The 1960s. A time of new fashions, innovative music and escalating tensions. In both glamorous opera houses and drab subways, business opportunities intermingled with the Cold War. As world leaders like John F. Kennedy and Nikita Krushchev made grand speeches that could promise destruction or peace, depending on the mood of the time, the covert…
The term “Cold War,” especially in cinema, usually evokes images of espionage, militarism, geopolitics and stern men speaking tersely in jargon that is only comprehensible to those with a working knowledge of the genre. Pawel Pawlikowski (“The Woman in the Fifth”) defies such expectations with his film Cold War, a starkly beautiful romance that deftly…
It’s nice to see a film version of an historical incident that that this author had no idea about. As a student of history, I’ve always prided myself on knowing as much as I could on as many subjects in this category as possible; and, like “Argo” (which also featured a classified backdrop) I found…
There are a few ways one could structure a biopic. One would be to celebrate the public image of a renowned individual and play up their endearing qualities for dramatic effect. Conversely, a biopic could also be presented as a juxtaposition of one’s public image and delve into the private, perhaps darker side of a…
Is it any wonder that our current democratic systems have turned into popularity contests? Is it any wonder that most Western politicians primarily rely on intricate advertising schemes to continuously validate themselves? For those whose eyes still blink in bewilderment at what the political landscape looks like today, Gabe Polsky’s Red Army gives us an…
