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William Friedkin recommended The Night of the Hunter (1955) in Movies (curated)

The Night of the Hunter (1955)

1955 | Drama, Mystery

9.0

(5 Ratings)

Movie Favorite

"I was twenty years old when I first saw it. It terrified me then, and still does.  The preacher, played by Robert Mitchum, is the most frightening  psychopath I’ve ever seen depicted. This is the only film directed by Charles Laughton, and its haunting, over-the-top storytelling is reminiscent of Laughton’s own character portrayals. The poetic, expressionistic images are by Stanley Cortez, a true American master who I fortunately came to know many years before his death. Stanley photographed, among others, The Magnificent Ambersons and The Three Faces of Eve, in which his lighting is equally unique. The disturbing orchestral score is by Walter Schumann, who also wrote the Dragnet theme and whose music underlines and drives the horror the way Bernard Herrmann’s does in Psycho. This is one of James Agee’s rare screenplays—another was The African Queen—and it captures America in the Depression as  well as did his book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, with photographs by Walker Evans. The film’s story is an American equivalent of the Brothers Grimm."

Source

Kudos

Honkytonk Man (1982)

8.0 (1 Ratings) Rate It

Movie Watch

Multiple Academy Award winner Clint Eastwood directs and stars with his real-life son, Kyle, in this...

Hari Nef recommended The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) in Movies (curated)

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972)

1972 | Drama, Romance

(0 Ratings)

Movie Favorite

"What I love most about this film is its scale, its claustrophobic shots, its intensely glamorous women coming in and out of a single room, and its acute exploration of a single woman’s downfall. We’re seeing a pattern here in these movies; I struggle with anxiety, I struggle with depression, I often feel crazy dealing with my own emotions and the emotions of others, and I am continually fascinated by cinematic representations of women dealing with the same things. Petra von Kant scrapes at the bottom of what it means to be a woman, what it means to be a successful woman, what it means to be a woman in love and have all of these things and yet feel worthless. It’s also about a life in fashion, which is something that I’ve lived. There’s just a tension in that film between interiority and exteriority, embodied so well by those hyper-stylized shots and the cinematography. The film articulates a very specifically feminine kind of anguish that Fassbinder captures so well."

Source

Kudos

Kristina (502 KP) rated Letters Written in White in Books

Dec 7, 2020

Letters Written in White

Kathryn Perez | 2015 | Fiction & Poetry

6.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

I liked Kathryn's view on what Riah's afterlife was like. It was a different perspective and I enjoyed being introduced to a new idea on life after death. However, I think the hype made me feel a little let down. I won't say I didn't cry, watching Riah's kids and husband go through the grief after losing her sent me into a fit of tears - but the rest wasn't as nearly emotionally crippling as I had expected it to be. I was happy with the ending, that Riah was finally able to find some peace, but I was honestly kind of hoping we would discover the whole thing was a dream during a coma or something she'd endured after such blood loss (I know, I'm a hopeless romantic). I do believe the story sends a great message and reading the letters at the end only strengthened it; I also think this would be a great read for someone who's personally dealing with depression and feels like there's no way out.