Podcasts Steven Benedict

In Carl Theodor Dreyer's silent masterpiece, the story isn't so much told through Joan's eyes as much as we read it on her face. The post The Passion of Joan of Arc appeared first on Steven Benedict.

With his Palme d'Or winning debut feature, Steven Soderbergh made a modern classic as well as a how-to manual for film students. The post sex, lies, and videotape appeared first on Steven Benedict.

Few film songs come anywhere near the layered meanings of Falling in Love Again, sung by Marlene Dietrich in Josef von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel. The post The Blue Angel appeared first on Steven Benedict.

Superficially, Cast Away asks whether modern man can survive alone on a desert island. But Robert Zemeckis' best film is really about destiny vs. free will. The post Cast Away appeared first on Steven Benedict.

Robert Bresson's masterpiece is a perfect example of less is more; natural acting, minimal music, off-screen sounds and restricting yourself to a 50mm lens. The post A Man Escaped appeared first on Steven Benedict.

Tom Wolfe's superb account about the early days of NASA's space program needed filmmakers who shared a daring similar to the maverick pilots. The post The Right Stuff appeared first on Steven Benedict.

Nostalgia originally had nothing to do with the past but rather a desire to return home. Cinema Paradiso resonates with the feeling that cinema is your home. The post Cinema Paradiso appeared first on Steven Benedict.

If small details are the key to Hitchcock's films, North by Northwest is really about a woman's quest for significance and a man's need for a make-over. The post North by Northwest appeared first on Steven Benedict.

Perhaps the greatest ever film about an artist, Andrei Rublev steadfastly refuses to show its subject painting let alone him holding a brush in his hand. The post Andrei Rublev appeared first on Steven Benedict.

How do you make a film about a sociopath who murders his entire extended family and still get the audience to root for him? The post Kind Hearts and Coronets appeared first on Steven Benedict.

Widely regarded as the greatest war picture ever made, Elem Klimov's Come and See takes its title from The Book of Revelations to deliver a vision of hell. The post Come and See appeared first on Steven Benedict.

Released to ecstatic reviews in 1998, Spielberg's film soon suffered a backlash. Far more complex than first thought, 21 years on it has finally come of age. The post Saving Private Ryan appeared first on Steven Benedict.

How did Wolfgang Petersen manage to get audiences to care about a bunch of Nazi sailors trying to destroy the British fleet in the North Atlantic? The post Das Boot appeared first on Steven Benedict.

No matter how cinematic, all films are nothing more than a form of writing that borrows from other forms of writing. Which is why Arrival comes in code. The post Arrival appeared first on Steven Benedict.

There are several good reasons to watch Bernardo Bertolucci’s controversial Last Tango in Paris, but not all of them make for palatable viewing. The post Last Tango in Paris appeared first on Steven Benedict.

What if science-fiction were not a literary genre but a political and ideological theory. If so, Alex Garland uses Ex Machina to show us how he sees the world. The post Ex Machina appeared first on Steven Benedict.

Ari Folman's animated documentary is different from many other films about trauma. But it is only in its final moments that it reveal its most telling truth. The post Waltz with Bashir appeared first on Steven Benedict.

Five years in the making, David Lynch's film is one of the most compelling, bewildering, original, disturbing and influential debuts in all of cinema. The post Eraserhead appeared first on Steven Benedict.

By embracing every cliché of Hollywood's serial killer genre, Bong Joon-Ho examined masculinity, institutional repression and national identity. The post Memories of Murder appeared first on Steven Benedict.

In adapting Stephen King's best-seller, Stanley Kubrick drew on a genre other than horror and used a new motif that he would repeat for the rest of his career. The post The Shining appeared first on Steven Benedict.