And some of our favorites are currently streaming on the Criterion Channel. Mining thousands of images — troubling, poetic, arresting and lyrical — Harris makes a thorough and convincing study of a tradition that has flourished despite being ignored or erased in the culture at large.The history in “Through a Lens Darkly” is engrossing and enlightening, touching on the depiction of enslaved people in the searing portraits by Louis Agassiz, the ways in which Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass deployed their own images to further their political causes (“selling the shadow to support the substance,” in Truth’s words), and the poisonous dialectic wherein positive representations of black Americans — whether as war heroes or Reconstruction-era professionals and householders — were instantly countered by commercial images of buffoons, demons or lynching victims.The film makes its most profound impact when Harris explains how he struggled to reconcile the shame and negativity of those distortions with the strong, joyful, loving record created by his grandfather, who was rarely seen without a camera. With a couple of exceptions (Freud spins a memorably naughty punchline), the legends are generally kept at a narrative remove, rendered vaguely defined passengers. Du Bois (who curated an exhibit of photographed African-American life at a Parisian World’s Fair) stressed the importance of a dignified personal presentation, even if that meant copying the demeanor and dress of the white bourgeoisie.There are brief portraits here of several star shutterbugs, from Harlem Renaissance chronicler James Van Der Zee to Gordon Parks (whose work for Life and Vogue magazines was a major glass-ceiling-breaker) and Roy DeCarava. Nolan strips locations of their specificity, echoing the broad strokes of your average Bond film’s depictions of other cultures: India’s streets are colorful and filled with sweaty locals, Oslo is a flatpack-laden marvel of architectural design, and Russia is a desolate wasteland.The exhilaration of virtual film festivals is that they radically expand the access and means of audiences.The exhilaration of virtual film festivals, which could and should prove revolutionary, is that they radically expand the access and means of audiences. If Kaufman had the generosity, for instance, to show what Jake and the young woman might have once seen in one another, allowing for the sort of spark that animated the couple in There’s an engimatic quality to the role of Christopher Nolan in the current filmmaking landscape.The metronomic precision of Nolan’s cinema, which often trades in crafty puzzles, is foregrounded in Nearly a decade out, Nolan’s first chapter in his Dark Knight trilogy, While lacking the sublime existentialism of Erik Skjoldbjærg’s original film of the same name, The film suggests that Bill and Ted’s dreams of stardom aren’t so stupid after all.To ensure the creation of Bill and Ted’s song, they must pass their high school history test (long story) and they’re sent hurtling into time by future emissaries to learn history directly from its architects. It’s all a bit too on the nose and grows tiresome as Harris’s only seeming mode of articulation. Long identified with either the epic samurai saga or intimate domestic drama, Japan has staked a more contemporary international claim on the horror genre. How lovingly empowering. Through a Lens Darkly book. A very essential dvd to my collection. This was a gift and the recipient said she really liked it. Fight scenes play out twice from inverted perspectives, with Nolan all the while bombarding us with inescapable Easter eggs: an orchestra that sounds as if it’s tuning up backwards and forwards, two trains going in opposite directions as they frame the characters, a wind farm where the turbines can spin both ways. “Through a Lens Darkly” threads through all of these issues with elegance and eloquence, leaving viewers with a literally transformed perspective. She is the author of "Talking Pictures: How to Watch Movies." Watch trailers, read customer and critic reviews, and buy Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People directed by Thomas Allen Harris for $14.99. A very essential dvd to my collection.I like the video but it needed more photographers of the day. But Furie’s statement about not ignoring hell is equally applicable to the current political landscape in the United States, where white supremacists festering with rage are finding new ways to bring social outcasts and the economically downtrodden into their toxic fold.In an archival clip late in the film, Steve Bannon states that the enemy of the right isn’t the left, but rather the media, and goes on to stress the importance of obliterating objective truth. The virtual dimensions also offer a subtler democracy, as you’re under no pressure to dress and socialize beyond your comfort zone—which is to say that the stressors associated with work have also been lifted. Instead, he fashions a slipstream of formal devices and flourishes—feverish Technicolor hues, cheekily obvious uses of blue screen, kinetic samurai battles—that suggests how war is mythologized and in the process sanitized by cinema. Variety and the Flying V logos are trademarks of Variety Media, LLC. Similarly, when they meet Death (William Sadler), a memorable character from Parisot is at least partially responsible for informing another far-out comic adventure with startling pathos, 1999’s During a mission at a Kiev opera house, a C.I.A. He terms that event the “big bang” out of which modern Cuba was birthed. In the most moving scene in The characterization of the young woman may prove divisive, rendering The film is told from the young woman’s perspective, but it’s really about Jake, who’s yet another symbol of Kaufman’s fear of mediocrity—a fear that’s confirmed by the seemingly endless, overcompensating cultural Easter eggs that pop up here and in But really, only Jake is the slave. You can still see all customer reviews for the product. Very meaningful for those who are interested in African American history. Directed by Ian Toynton. One of the film’s central locations is the London street Canon Place, the sign for which is shown hidden behind a lamppost so that it reads “Non Place.” How droll. Prime members enjoy FREE Delivery and exclusive access to music, movies, TV shows, original audio series, and Kindle books.