posts Archives - Bright Wall/Dark Room

What Yentl is about—more than it is about Judaism, gender roles, sensitive short kings, the fabric of love, or the Mulan paradox (that is, whether a straight man’s gay desires are redeemed as hetero by the revelation of his love object as a woman)—is Babs’s face.

Letter from the Guest Editor

Spencer Williams·

Issue 120: Trans Cinema

Amidst this grand, never-ceasing chaos, this issue seeks to mine the complicated joy of trans existence, balancing both the dark corners of our lives with the many brilliant cracks of light.

Episode # 24: The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Veronica Fitzpatrick & Chad Perman·

Issue 119: Katharine Hepburn Podcast

Joining us this month to wax rhapsodic about Katharine Hepburn is film professor, author, and Hepburn devotee Kyle Stevens.

Daisies (1966)

Bright Wall/Dark Room·

Extras Podcast

Welcome to our new podcast series in conversation with, and sponsored by, our friends at Galerie. Every month, we’ll pick a film and zoom in on a single moment to better see the whole. This month: Věra Chytilová's Daisies (Sedmikrásky).

From Goddess to Human Being: Tracy Lord’s Journey in The Philadelphia Story

Elizabeth Cantwell·

Issue 119: Katharine Hepburn

In The Philadelphia Story, Katharine Hepburn pulls off an impressive trick: creating a character we struggle to identify with—who distances herself from others purposefully—but whom we can’t help rooting for anyway.

Regarding Katharine

Frank Falisi·

Issue 119: Katharine Hepburn

On Cate & Kate in The Aviator (2004) and Summertime (1955).

“When they were together, there was something electrifying about them”: On Adam’s Rib (1949)

Mark Dzula·

Issue 119: Katharine Hepburn

As stars onscreen, Hepburn and Tracy were 100 proof, one of the most successful pairings in American cinema. Offscreen, they were Hollywood’s open secret: a clandestine couple that managed a long-running affair by being invisible in all the right places.

My Rifle, My Chainsaw, and Me

Jenna Ipcar·

Extras

Bruce Campbell in Evil Dead II (artwork by Dani Manning)

Sam Raimi's Evil Dead II is the culmination of a childhood dream realized—one man’s flaws transmuted into super powers, an idealized vision of heroism in the face of unspeakable evil.

Holiday, Oh, Holiday (And the Best One of the Year)

Fran Hoepfner·

Issue 119: Katharine Hepburn

George Cukor's Holiday was neither the first nor last Hepburn and Grant pairing, but here it feels as if they're inventing a new type of relationship—one marked not only by fizzling flirtation or witty repartee, but also deeply infused with loss.

The Ghost Dog Principle

Lily Meyer·

Extras

Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is a movie I would like all translators, and their readers, to watch.

Pet Sounds

Halley McArn·

Issue 119: Katharine Hepburn

Bringing Up Baby might be directed by Howard Hawks, but it’s Katharine Hepburn who leads the fugue.

Hungry Boys and Girls: On Phantom Thread’s Strange Kinship

Joe Steen·

Issue 118: Siblings

Part fairy tale, part ghost story, Phantom Thread starkly pushes the genre of Gothic Romance into the positively morbid. Yet the fundamental ambiguity in its human relationships casts the longest shadow in this story, filling every corner of the stately rooms in which two unabashedly English souls organize their lives to deny their own fragility.