Film is a visual medium, and screenwriters are taught to “show, don’t tell”. Yet great dialogue can define a film: lines that reveal character, raise the stakes and stay with audiences for decades. Subtext The best dialogue rarely says exactly what characters feel. People avoid, deflect and hide things, and the audience enjoys reading between … Read more
Many of the most acclaimed films are adaptations of novels, plays, short stories or true stories. Every adaptation raises the same question: how closely should the film follow the source? Why changes are inevitable A novel can spend pages inside a character’s head; a film has around two hours and must show rather than describe. … Read more
Every year, thousands of films are released and most are soon forgotten. A few keep being watched, discussed and copied for decades. What do these classics have in common, and was there really a golden age that modern cinema cannot match? The golden age of Hollywood Film historians often use “golden age” for the period … Read more
Film festivals are where many careers begin and where many films find their audience. They screen new work, bring together buyers and critics, and give smaller films a visibility they would rarely get otherwise. The major festivals What festivals do Are they still necessary? With streaming and online platforms, some argue that festivals matter less. … Read more
Every few years, a film is praised for using “real” effects and another is criticized for “too much CGI”. In reality, most modern films combine practical and digital techniques, and the question is less which is better than how well they are used. Practical effects Practical effects are created physically on set: models and miniatures, … Read more
Watch a tense scene with the sound off and it often loses much of its power. Music tells the audience how to feel, links scenes together and gives characters an emotional identity. It is one of the most powerful tools a filmmaker has. Score and source music Some of the most memorable moments blur the … Read more
A film is made by hundreds of people, yet critics and audiences often talk about it as “a Hitchcock film” or “a Spielberg film”. That is because the director is the person who turns a script into a unified vision and makes the creative decisions that hold it together. Before shooting The director’s work starts … Read more
For most of the 20th century, seeing a new film meant going to a theater. Today, many films premiere on streaming platforms, and theaters compete with home screens. The change raises big questions about how films are made, released and experienced. From DVDs to streaming Netflix began as a DVD-by-mail service and launched streaming in … Read more
Films are made by people living in a particular time and place, so they inevitably reflect its values, fears and hopes. Sometimes they also change those values. Looking at cinema this way turns any film into a window on the society that produced it. A mirror of its time What could not be shown From … Read more
