Motion Pictures
see all genres ›Movies about movies: that's a form of navel-gazing that any true cineaste will happily indulge. Peek behind the lens at the lives and labors of some of the medium's greatest talents.
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Genres / Documentary / Art / Visual Arts / Motion Pictures
SUB-GENRES · Video Art
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Debra Paget, For Example
Debra Paget was a contract player for 20th-Century Fox, whom they groomed and coached for stardom. But she never quite caught on. Maybe the movies weren't interesting enough. Or maybe she didn’t stand out from the rest of the pack. Or the studio didn’t take enough care in...Watch Movie
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Becoming Anita Ekberg
BECOMING ANITA EKBERG is an exploration of how the construct of "Anita Ekberg" became an internationally famous sex goddess as a result of the careful cultivation of her image in various movies, both in Hollywood, by Frank Tashlin, and in Europe, by Federico Fellini. It's an...Watch Movie
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The Vanity Tables of Douglas Sirk
A video essay exploring the frequency and meaning of that particular prop in a wide variety of Sirk movies. Is it a device that traps and keeps women in an artificial world with a limited point of view? Or is it a gateway to the past and the future, and a distorted but...Watch Movie
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John Garfield
Mark Rappaport completed his concise portrait of the legendary John Garfield in 2002, comprised (like much of his filmed essays) from existing film footage of the actor. Exceptionally engaging, Rappaport's extraordinary short contains more insightful observations of its subject than many...Watch Movie
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Blank City
BLANK CITY is an "absorbing snapshot of a daring time" (Los Angeles Times) when a disparate crew of renegade filmmakers emerged from an economically bankrupt and dangerous moment in New York history. From the late 1970s through the mid-'80s, when the East Village was still a wasteland of cheap...Watch Movie
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The Circle Closes
An examination of four different films, which to varying degrees, center on a prop or an object or an item that crosses various characters lives and passes from hand to hand in THE CIRCLE CLOSES. The story in each film is, to a certain extent, told from the point of view of...Watch Movie
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My Best Fiend
Director Werner Herzog and late actor Klaus Kinski made five films together over a fifteen-year period, including such mutual career highlights as FITZCARRALDO, NOSFERATU and AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD. As much as this collaboration benefitted them both, the partnership was fraught with off-screen...Watch Movie
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Our Stars
Stars of the 1940s and 1950s, were they cast for their mutual affinities or for their commercial appeal? If and when they were re-starred years later, did the magic still work? Did sparks still fly? The movie business, a machine that manufactured romance and desire at the same time that it...Watch Movie
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The Double Life of Paul Henreid
Paul Henreid, perhaps most famous for his roles in CASABLANCA and NOW, VOYAGER became a star at Warner Brothers during World War II, as the exotic lead with the European accent. After the war, his contract was cancelled and he was left to his own devices. He continued acting...Watch Movie
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Zizek!
The author of works on subjects as wide-ranging as Alfred Hitchcock, 9/11, opera, Christianity, Lenin and David Lynch, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek is one of the most important and outrageous cultural theorists working today. This captivating, erudite documentary explores the eccentric...Watch Movie
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The Pervert's Guide to Ideology
Cultural theorist superstar Slavoj Zizek re-teams with director Sophie Fiennes for another wildly entertaining romp through the crossroads of cinema and philosophy. With infectious zeal and a voracious appetite for popular culture, Zizek literally goes inside some truly...Watch Movie
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Max and James and Danielle...
Max Ophuls, James Mason and Danielle Darrieux: the legendary director and two of his favorite actors. Mason and Darrieux were each in several Ophuls projects but were never together in an Ophuls film (although they should have been). What might that movie have been like? It’s...Watch Movie
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Great Directors
Ten of the greatest filmmakers in the world passionately discuss their craft in Angela Ismailos' hugely entertaining documentary GREAT DIRECTORS. Bernardo Bertolucci, David Lynch, Stephen Frears, Agnès Varda, Ken Loach, Liliana Cavani, Todd Haynes, Catherine Breillat, Richard Linklater and John...Watch Movie
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The Beaches of Agnès
Agnès Varda takes a cinematic stroll through her career—and the history of French film—in this jovial first-person documentary that "walks backwards" across the beaches, landscapes, and movie sets of her life and times. For some, turning eighty may mean settling down, but for...Watch Movie
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I Always Said Yes
The story of a sometimes-overlooked gay liberation and independent filmmaking pioneer is told in I ALWAYS SAID YES. In late 1971, Wakefield Poole, a respected Broadway dancer and choreographer, had the audacity to put his real name above the title of his first film, a low-...Watch Movie
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The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender
From the ground-breaking director of ROCK HUDSON'S HOME MOVIES, Mark Rappaport takes us on a hilarious and provocative romp through the hidden and not-so-hidden undercurrents of Hollywood's Golden Years. Dan Butler acts as tour guide as he uncovers (despite efforts to launder...Watch Movie
