Combustible Celluloid


New movie reviews, DVD reviews, interviews, and all things film.




Home
Reviews A-C
Reviews D-F
Reviews G-J
Reviews K-M
Reviews N-Q
Reviews R-T
Reviews U-Z
 




The Animation Show 4 ***
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson ***1/2
Hancock **1/2
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl **1/2
Quid Pro Quo ***
The Wackness **1/2
The Castro Theatre's 70mm Festival 2008
More
 




Drillbit Taylor
Identification of a Woman (Import)
Shotgun Stories
A Throw of Dice
Vantage Point
More
 

Film Features

Brad Anderson
Scarlett Johansson: Anywhere I Lay My Head [CD Review]
Don Cheadle at CineVegas
Abel Ferrara at CineVegas
Tina Sinatra
My Top 100 Films [Updated]
My Top 60 Directors [Updated]
Charlton Heston (1924-2008)
Scott B. Smith
Estelle Parsons
Roger Donaldson
Roy Scheider (1932-2008)Mike Binder
James McAvoy
Tony Gilroy
David Cronenberg & Viggo Mortensen
William Friedkin
Peter Fonda & James Mangold
Kasi Lemmons on Talk to Me
Steve Buscemi on Interview
Lynn Hershman-Leeson
Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg & Nick Frost on Hot Fuzz
Scott Frank, Joseph Gordon-Levitt & Matthew Goode
The Top 50 Movies of the Past Ten Years (1997-2006)
Bong Joon-ho, director of The Host
Mark Polish, Michael Polish & Billy Bob Thornton
My latest blog entries at cinematical.com
The 'Mexican New Wave'
Interview with Singaporian Filmmaker Djinn
Joe Carnahan & Jeremy Piven Interview
Terry Zwigoff on the new Bad Santa Director's Cut
Alfonso Cuarón Interview
Guillermo Del Toro Interview
Chris Noonan Interview
Robert Altman (1925-2006)
Scarlett Johansson: A Study in Scarlett
Christmas Movies
Combustible Celluloid's Big Guide to Halloween & Horror Movies
Joe Eszterhas
Jet Li
Zach Braff
Kirby Dick
James Ellroy
Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson
Adrien Brody
Steve Irwin (1962-2006)
Elisha Cuthbert/Jamie Babbit
Matt Dillon
David R. Ellis
Maria Bello
Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson
Mickey Spillane (1918-2006)
Al Gore
Cult Movies
Actress Interview Gallery
The Top 100
More Features and Interviews
 

Film Books

Not Quite a Memoir: Of Films, Books, the World, by Judy Stone
James Agee: The Library of America Collection, by James Agee
Just Making Movies, by Ronald L. Davis
Guide to Essential Movies, by Joe Leydon
Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood, by Robert S. Birchard
Profoundly Disturbing, by Joe Bob Briggs
A Third Face, by Samuel Fuller
Dark Lover, by Emily Leider
Agee on Film, by James Agee
Lulu in Hollywood, by Louise Brooks
Negative Space, by Manny Farber
5001 Nights at the Movies, by Pauline Kael
More Books
 

The online film magazine Combustible Celluloid offers new movie reviews, DVD reviews, film reviews, actor interviews, actress interviews, director interviews, film books and all things cinema related for the thoughtful and passionate. Online for ten years! Over 3000 reviews!

 
Sign up for my weekly newsletter!
 
About
Lists
Gallery
News
Links

E-mail me.
 
© 1997-2008 Combustible Celluloid




[A Word from Film posters.com]
It can be difficult to find vintage film posters, like one for "Tartuffe." The web is a great place to find movie posters of all kinds. Framed vintage posters are a great way to decorate any room in your home!

Tartuffe (1925)

Rating: 4 Stars (out of 4)

Heroes of Hipocrisy

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy Tartuffe on DVD.

Most critics of this 1925 silent feature squawked that F.W. Muranu "butchered" Moliere's original work, but let's face it, the play -- a warning against hypocrisy -- isn't exactly the most subtle classic in the world. Unlike his later Faust, Murnau obviously needed to imagine Tartuffe in a way to make it relevant to modern day, and so he invented the bookend sequences, making it -- along with Keaton's Sherlock Jr. -- one of the first post-modern films (in which characters watch and are aware of films). In the wraparound sequence, a young man tries to save his grandfather who is about to lose his fortune to a greedy, crooked housekeeper. Since the young man is an actor, he disguises himself and plays a traveling motion picture man, setting up a screening of Tartuffe in hopes of convincing the housekeeper that she's wrong. Of course, this actual Tartuffe is the film's strongest section, with the great Emil Jannings in the title role, stiffly walking around -- he sometimes resembles Murnau's Nosferatu -- and leering just over the top of the Good Book. Tartuffe manages to convince a weak-willed dupe that pleasures of the flesh are wrong, while indulging in many of those self-same pleasures himself. All in all, it's a relatively minor Murnau, but some sequences contain his beautifully twisted touches.

DVD Details: The Tartuffe disc includes a new 35-minute documentary on the life of Murnau. But best of all, Tartuffe comes packaged in an extraordinary new box set, The F.W. Murnau Collection, which contains Kino's Nosferatu (1922), The Last Laugh (1924) and Faust (1926) as well as Image Entertainment's Tabu (1931). For more info, visit Kino's website or call toll-free at (800) 562-3330.

Starring: Emil Jannings, Hermann Picha, Rosa Valetti, André Mattoni, Werner Krauss, Lil Dagover, Lucie Höflich
Written by: Carl Mayer, based on a play by Molière
Directed by: F.W. Murnau
MPAA Rating: Unrated
Running Time: 63 minutes
Date: November 2, 2003

Home
News
Search Reviews
Classic Movies
DVDs
Features
Film Books
Gallery
Links
About
The Rating System
Email Me
All scribblings © 1997-2007 Combustible Celluloid