Tag Archives: American film

I never knew ‘Black Swan’ was a ‘body horror’ film

Above: Natalie Portman (as Nina) pulls a feather out of her shoulder.

Black Swan (2010) is a psychological thriller directed by Darren Aronofsky featuring body horror scenes (self-injury, Nina growing feathers) and an unreliable narrator.

It is World Cinema Classic #225.

P.S. The black swan is also a trope in philosophy.

‘Into the Wild’ is World Cinema Classic #224

Into the Wild is a 2007 American biographical drama survival film written and directed by Sean Penn, based on the travels of Christopher McCandless across North America and his life spent in the Alaskan wilderness in the early 1990s.

Depending on who you ask, Christopher McCandless was a Thoreau-like ‘back to nature!‘ hero or a simple-minded romantic.

See World Cinema Classics.

RIP Albert Maysles (1926 – 2015)

Albert Maysles was an American documentary filmmaker best-known for the documentaries Gimme Shelter (1970) Grey Gardens (1975).

He is best known for the direct cinema/cinéma vérité – documentaries he made with his brother.

You can watch Gimme Shelter[1] and Grey Gardens[2] in their totalities on YouTube. And Salesman[3] too (practically).

If your new to the Maysles, I’d start with Grey Gardens, the story of an eccentric mother and daugther.