Long-time readers of this site, or at least those who have been around since last September, will be familiar by now with my approximately semi-annual statement of contrition for not posting more regularly on
Tativille. As always, the exigencies of my professional contact with the medium - that is, as an academic film scholar specializing in the work of
Howard Hawks - have curtailed my opportunities and inclination to spend more time fulfilling the role of on-line critic hobbyist. When last I did plea for your forgiveness, the
New York Film Festival was looming in the immediate future, providing both the impetus and the subjects to increase my on-line pace. Though there is nothing so concentrated on the current horizon, the spring season for art cinema releases will offer this writer
some opportunity to right my latest wrong. (Had I not done so last fall, now would be the time to extol the virtues of 2010's best films,
Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives and
Abbas Kiarostami's Certified Copy; both are currently engaged in their North American theatrical runs.)
In the meantime, allow me to draw your attention to the latest issue of
Senses of Cinema, where I have two new pieces, and where Mrs. Tativille,
Lisa K. Broad, has a third. Included in the current issue's "Featured Articles" section is my 6,500 word treatment of
Ernst Lubitsch's silent comedies,
"Transatlantic Auteur: Ernst Lubitsch's Self-reflexive Comedies of Misunderstanding". To borrow
Senses of Cinema's description,
Transatlantic Auteur is "a detailed analysis of the both the stylistic and thematic continuities, and the fault lines, between the German and Hollywood periods of Lubitsch’s work." Over in the "Cinémathèque Annotations on Film" section, I have a second, much shorter essay on a single, masterful work of screen comedy:
"The Awful Truth and the Smallest Injustice in Film History". In the same section, Lisa provides a very fine analysis of
Alain Resnais's undervalued
"La Guerre est finie". Please do check out all three of our pieces, and as always, thank you for your continued readership - particularly in this productively leaner time.
