The Burnt-Out Artist and the Truth: Federico Fellini’s 8 ½

|Dan McCabe| Note: This article contains spoilers for Federico Fellini’s 8 ½. If you want to see the movie without knowing anything about it, stop now. Guido (Marcello Mastroianni) hates the science fiction movie he’s making.  He thinks such b-movie genre fare is cheesy and… Continue reading

From the Darkness: The Influence of German Expressionism on Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train

|Daniel McCabe| Strangers on a Train (1951) comes from the darkness, and not only because Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) shot the film in black and white. It draws influences from the German Expressionist films of the 1920s to create a foreboding mood while using the conventions… Continue reading