Episode 136. Wyler, Not Wilder

To wrap up Season 5, of the podcast Alex and Jonathan talk about another one of the hard-working directors of Hollywood's Golden Age, William Wyler. We're looking at four of his post-war films, The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Roman Holiday (1953), Ben-Hur (1959), and The Collector (1965) and discussing how Wyler's war experience…

Episode 124. Silver Screen Sports: Documentary Dreams

For the final installment of the Silver Screen Sports series Alex and Jonathan look at three documentaries that cover a range of sports: Tokyo Olympiad (1965), Hoop Dreams (1994), and Senna (2010). We discuss three different approaches to the creation of a documentary, the difference between fictional and non-fictional representation of sports, and the appeal…

Episode 89. Films de Femmes Deux: Agnes Varda

Continuing our series focusing on female filmmakers, Alex and Jonathan take a look at the narrative and documentary career of French New Wave pioneer Agnes Varda in her films Le Bonheur (1965), The Gleaners & I (2000), and Faces Places (2017). We talk about Varda's capacity for biting social commentary, her empathy for her documentary…