All posts by Scott A. McConnell
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On Greta Garbo’s Greatness: An Appreciation of the Silent Icon’s Sound Star Turn in Queen Christina
“Spoils, glory, flags and trumpets! What is behind these high-sounding words? Death and destruction, triumphals of crippled men, Sweden victorious in a... -
Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious: How to Create Drama from Internal Conflict and Ironic Suspense
To stop a Nazi plot, an American agent pimps the woman he loves to a dangerous Nazi. This is the premise of... -
The Mark of Zorro Unmasked: Analyzing the Irony and Disguises of Tyrone Power’s Swashbuckling 1940s Hero
Some movies offer their audience the experience of an efficacious hero wittily fighting evil in a dramatic but benevolent world. The 1940 film The... -
100 Seconds of Greatness: Analyzing the First Scene of John Ford’s The Searchers
What made John Ford a great director? Let’s try an experiment to help answer that question. Let’s look at a one minute,...
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Spring 2018
Year in MovieMaker
Inside the Issue: Acting
Flash Forward: Grace Van Patten Takes a Leap into the Unknown in David Robert Mitchell’s Under the Silver Lake
Many actors will tell you that when you read a great script, you just know. But for Grace Van Patten, it was actually not knowing that...1Inside the Issue: Directing
Success in Succession: Matteo Garrone Shot Dogman Entirely in Sequence to Put Viewers in His Character’s Shoes
I wrote the script for my new film, Dogman, 12 years ago, and during those years I changed it many times, arriving at six or seven...Inside the Issue: How To
Journalism Plus: How Hail Satan?, The Brink, and Leaving Neverland Blend Truth-Seeking With Cinematic Storytelling
“Journalism Plus” is how Academy Award-winning moviemaker Laura Poitras (Citizenfour) characterizes making documentaries. If you’re a documentarian, you may not have a degree or credentials in...8