Tom Gunning
Tom Gunning teaches film history and theory at the University of Chicago and is the author of D. W. Griffith and the Origins of American Narrative Film: The Early Years at Biograph and The Films of Fritz Lang: Allegories of Vision and Modernity, as well as over 150 essays on early cinema, the avant-garde, and film genres. He is currently working on a book about the invention of the moving image.
The New World: Dwelling in Malick's New World
In his masterful reimagining of the story of John Smith and Pocahontas, Terrence Malick meditates on the nature of beauty and America's path from innocence to experience.
By Tom Gunning
On Film / Essays — Jul 25, 2016
The Kid: The Grail of Laughter and the Fallen Angel
The Kid marked Charlie Chaplin's wholehearted embrace of sentiment, which he intertwined with the slapstick he was known for to enrich his Tramp character and carry the narrative of feature-length directorial debut.
On Film / Essays — Feb 18, 2016
Cinema of the Wolf: The Mystery of Marketa Lazarová
Disorienting, brutal, and bloody beautiful, František Vláčil's epic is a dark medieval vision teeming with cinematic invention.
On Film / Essays — Jun 19, 2013
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
"When humanity, subjugated by the terror of crime, has been driven insane by fear and horror, and when chaos has become supreme law, then the time will have come for the empire of crime." In 1933, Fritz Lang gave these words to his visionary figu
On Film / Essays — May 18, 2004