Author: Olga Tchepikova-Treon

The Attraction of the Pedaling Ankle: The Body as the Voice in The Piano

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Ada stands in a darkened room with one finger extended toward the camera.

|Sophie Durbin| While procrastinating on my research for this piece on The Piano, I decided to learn everything I could about Michael Nyman’s lush original score. The track titles are as romantic and sensual as you’d expect: “The Heart Asks Pleasure First,” “The Scent of Love,” … Continue reading

Remaking Breathless: A Bizarre Choice, Starring Richard Gere

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Still from the opening scene of the remake of Breathless. The blue flowing title is superimposed over Richard Gere.

|Jake Rudegeair| Ever seen First Knight (1995)? I didn’t think so. It was my first tangle with Gere as the famous Sir Lancelot of legend. I was ten and even then I wasn’t buying it. He’s an invincible swordsman and a treasonous Don Juan? I was put off by the cool-guy affect, anachronistic… Continue reading

I Want All the Bisexuals To Know: If I Can Edit a Film Blog, You Can Too

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Karen, Miss New York, a Black Latina woman in a red evening gown, is shouting in front of the crowd. To her right, five women in dazzling evening gowns are watching her in awe.

|Finn Odum| Several weeks ago, in the monotonous gray cubes of the Mall of America® office tower, I dared to make a joke about my gender identity. This is how it went:
Finn, 24, strikingly gorgeous and wickedly funny email specialist: Now, I’m not like most women—in that I’m not one… Continue reading

Lost in the Dream

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A woman in a green dress, played by actress Tang Wei, sits in a dark room and holds a lit cigarette, smoke billowing from its end, while a hand extends just out of frame with a lighter.

|Natalie Marlin| When we dream, unconscious shapes fill in the blanks. Vague visages that recall someone we know, or perhaps the half-formed images of blurry memories—those specters of past days, buried, submerged, just waiting for free association to emerge—fill what is otherwise vacant. In my dreams… Continue reading

An Insolent Heart Hath Damned Thee: Original Sin at Miller’s Crossing

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John Turturro as Bernie Bernbaum, a light-skinned, ark hair man in a dark suit and light shirt sitting in an ornamental armchair in a large room. Bernie is smiling at his conversation partner, who is not depicted in the shot

|Kevin Obsatz| I have a confession to make. I don’t know that I’ve ever “liked” a Coen Brothers movie on the first viewing. Possibly Raising Arizona—but I was probably only half paying attention to that one, as an eight or nine-year-old, on VHS. I doubt my parents would… Continue reading

Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears the Hat

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Theatrical poster of Coen Brothers’ film “Miller’s Crossing.”

|Lucas Hardwick| I’m a bald guy, so when the temperatures drop and there’s a perpetual nip in the air, I often find the top of my head gets a little uncomfortably cool. While confined to the contentment of my own home, where the dress code is free of the hassle of coordination and everyone is at liberty… Continue reading

Paranoia, Failure, and Female Representation: Brian De Palma’s Blow Out

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Jack, a young light-skinned man with dark hair, and Sally, a young woman with blonde curly hair, are standing on a train starting platform facing each other, with side characters and trains in the background.

|Penny Folger| “There was no bigger disaster than Blow Out,” reminisces director Brian De Palma on the reception his film received when it was originally released in 1981. It’s a film that, 43 years later, is held in much higher esteem, even cited by Quentin Tarantino as… Continue reading