Vigour of Film Lines

Detailed and thoughtful film analysis, unique film lists, original approach to world cinema's greatest auteurs

  • Author’s Personal Writings
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    • Catholic and Pagan Heart of Fellini’s Eternal Rome

      Catholic and Pagan Heart of Fellini’s Eternal Rome

      I have hung up my heart―both Catholic and Pagan―as an ex-voto between the obelisk of the Trinità and the column of the Conception. Andrea Sperelli in Gabriele D’Annunzio’s “The Child of Pleasure”

      Vigour of Film Lines

      April 5, 2022
      Words and Images
      Beauty, Catholicism, Cinematography, Greek Mythology, Italian, Italian movie, Literature, Mythology, Paganism, Roman Mythology
    • 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. […]

      Vigour of Film Lines

      February 5, 2022
      Words and Images
      Amazon Prime, Astronomy, Cinema, Italian Literature, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literature, Mythology, Numenor, Science, Second Age, The Rings of Power
    • 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 […]

      Vigour of Film Lines

      October 5, 2021
      Words and Images
      Art, Artistic, Beauty, Cinema, European, Japanese, Literature, Movies, Politics, Writing
    • 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 […]

      Vigour of Film Lines

      January 2, 2021
      Words and Images
      Artist, Coen brothers, Life of an Artist, Literature, Mental Health, Philosophy, Sculpting, Thomas Mann
    • 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 […]

      Vigour of Film Lines

      December 5, 2020
      Uncharted Territory: Film Lists
      artistic type of personality, artistic types writing, barton fink faulkner, bohemian artist lifestyle, bourgeoisie bohemian, bourgeoisie movie, class relationships, fictional artists in movies, nocturnal animals film review, thomas mann reflections of a nonpolitical man
    • In Werner Herzog’s Words: The Origins of Cinema

      In Werner Herzog’s Words: The Origins of Cinema

      “Film is not analysis, it is the agitation of mind; cinema comes from the country fair and the circus, not from art and academicism.“ ̶  Werner Herzog Herzog’s understanding of the origins of cinema in the country fair and circus, not the academia, cannot be stressed enough. When he was making his Aguirre, the Wrath […]

      Vigour of Film Lines

      November 23, 2020
      In the Words of the Director
      aguirre the wrath of god summary, caligari film, christian bale rescue dawn, cinema academic journals, herzog films, herzog kinski movies, jodorowsky autobiography, jodorowsky movies, The origins of cinema answers
    • Norte, the End of History (2013): Lav Diaz’s Take on “Crime and Punishment”

      Norte, the End of History (2013): Lav Diaz’s Take on “Crime and Punishment”

      The film title refers to the Philippines’ northern province Ilocos Norte, where Diaz’s film takes place. In this way, the narrative has a specific locus, it is, at least provisionally, a hint that it is bound to the territory and the nation of the Philippines. In many ways it is, but in many more, it […]

      Vigour of Film Lines

      November 15, 2020
      Cinema of the World, Film Reviews
      Anarchism, Asian cinema, Cinema, Dictatorship, Family, Movie Review, Philipino Cinema, Slow cinema, Trauma
    • Three Colors: Red (Zagreb, Croatia; October 4th, 2020)

      Three Colors: Red (Zagreb, Croatia; October 4th, 2020)

      “And you will shed tears of scarlet.” Quote from Cowboy Bebop: “The Real Folk Blues (Part I)” More than half a year has passed since the earthquake and the great damage it has done to my home, and I have changed two abodes. One was in the western part of the city, near the river, […]

      Vigour of Film Lines

      October 4, 2020
      Author’s Personal Writings
      Colors, Diary, French Literature, Home, Home Decorating, Interior Design, Literature, Symbolism, Writing
    • On the Role and Power of Film Criticism

      On the Role and Power of Film Criticism

      For Martin Heidegger, the role of linguistic poetry is in preserving the primordial poetry of language. “Other modes of poetry, such as visual arts and architecture, only occur within the clearing of beings, which is opened by language.”[1] In Heidegger’s words: “Building and plastic creation, on the other hand, happen, always and only, in the […]

      Vigour of Film Lines

      June 22, 2020
      Shifting the Perspective: Essays on Cinema
      Film Criticism, Film Criticism Definition, Film Theory and Criticism, Heidegger Movies, Heidegger quotes, Modes of Film Criticism, Sculpture in Cinema, Visual Arts Meaning, What is Film Criticism
    • Early Spring (Zagreb, Croatia; May 1st, 2020)

      Early Spring (Zagreb, Croatia; May 1st, 2020)

      To keep this blog film-related, I decided that the title of each subsequent post dealing with my experiences after the Zagreb earthquake, and the destruction of my home, will be the film title of a great film I love, with a symbolic undertone. For this post, I chose Yasujirō Ozu’s Early Spring. Although it is […]

      Vigour of Film Lines

      May 1, 2020
      Author’s Personal Writings
      Art, Essay, Ideas, Inspiration, Life, Literature, Passion, Romanticism, Spring, Symbolism, Writing
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