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From the NOR Dossiers

A Cinematic View by Robert E. Lauder

A Movie Masterpiece

A CINEMATIC VIEW

Robert E. Lauder

October 1986

Kurosawa dramatizes the truth that the sins of the parents are visited on their children. The harm Ran has done has returned to haunt his old age.

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Memories of Great Comedies from the Past

A CINEMATIC VIEW

Robert E. Lauder

September 1986

Is moviemaking such a risky business that even an extraordinarily gifted performer cannot be sure in advance how a proposed project will turn out?

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Trivialized Sex, Cheap Film

A CINEMATIC VIEW

Robert E. Lauder

July August 1986

Hollywood's standard view of sexuality frequently works against a film’s best intentions. Is all the bed-hopping supposed to have any real significance?

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Fellini Back in Stride

A CINEMATIC VIEW

Robert E. Lauder

June 1986

An artist who apparently works very much from his feelings and intentions, Fellini turns his camera on people and lovingly watches their foibles and failures.

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Just Awful

A CINEMATIC VIEW

Robert E. Lauder

May 1986

Contemporary film is quite advanced; the tools are available for making significant films. What is obviously lacking is insight.

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The Marx Brothers as a Sign of God?

A CINEMATIC VIEW

Robert E. Lauder

April 1986

There may be a benevolent God and life may have a meaning because how else can you account for the marvelous humor in a Marx Brothers’ movie?

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Out of Africa

A CINEMATIC VIEW

Robert E Lauder

March 1986

It was from her 17-year experience in Africa that Karen Blixen, under the pen name of Isak Dinesen, wrote her highly acclaimed stories of Africa.

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Clerical Complicity

A CINEMATIC VIEW

Robert E. Lauder

January-February 1986

"The Official Story" explores the conversion of an upper-class Argentinian interested only in the happiness of her own family into a deeply caring, unselfish woman ready to perform heroic acts of justice and charity.

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Sanctity as Insanity?

A CINEMATIC VIEW

Robert E. Lauder

December 1985

The classic battle between science/secularism and faith/religion seems like a preliminary for a main event that never happens.

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The Extraordinary Career of Francois Truffaut

A CINEMATIC VIEW

Robert E. Lauder

November 1985

Truffaut made five more or less autobiographical films, starting with "400 Blows" when actor Jean-Pierre Leaud was 14 and ending 20 years later.

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From Chance Encounter to Friendship

A CINEMATIC VIEW

Robert E. Lauder

October 1985

The Kiss of the Spider Woman powerfully portrays the almost magical changes that friendship can bring about in people’s lives.

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Black Comedy at Its Best

A CINEMATIC VIEW

Robert E. Lauder

September 1985

John Huston’s film career, which has spanned more than 50 years, has been a curious blend of the sublime and, if not the ridiculous, the striking­ly mediocre.

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Woody Allen’s Pessimistic Vision

A CINEMATIC VIEW

Robert E. Lauder

July-August 1985

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The Panoramic & the Personal

A CINEMATIC VIEW

Robert E. Lauder

June 1985

With Forster’s A Passage to India Lean reached for something a bit deeper: to film the specifically spiritual against the background of the clash between English and Indian cultures.

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The Prison of “Freedom”

A CINEMATIC VIEW

Robert E. Lauder

May 1985

Rohmer’s films are uniquely cinematic, bearing the mark of his simple visual style and nuanced out­look on and delicate treatment of human relation­ships.

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Depicting the Workings of Grace

A CINEMATIC VIEW

Robert E. Lauder

April 1985

Places in the Heart stands with Chariots of Fire as one of the few films in recent years with both a sympathetic and profound view of religion.

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Blasphemous Battle With God

A CINEMATIC VIEW

Robert E. Lauder

March 1985

Two films that are interesting adaptations from another medium are "Amadeus" and "Cal," each rewritten by its original author for the screen.

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John Cassavetes & the Mystery of Moviemaking

A CINEMATIC VIEW

Robert E. Lauder

January-February 1985

His typical work is at times a beautiful blend of intuition, sensitivity, and compassion but at other times a maddening mixture of overly long scenes, aimless dialogue, and directionless plot.

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Jean-Luc Godard: Low-Altitude Narcissism

A CINEMATIC VIEW

Robert E. Lauder

December 1984

What evil an artist can legitimately and accu­rately depict depends on the altitude from which the artist sees that evil.

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