{"title":"BFI Film Classics","description":"\u003cp\u003eRead up on these exceptional essays on the landmarks of world cinema, published by the British Film Institute.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"seven-samurai","title":"Seven Samurai","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eSeven Samurai\u003c\/i\u003e (1954) a whole society is on the verge of irrevocable change. Akira Kurosawa's celebrated film, regarded by many to be the major achievement of Japanese cinema, is an epic that evokes the cultural upheaval\u003cbr\u003ebrought on by the collapse of Japanese militarism in the 16th century, but at the same time echoes also the sweeping cultural changes occurring in the aftermath of the American Occupation that followed Japan's defeat in the Second World War.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe plot is deceptively simple. A village of farmers is beleaguered by a horde of bandits. In desperation, the farmers decide to hire itinerant samurai to protect their crops and people and defeat the bandits. There had never been a Japanese film in which peasants hired samurai, or an evocation of the social transformation that made such an idea credible.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are six samurai and one who is accepted as such. Together they reflect the ideals and values of a noble class near the point of extinction. \u003ci\u003eSeven Samurai \u003c\/i\u003emay be the greatest action film, a technical masterpiece unmatched in its depiction of movement and violence, but running beneath the sound and fury is a lament for a lost nobility, 'a dirge for the spirit of Japan,' writes Joan Mellen, 'which will never again be so strong.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMellen's study contextualises \u003ci\u003eSeven Samurai\u003c\/i\u003e, marking its place in Japanese cinema and in Kurosawa's film-making career. She explores the film's roots in medieval history and, above all, the astonishing visual language in which Kurosawa created his elegiac epic.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Golden Age","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46179506847941,"sku":null,"price":27.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0272\/0419\/0302\/files\/Seven_Samurai.jpg?v=1778043949"},{"product_id":"cure","title":"Cure","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"product-detail-description\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"product-detail-description__body readmore\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKiyoshi Kurosawa's 1997 psychological horror, \u003ci\u003eCure\u003c\/i\u003e, follows a detective (played by Koji Yakusho) as he investigates a string of gruesome murders in Tokyo, where each victim has an 'X' carved into their neck.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eDominic Lash provides an in-depth analysis of \u003ci\u003eCure'\u003c\/i\u003es themes, generic conventions, cinematography, editing, mise-en-scène, sound, and legacy. In examining the film's aesthetics he highlights the unique way in which it balances meticulous precision with a persistent and purposeful ambiguity. Lash goes on to situate \u003ci\u003eCure \u003c\/i\u003ewithin its various contexts; firstly, as Kurosawa's 'breakthrough' film following a decade of mostly straight-to-video work and then its position in relation to the J-Horror boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThrough a close reading of \u003ci\u003eCure\u003c\/i\u003e's key scenes, particularly its final scene, Lash analyses the motivations behind Kurosawa's resistance to a definitive resolution. He argues that, just like its hypnotist antagonist, Mamiya, \u003ci\u003eCure \u003c\/i\u003eunsettles some of our basic psychological assumptions. In doing so, he attempts to understand what it is about the film that lingers so disturbingly, long after the credits have rolled.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"mt-15\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Golden Age","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46179509829829,"sku":null,"price":27.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0272\/0419\/0302\/files\/Cure.jpg?v=1778044046"},{"product_id":"some-like-it-hot","title":"Some Like It Hot","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"product-detail-description\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"product-detail-description__body readmore\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBilly Wilder's classic screwball comedy \u003ci\u003eSome Like it Hot \u003c\/i\u003e(1959), starring Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe, tells the story of two struggling Jazz musicians who accidentally witness a mob massacre in Chicago who then, disguised as women, join a female band to escape the gangsters' pursuit.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDespite the film's popular reception, with Academy Award nominations for Wilder and star Jack Lemmon, the film gained notoriety for its crossdressing plot and gender-bending comedy. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSteven Cohan's study of the film disentangles its production history and subsequent notoriety from the film itself, reconsidering the ways in which it playfully challenged generic and gender conventions of the 1950s. He provides an in depth analysis of the film's near perfect comedic structure, Wilder's aesthetic choices and self-reflexive star performances by Curtis, Lemmon and Monroe. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe goes on to consider the film's queerness, as well as its promotion and reception in 1959. 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Using original archival research, she traces how Lynch took his nightmare of Philadelphia to the City of Dreams, infusing his LA-shot film with the industrial cityscapes and sounds of the Callowhill district. Henry then engages with \u003ci\u003eEraserhead\u003c\/i\u003e's irresistible inscrutability and advances a fresh interpretation, reframing auteurism to centre Lynch's creative processes as a visual artist and Transcendental Meditation practitioner. Finally, she outlines how Lynch's 'dream of dark and troubling things' became a model midnight movie and later grew in reputation and influence across broader film culture.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the opening chapter on \u003ci\u003eEraserhead\u003c\/i\u003e's famous 'baby' to the final chapter on the film's tentacular influence, Henry's compelling and authoritative account offers illuminating new perspectives on the making and meaning of the film and its legacy. 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Its central characters, Mr Chow and Mrs Chan, are tenants in next-door apartments in Hong Kong who discover that their respective spouses are having an affair. As they try to make sense of their partners' behaviour, they also struggle to control their growing feelings for each other. Hailed by the press as 'the consummate unconsummated love story of the new millennium', this film about desire repressed has become a firmly established classic of the twenty-first century.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn his sharp and revealing analysis of \u003ci\u003eIn the Mood for Love\u003c\/i\u003e, Tony Rayns draws on his considerable expertise in East Asian cinema and on his proximity to Wong Kar-wai and his colleagues at production company Jet Tone during the film's long and complicated genesis. He delivers a personal and highly original commentary on the film and its production, complete with insights into Wong's idiosyncratic working methods and influences. He also places the film in the context of Wong's other work, with sidelights on its place in Hong Kong cinema as a whole.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis new edition features an afterword by the author, looking back on \u003ci\u003eIn the Mood for Love\u003c\/i\u003e 25 years after its first release.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"mt-15\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Golden Age","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46179530571973,"sku":null,"price":27.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0272\/0419\/0302\/files\/mood.jpg?v=1778044387"},{"product_id":"lost-in-translation","title":"Lost in Translation","description":"\u003cp\u003eSofia Coppola's \u003ci\u003eLost in Translation\u003c\/i\u003e (2003) brings two Americans together in Tokyo, each experiencing a personal crisis. Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), a recent graduate in philosophy, faces an uncertain professional future, while Bob Harris (Bill Murray), an established celebrity, questions his choices at midlife. Both are distant - emotionally and spatially - from their spouses. They are lost until they develop an intimate connection. In the film's poignant, famously ambiguous closing scene, they find each other, only to separate.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this close look at the multi-award-winning film, Suzanne Ferriss mirrors \u003ci\u003eLost in Translation\u003c\/i\u003e's structuring device of travel: her analysis takes the form of a trip, from planning to departure. She details the complexities of filming (a 27-day shoot with no permits in Tokyo), explores Coppola's allusions to fine art, subtle colour palette and use of music over words, and examines the characters' experiences of the Park Hyatt Tokyo and excursions outside, together and alone. She also re-evaluates the film in relation to Coppola's other features, as the product of an established director with a distinctive cinematic signature: 'Coppolism'. Fundamentally, Ferriss argues that \u003ci\u003eLost in Translation\u003c\/i\u003e is not only a cinema classic, but classic Coppola too.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Golden Age","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46201559220421,"sku":null,"price":27.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0272\/0419\/0302\/files\/Translation.jpg?v=1778479615"},{"product_id":"heat","title":"Heat","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"product-detail-description\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"product-detail-description__body readmore\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"product-detail-description\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"product-detail-description__body readmore\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRobert de Niro and Al Pacino have acted opposite each other only once, in \u003ci\u003eHeat\u003c\/i\u003e, Michael Mann's operatic 1995 heist thriller. De Niro is Neil McCauley, a skilled professional thief at the centre of a tight-knit criminal team; Pacino is Vincent Hanna, the haunted, driven cop determined to hunt him down. Boasting a series of meticulously orchestrated setpieces that underline Mann's sense of scale and architecture, \u003ci\u003eHeat\u003c\/i\u003e also presents a rhapsody to Los Angeles, as Hanna closes in on his prey.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor Nick James, the pleasures and virtues of \u003ci\u003eHeat\u003c\/i\u003e are mixed and complex. Its precise compositions and minimalist style are entangled with a particular kind of extravagant bombast. And while its vision of male teamwork is richly compelling it comes close to glorifying machismo. 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The film's enigmatic and multi-layered narrative leaves its viewers with many more questions than answers. The plot revolves around the mystery of who is sending a series of sinister videos and drawings to Georges Laurent (Daniel Auteuil), the presenter of a literary talkshow. As Georges becomes increasingly secretive, much to the distress of his wife Anne (Juliette Binoche), a culprit fails to surface. And even at the film's end, audiences are left struggling to make sense of what has gone before.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis hasn't stopped people trying. In an in-depth and illuminating account, Wheatley examines the key themes at the heart of the 'meaning' of \u003ci\u003eCaché\u003c\/i\u003e: the film as thriller; post-colonial bourgeois guilt; political accountability and lastly, reality, the media and its audiences, tracing these strands through the film by means of close readings of individual scenes and moments. Inspired by the director's claim that we might understand the film as a set of Russian dolls, each of which is complete in itself but together forms a whole in which layers of unseen depth are concealed, Wheatley avoids a single, unifying approach to understanding \u003ci\u003eCaché\u003c\/i\u003e. Instead, her detailed analysis of the film's shifting perspectives opens up the multiplicity of meanings that \u003ci\u003eCaché\u003c\/i\u003e contains, in order to understand its secrets.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis edition includes a new foreword in which the author reflects upon \u003ci\u003eCaché \u003c\/i\u003ein the context of Haneke's subsequent work, and considers the film's contemporary resonances in an era of omnipresent surveillance technology and doctored 'fake news' videos.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Golden Age","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46750014308549,"sku":null,"price":27.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0272\/0419\/0302\/files\/cache.jpg?v=1787017818"},{"product_id":"tokyo-story","title":"Tokyo Story","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis BFI Film Classics study of \u003ci\u003eTokyo Monogatari\u003c\/i\u003e\/\u003ci\u003eTokyo Story \u003c\/i\u003e(1953) reveals the making, meaning and legacy behind Ozu Yasujiro's masterpiece.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eOzu's moving family drama is universally acknowledged as one of the most significant Japanese films ever made. In its complex portrait of human motivation and lively sense of social space, it offers a profound and poignant insight into the generational shifts of post-war Japan.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlastair Phillips provides an in-depth analysis of the film and its key locations - the city of Tokyo, the town of Onomichi and the coastal resort of Atami - with a discussion of its representation of Japanese society at a time of great cultural change. Drawing upon Japanese and English language sources, he situates the film within various contemporary critical and industrial contexts and examines the multiple international dimensions of \u003ci\u003eTokyo Story\u003c\/i\u003e's long after-life to understand its enormous contribution to global film culture.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Golden Age","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46750016569541,"sku":null,"price":27.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0272\/0419\/0302\/files\/tokyostory.jpg?v=1787017818"},{"product_id":"2001-a-space-odyssey","title":"2001: A Space Odyssey","description":"\u003cp\u003eStanley Kubrick's \u003ci\u003e2001: A Space Odyssey\u003c\/i\u003e (1968) is widely regarded as one of the best films ever made. It has been celebrated for its beauty and mystery, its realistic depiction of space travel and dazzling display of visual effects, the breathtaking scope of its story, which reaches across millions of years, and the thought-provoking depth of its meditation on evolution, technology and humanity's encounters with the unknown. \u003ci\u003e2001 \u003c\/i\u003ehas been described as the most expensive avant-garde movie ever made and as a psychedelic trip, a unique expression of the spirit of the 1960s and as a timeless masterpiece. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePeter Krämer's insightful study explores \u003ci\u003e2001\u003c\/i\u003e's complex origins, the unique shape it took and the extraordinary impact it made on contemporary audiences, drawing on new research in the Stanley Kubrick Archive to challenges many of the widely-held assumptions about the film. This edition includes a new afterword by the author.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Golden Age","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46750017814725,"sku":null,"price":27.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0272\/0419\/0302\/files\/2001.jpg?v=1787017818"},{"product_id":"eight-and-a-half-otto-e-mezzo","title":"Eight and a Half (Otto e mezzo)","description":"\u003cp\u003eFederico Fellini's masterpiece \u003ci\u003e8 1\/2 \u003c\/i\u003e(\u003ci\u003eOtto e mezzo\u003c\/i\u003e) shocked audiences around the world when it was released in 1963 by its sheer auteurist gall. The hero, a film director named Guido Anselmi, seemed to be Fellini's mirror image, and the story to reflect the making of 8 1\/2 itself. Whether attacked for self-indulgence or extolled for self-consciousness, \u003ci\u003e8 1\/2 \u003c\/i\u003ebecame the paradigm of personal filmmaking, and numerous directors, including Fassbinder, Truffaut, Scorsese, Bob Fosse and Bruce LaBruce, paid homage to the film and its themes of personal and creative ennui in their own work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNow that \u003ci\u003e8 1\/2\u003c\/i\u003e's conceit is less shocking, D.A. Miller argues, we can see more clearly how tentative, even timid, Fellini's ground-breaking incarnation always was. Guido is a perfect blank, or is trying his best to seem one. By his own admission he doesn't even have an artistic or social statement to offer: 'I have nothing to say, but I want to say it anyway.' \u003ci\u003e8 1\/2\u003c\/i\u003e's deepest commitment is not to this man (who is never quite 'all there') or to his message (which is lacking entirely) but to its own flamboyant manner. 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Much of what made it notorious was its incorporation of real people, events and lifestyles, making it a documentation of its time. It uses performance, camera movement, editing and music to produce a striking aesthetic mix of energy and listlessness, of exuberance and despair.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRichard Dyer's study considers each of these aspects of the film – phenomenon, document, aesthetic – and argues that they are connected. 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A decade on, it had become a cult classic and remains so over 20 years later, inspiring a thriving circuit of 'Lebowski Fests' during which costumed devotees gather at bowling alleys and guzzle White Russians. Beyond its superabundance of deliciously quotable lines, how has the movie inspired such remarkable affection? And why does its critical stock continue to rise?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe film's unlikely anchor is Jeff Bridges' career-best performance as Jeffrey Lebowski, a fully-baked 1960s radical turned Venice Beach drop-out known to his friends as 'the Dude'. Mistaken for an identically-named grandee whose young trophy wife is in trouble, the Dude finds himself embroiled in an impossibly convoluted kidnap plot involving pornographers, nihilists and threats to his 'johnson'. Worst of all, it conflicts with his bowling commitments.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn part an irreverent pastiche of Raymond Chandler's \u003ci\u003eThe Big Sleep\u003c\/i\u003e (as filmed by Howard Hawks), \u003ci\u003eThe Big Lebowski\u003c\/i\u003e is also a jukebox of film history, littered with playful references to everything from Hitchcock and Altman to Busby Berkeley. This riot of addled quotations reflects the film's Los Angeles setting, a discombobulated world inhabited by flakes, phonies and poseurs with put-on identities.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLike many Coen films, the movie plays havoc with the conventions of the crime genre and the absurdities of classical American 'heroism'. But it's also that rare thing: a comedy that gets richer, funnier and more affecting with each viewing. Beneath its breakneck pacing and foul-mouthed ribaldry, the Dude's story offers disarmingly humane lessons in the value of simple things: friendship, laughter and bowling.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn their foreword to this new edition, the authors reflect on \u003ci\u003eLebowski\u003c\/i\u003e's cult status and its contemporary resonances as a film about gentle non-conformity and friendship in an increasingly polarized world. The new edition also includes an interview with the Coens, revealing the origins of the name 'Jeffrey Lebowski'.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Golden Age","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46750083612869,"sku":null,"price":27.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0272\/0419\/0302\/files\/TheBigLebowski.jpg?v=1787017818"},{"product_id":"the-big-sleep","title":"The Big Sleep","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Big Sleep\u003c\/i\u003e: Marlowe and Vivian practising kissing; General Sternwood shivering in a hothouse full of orchids; a screenplay, co-written by Faulkner, famously mysterious and difficult to solve. Released in 1946, Howard Hawks' adaptation of Raymond Chandler reunited Bogart and Bacall and gave them two of their most famous roles. The mercurial but ever-manipulative Hawks dredged humour and happiness out of film noir. 'Give him a story about more murders than anyone can keep up with, or explain,' David Thomson writes in his compelling study of the film, 'and somehow he made a paradise.'\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen it was first shown to a military audience \u003ci\u003eThe Big Sleep \u003c\/i\u003ewas coldly received. So, as Thomson reveals, Hawks shot extra scenes, 'fun' scenes, to replace one in which the film's murders had been explained, and in so doing left the plot unresolved. Thomson argues that, if this was accidental, it also signalled a change in the nature of Hollywood cinema: '\u003ci\u003eThe Big Sleep \u003c\/i\u003einaugurates a post-modern, camp, satirical view of movies being about other movies that extends to the New Wave and \u003ci\u003ePulp Fiction\u003c\/i\u003e.’\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Golden Age","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46750106124485,"sku":null,"price":27.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0272\/0419\/0302\/files\/THeBigSleep.jpg?v=1787017818"},{"product_id":"spirited-away","title":"Spirited Away","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eSpirited Away\u003c\/i\u003e, directed by the veteran anime film-maker Hayao Miyazaki, is Japan's most successful film, and one of the top-grossing 'foreign language' films ever released. Set in modern Japan, the film is a wildly imaginative fantasy, at once personal and universal. It tells the story of a listless little girl, Chihiro, who stumbles into a magical world where gods relax in a palatial bathhouse, where there are giant babies and hard-working soot sprites, and where a train runs across the sea.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAndrew Osmond's insightful study describes how Miyazaki directed \u003ci\u003eSpirited Away\u003c\/i\u003e with a degree of creative control undreamt of in most popular cinema, using the film's delightful, freewheeling visual ideas to explore issues ranging from personal agency and responsibility to what Miyazaki sees as the lamentable state of modern Japan. Osmond unpacks the film's visual language, which many Western (and some Japanese) audiences find both beautiful and bewildering. He traces connections between \u003ci\u003eSpirited Away\u003c\/i\u003e and Miyazaki's prior body of work, arguing that \u003ci\u003eSpirited Away\u003c\/i\u003e uses the cartoon medium to create a compellingly immersive drawn world.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis edition includes a new foreword by the author in which he considers the world of animated cinema post-\u003ci\u003eSpirited Away\u003c\/i\u003e, considering its influence on films ranging from del Toro's \u003ci\u003ePan's Labyrinth \u003c\/i\u003eto Pixar's \u003ci\u003eInside Out\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Golden Age","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46750129193157,"sku":null,"price":27.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0272\/0419\/0302\/files\/SpiritedAway.jpg?v=1787017818"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0272\/0419\/0302\/collections\/P1133281-2.jpg?v=1787028604","url":"https:\/\/shop.ourgoldenage.com.au\/collections\/bfi-film-classics.oembed","provider":"Golden Age","version":"1.0","type":"link"}