Author Archives: greatcatholicmovies

Winter’s bone seems to have been shot in only two locations, the Dolly’s cabin and an imposing old barn with an incongruously new door. Although Ree Dolly spends her time begging rides and knocking on one door after another, we can’t describe any home other than Ree’s as the camera only apologetically intrudes into theContinue reading “Winter’s Bone”

Heavy-handed allegory can be avoided by pretending that there is no allegory at all (there is a certain cleverness in the big lie), but it can also be hidden away and denied by a refusal to admit the sign, not the thing signified. Ingmar Bergman does just this in The Seventh Seal: he has DeathContinue reading “The Seventh Seal”

If you manage to begin this movie without knowing it is about the sinking of the Titanic, the opening scenes will cue you—and then all shall be known. The first time you watch it you will feel as though you are re-watching it, and each time you watch it thereafter it will seem fresher thanContinue reading “A Night to Remember”

On watching The Third Man I was surprised to find the most cliché of stories hitting hard. From the first scene we are introduced to one and then another of our standard detective story cast: a friendly policeman and an efficiently ruthless one, a helpful frightened servant, a sinister foreigner (somehow more foreign then allContinue reading “The Third Man”

Can there be an epic almost exclusively filmed within one house? Except for three brief scenes, Babette’s Feast is set within the confines of a remote community in Jutland, but there is no doubt it is a story greater than its surroundings. What seems to be a quiet, intimate movie revolving around two sisters, theirContinue reading “Babette’s Feast”

In many ways The Battle of Algiers has presented itself as a documentary. There are shots which could not possibly have been filmed in the moment, as when the self-styled freedom fighters are hiding behind a wall while the police search the house and the camera pans from one face to the next. Again, noContinue reading “The Battle of Algiers”

We all have a friend or two who has ‘a big personality’, the sort who we can watch from across the room and smile to ourselves in the comfortable assurance that ‘there goes old Wyatt’. It seems though their words can sometimes be the stuffing of their character and nothing more; it matters less whatContinue reading “Treasure of the Sierra Madre”

If you manage to begin this movie without knowing it is about the sinking of the Titanic, the opening scenes will cue you—and then all shall be known. The first time you watch it you will feel as though you are re-watching it, and each time you watch it thereafter it will seem fresher thanContinue reading “A Night to Remember”

Ace in the Hole is as ruthless as Chuck Tatum, its stiff-necked lead. The camera neglects all else in its fascination with Tatum, and only begins to take note of those around him when he himself does. He enters a newspaper office and introduces himself to us by introducing himself to the newspaper man, Mr.Continue reading “Ace in the Hole”