21 Grams (2003)
Adaptation (2002)
All About My Mother 1999)
Amores Perros (2000)
Annie Hall (1977)
Ansiktet (1958)
Année dernière à Marienbad, L’ (1961)
Autumn Sonata (1978)
Babel (2006)
Bad ma ra khahad bord (1999)
Bakushû (1951)
Banshun (1949)
Being John Malkovich (1999)
Blob, The (1958)
Bicycle Thieves (1948)
Biutiful (2010)
Blue (1993)
Blue Velvet (1986)
Children of Paradise (1945)
Chimes at Midnight (1965)
Chinatown (1974)
Christmas Carol, A (1951)
Citizen Kane (1941)
Close-up (1990)
Cries and Whispers (1972)
Crossfire (1947)
Crying Game, The (1992)
Dopamine (2003)
Dwaj ludzie z szafa (1958)
Early Summer (1951)
Elephant Man, The (1980)
Enfants du Paradis,Les (1945)
Face (1958)
Femme, Mariée, Une (1964)
Falstaff (1965)
Freud (1962)
Good Night, and Good Luck (2006)
Great Expectations (1946)
Hable con ella (2002)
Hobson’s Choice (1954)
Homme et une femme, Un (1966)
Homme et une femme, Un: Vingt ans déjà (1986) Höstsonaten (1978)
Ikiru (1952)
Illusionist, The (2006)
Inside Job (2010)
Kid, The (1921)
Knife in the Water (1962)
Ladri di biciclette(1948)
Last Year at Marienbad (1961)
Late Spring (1949)
Laura (1944)
M (1931)
M. Hulot's Holiday (1953)
Magician, The (1958)
Manhattan (1979)
Man and a Woman, A (1966)
Man and a Woman, A: Twenty Years Later (1986)
Married Woman, A (1964)
Midnight in Paris (2011)
Mon Oncle (1958)
Mulholland Dr. (2001)
My Man Godfrey (1936)
Nema-ye Nazdik (1990)
Nóz w wodzie (1962)
Play Time (1967)
Pleasure of Being Robbed, The (2006)
Purple Rose of Cairo, The (1984)
Rashomon (1950)
Red (1994)
Red Road (2006)
Règle du jeu, La (1939)
Repulsion (1965)
Rules of the Game (1939)
Saraband (2003)
Sciusciá (1946)
Scrooge (1951)
Set-Up, The (1949)
Seventh Seal, The (1957)
Shoeshine (1946)
Sjunde inseglet, Det (1957)
Talk to Her (2002)
Taste of Cherry (1997)
Three Colors: Blue (1993)
Three Colors: Red (1994)
Three Colors: White (1994)
Todo Sobre Mi Madre (1999)
Tôkyô monogatari (1953)
Tokyo Story (1953)
Trois Couleurs: Blanc (1994)
Trois Couleurs: Bleu (1993)
Trois Couleurs: Rouge (1994)
21 Grams (2003)
Two Men and a Wardrobe (1958)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Umberto D. (1952)
Vacances de M. Hulot, Les (1953)
Vertigo (1958)
Visningar och rop (1972)
Volver (2006)
Walkabout (1971)
Where the Wild Things Are (2009)
White (1994)
Wind Will Carry Us, The (1999)
WELCOME TO A SHARPER FOCUS: A site devoted to increasing your enjoyment of classic movies by suggesting intellectually satisfying ways of enjoying them.
I don't review movies, that is, I don't tell you whether I think they're good or bad. I do try to suggest ways that you will enjoy a given movie more. And any movie I write about, I think is at least interesting.
Every writer has an ideal reader. Let me tell you, then, what I hope about you.
I hope you like movies. I hope you love movies, even (or especially) those that look at first glance trashy. The Blob or Dopamine .
I hope you like thinking movies through. I hope you love to wonder why there is a baby at the end of Rashomon . Or why Bergman had eight—not seven, not nine—soldiers burning the witch in The Seventh Seal .
Perhaps you've just seen a TCM re-run of Being John Malkovich , and you're asking, What was that all about. You might click onto this web site . . .
Maybe you are headed out the door for a classic film series. Tonight it's Tokyo Story , and you're wondering what to watch for. You might click onto this web site . . .
You're taking a course on movies, and you've just seen Shoeshine . You need something intelligent to say. You might click onto this web site . . .
This is a site that looks at its movies closely, and I hope you like doing the same. The site will work best if you click on the title and follow my suggestions for heightening your enjoyment.
I think of films as works of art, and I believe that one best enjoys works of art by appreciating how all the different elements come together to form an artistic whole. The notes of a symphony, the riffs of jazz, brush strokes, the metaphors of a poem, the interpersonal moments of a novel, or the shots and plots and scenes and camera angles of a movie—we can understand them as coming together around a focus. After we've seen a movie, if we ask, What was the point?, that was the point, the focus around which we can understand all the different elements of a film forming a work of art that makes sense to us humans.