Andrew O'Hagan's essay about the Savile scandal in the London Review of Books, Light entertainment, is (and I know this is much over-used adjective) indispensable. Amongst much else it is a truly remarkable portrait of the post-war BBC, but more
File this post (and the next couple) under what-I-did-on-a-more-or-less-holiday. Until Sunday I am in Pasadena, north-east of downtown Los Angeles, having been invited to talk about filming Shakespeare by Professor John Brewer. A decade back we made Sense more
I hardly deserve the honorific 'fan', but I enjoy traditional American science fiction, especially from the immediate post-war years. So I am excited to see that the exemplary Library of America series (their beautiful volumes of Henry James grace my more
There is a significant sense in which early and silent cinema is less finished than features and television today. The film world on show in Pordenone at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto is, for much of the time, more
Last night I was in the Kingdom of Shadows. If you only knew how strange it is to be there. So begins Maxim Gorky's famous description of watching a film in July 1896. The whole experience of being at the Silent more
While I enjoy - and try to make some sense of - Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone (posts coming soon), let me recommend as warmly as possible two books and two terrific critical articles. The first more
Being in Pordenone (see my initial post here) inevitably means that I am thinking a lot about moving image archives - but there is more to my current focus of interest than that. This feels like a moment more
So I'm excited. Over the weekend I booked my flight, and today I have confirmed my hotel reservation. This time next week I'll be in Pordenone for the best part of a week of early and silent cinema. Which to more
This really does feel like the end of an era. On Saturday, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger died at the age of 86. That's him above, with another American media giant, Katharine Graham, proprietor of the The Washington Post, in more
I know I am coming late to this, but tonight I am off to the Clapham Picturehouse to see Joe Wright's Anna Karenina with Keira Knightley (above). Despite the so-so reviews, I am intrigued to see how more