the film, there are a number of impactful cinematic scenes that may […]
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Video Essay: Repetition, Consequences, and the Time-Loop Film (‘Palm Springs’)
Released at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the eerily timely comedy Palm Springs may seem like a fun-but-fleeting hour and a half of cinema, but in Joe Levin’s reading, the Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti-led “time-loop” picture belongs to a genre of storytelling as old as the tale of Sisyphus. Levin demonstrates the mise-en-scene […]
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Video Essay: Spike Lee’s Restless Aspect Ratios in ‘Da Five Bloods’
Spike Lee’s Vietnam War drama Da Five Bloods contains many hallmarks of its auteur’s signature style, shot details that can be traced all the way back to Lee’s 1989 breakthrough Do the Right Thing. Mackenzie Graham’s video essay focuses on one unique decision of Lee’s with Da Five Bloods, namely his use of varying aspect […]