Words On Film

March 24, 2014 6:49 PM

I want to read more essays on individual films, along the lines of Tim Kreider's "Introducing Sociology" (on Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut.)

"Introducing Sociology" is really one of my favorite pieces of writing on film, because it took a movie I never really enjoyed and laid all the component pieces out and connected them in such a way that it's now one of my favorite Kubrick films.

I'd like to read more essays that dissect individual films in that way. Less straight-up criticism, and more exegesis is what I am looking for.

posted by griphus to Media & Arts (9 answers total)

Are you familiar with Soft Skull's Deep Focus series of monographs?
posted by ocherdraco at 7:08 PM on March 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

Kreider's essay on The Straight Story changed the whole film for me and still gives me a lot to think about when driving long, flat highways.
posted by mochapickle at 7:13 PM on March 24, 2014

The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: On David Lynch's Lost Highway, by Slavoj Žižek.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:22 PM on March 24, 2014

The Criterion Contraption might fit the bill.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:28 PM on March 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

Another essay mostly on Lost Highway is David Lynch Keeps His Head, by David Foster Wallace.
posted by Lutoslawski at 7:49 PM on March 24, 2014

Check the archives at acephalous.typepad.com
posted by cephalopodcast at 12:01 AM on March 25, 2014

On Gaspar Noe's Irreversible - In the Garden of Earthly Delights
posted by guy72277 at 3:27 AM on March 25, 2014

The Criterion Contraption might fit the bill.

Seconding this. Pretty much every single essay is worth a read.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 7:26 AM on March 25, 2014

Chris Stangl's "This Is My Art, and It Is Dangerous": Sculpting Space in Beetlejuice.
posted by Iridic at 8:54 AM on March 25, 2014