Vigour of Film Lines

In-depth and thoughtful film analysis, unique film lists, original perspective on cinema's greatest auteurs

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  • November 18, 2025

    Paul Atreides: Seer of the Holy War

    Paul Atreides: Seer of the Holy War

    In Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part One, under the influence of melange, spice which can be found only on Arrakis, Paul sees the visions of a holy war, and in shock, tells his mother: “It’s coming. I see a holy war spreading across the universe like unquenchable fire. A warrior religion that waves the Atreides banner…

  • November 16, 2025

    Religious Manipulation and Political Power: the Case of The Oracle of Delphi and Bene Gesserit from Dune Films

    Religious Manipulation and Political Power: the Case of The Oracle of Delphi and Bene Gesserit from Dune Films

    “The Delphic oracle, which for modern poets – Yeats, for example – can conjure up mystic romantic visions, was for Sophocles and his audience, a fact of life, an institution as present and solid, as uncompromising… as the Vatican is for us. States and individuals alike consulted it as a matter of course about important…

  • March 3, 2024

    The Origin of Health Potions Used in Video Games: ‘miruvor’ the Cordial of Imladris from “The Lord of the Rings”

    The Origin of Health Potions Used in Video Games: ‘miruvor’ the Cordial of Imladris from “The Lord of the Rings”

    In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings The Fellowship of the Ring the Fellowship is stranded at the Redhorn Gate, trying to defeat Caradhras, as depicted in Peter Jackson’s 2001 movie. The hobbits started freezing due to a heavy snow storm, the situations was dire: ‘Give them this.’ said Gandalf, searching in his pack…

  • April 12, 2023

    The Darkening of Valinor in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Silmarillion” and its Possible Romantic Influence

    The Darkening of Valinor in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Silmarillion” and its Possible Romantic Influence

    In The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Valinor, the Blessed Realm is shown before the light of the Two Trees was dimmed, the eternal light shone on the land of the gods. The destruction of the Two Trees and its Light is briefly surmised by Galadriel: “We thought our light would never…

  • June 25, 2022

    The Chaos of the Stars in Werner Herzog’s “Heart of Glass”

    The Chaos of the Stars in Werner Herzog’s “Heart of Glass”

    Hias, the prophet, speaks: „ I look into the distance, to the end of the world. Before the day is over the end will come. First time will tumble, and then the earth. The clouds will begin to race, the earth boils over; this is the sign. This is the beginning of the end. The…

  • June 20, 2022

    Black Horse [Poem from the Yet Unpublished Book of Verses]

    Black Horse [Poem from the Yet Unpublished Book of Verses]

    Black horse in golden chains/ in the middle of the main square lies…

  • February 5, 2022

    Princes and Kings Gazing at the Stars in “The Leopard” and “The Lord of the Rings”

    Princes and Kings Gazing at the Stars in “The Leopard” and “The Lord of the Rings”

    The soul of the Prince reached out toward them, toward the intangible, the unattainable, which gave joy without laying claim to anything in return; as many other times, he tried to imagine himself in those icy tracts, a pure intellect armed with a notebook for calculations: difficult calculations, but ones which would always work out.…

  • October 5, 2021

    Yukio Mishima on Visconti’s “The Damned”: Dangerous Decadence

    Yukio Mishima on Visconti’s “The Damned”: Dangerous Decadence

    In its Wagnerian manner, its German grotesquerie, its transvestitism, its nervous insanity, its ponderousness, its symphonic sense of psychological danger, its worship of the body, its unceasing dramatic tension, its excesses, its obsession with hurling every single character toward tragedy and death, its ostentation, its sensuality, its love of ritual and ceremony, its intoxication, and…

  • January 2, 2021

    Art, Life and Spirit in Emile Cioran’s and Thomas Mann’s Youthful Works

    Art, Life and Spirit in Emile Cioran’s and Thomas Mann’s Youthful Works

    But what is it, to be an artist? Nothing shows up the general human dislike of thinking, and man’s innate craving to be comfortable, better than his attitude to this question. When these worthy people are affected by a work of art, they say humbly that that sort of thing is a ‘gift’. And because…

  • December 5, 2020

    5 Films Reflecting the Tension Between Artistic Types and the ‘Bourgeoisie’

    5 Films Reflecting the Tension Between Artistic Types and the ‘Bourgeoisie’

    In his Reflections of A Unpolitical Man, Thomas Mann writes that he wants to restore the dignity of the term Bürger, (almost untranslatable in English, but ‘citizen’ is the closest translation), since “certain literary circles” have utterly degraded it. He writes that bourgeois is the favorite affront of the littérateurs, and quotes Wagner saying that…

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