The Exterminating Angel

Death by Hanging is a phenomenally experimental work, a brilliantly conceived way to explore issues of capital punishment, Japanese identity, and the prejudices that create sociocultural barriers.

THE DIGITAL ERA: REAL-TIME FILMS FROM 2000 TO TODAY 40 years before, in 1960, lighter cameras enabled a cinéma vérité-flavored revolution in street realism. By 2000, new digital cameras suggested a whole new set of promises, including telling stories that would have been unimaginable within minimum budgets for features even ten years before. In 2000, …

THE POST-1960S, PRE-DIGITAL AGE: REAL-TIME ONE-OFFS, 1975-1998 British filmmaker John Byrum is responsible for the first (and in some ways only) real-time period film. Inserts (1975), set in the early 1930s, is about a Boy Wonder movie director (called Boy Wonder, played by Richard Dreyfuss fresh from American Graffiti (1973) and Jaws (1975)) now washed …

20. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) Directed by: Terry Gilliam So…drugs, right? Based on Hunter S. Thompson’s 1971 novel of the same title, Fear and Loathing stars Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro as Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo, respectively. The pair is heading to Sin City, speeding through the Nevada desert, under …

Girls, Season 2, Episode 3: “It’s a Shame about Ray” Written by Lena Dunham Directed by Jesse Peretz Original Air Date: February 2, 2013 In Luis Bunuel’s 1962 film, The Exterminating Angel, some high society types have a party and inexplicably find they are incapable of leaving. As the days and weeks pass, their values, behavior and …

Throughout November, SOS staffers will be discussing the movies that made them into film fanatics. (click here for the full list) Luis Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel begins with a shot of the exterior of a church. Organ music plays as the credits roll. Three shots follow: a shot of a sign indicating “Providence Street,” a …