James Dalrymple
@jamesewand.bsky.social
Teaching/lecturing in France. Occasional academic.
Cinema, books, music, vintage television, podcasts (usually while cooking for the family), teaching, life in France etc.
Film reviews at: letterboxd.com/jamesewand/
Cinema, books, music, vintage television, podcasts (usually while cooking for the family), teaching, life in France etc.
Film reviews at: letterboxd.com/jamesewand/
The university library has sourced this for me
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November 10, 2025 at 1:46 PM
The university library has sourced this for me
📚💙
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First watch: Fear (1954). One of three (!) films Roberto Rossellini released in 1954 starring then-wife Ingrid Bergman. Unlike the modernist Journey to Italy, this German-Italian production looks to the past, and particularly the noirish Hollywood suspense films for which Bergman was famous. 1/5
November 10, 2025 at 7:34 AM
First watch: Fear (1954). One of three (!) films Roberto Rossellini released in 1954 starring then-wife Ingrid Bergman. Unlike the modernist Journey to Italy, this German-Italian production looks to the past, and particularly the noirish Hollywood suspense films for which Bergman was famous. 1/5
Re-watching tonight at my wife's behest. Suits me!
November 8, 2025 at 7:36 PM
Re-watching tonight at my wife's behest. Suits me!
Some Anita Brookner from my mother-in-law's shelves. Perhaps not canon, but hopefully something to get me started. Any recommendations among these @jacquiwine.bsky.social? 💙📚
November 8, 2025 at 8:54 AM
Some Anita Brookner from my mother-in-law's shelves. Perhaps not canon, but hopefully something to get me started. Any recommendations among these @jacquiwine.bsky.social? 💙📚
#LetterboxdFriday #LastFourWatched
· two Rossellini-Bergman joints
· a rewarding rewatch of a French neo-noir remake
· Anna Magnani in early Pasoloni
· two Rossellini-Bergman joints
· a rewarding rewatch of a French neo-noir remake
· Anna Magnani in early Pasoloni
November 7, 2025 at 2:24 PM
#LetterboxdFriday #LastFourWatched
· two Rossellini-Bergman joints
· a rewarding rewatch of a French neo-noir remake
· Anna Magnani in early Pasoloni
· two Rossellini-Bergman joints
· a rewarding rewatch of a French neo-noir remake
· Anna Magnani in early Pasoloni
Voyage to Italy (1954, dir. Roberto Rossellini). An uptight English couple on holiday near Naples discover they don't know each other after all. Proto-Antonioni modernism which was semi-improvised, much to the annoyance of stars George Sanders and (Rossellini's then-wife) Ingrid Bergman. 1/3
November 7, 2025 at 12:00 PM
Voyage to Italy (1954, dir. Roberto Rossellini). An uptight English couple on holiday near Naples discover they don't know each other after all. Proto-Antonioni modernism which was semi-improvised, much to the annoyance of stars George Sanders and (Rossellini's then-wife) Ingrid Bergman. 1/3
First watch: Stromboli (1950). Ingrid Bergman famously approached Roberto Rossellini to work together on the strength of his War Trilogy. In some senses, they met half way, with a film that combines documentary elements with something more heightened and stylized, even melodramatic. 1/4
November 5, 2025 at 8:51 PM
First watch: Stromboli (1950). Ingrid Bergman famously approached Roberto Rossellini to work together on the strength of his War Trilogy. In some senses, they met half way, with a film that combines documentary elements with something more heightened and stylized, even melodramatic. 1/4
Tonight's film: De battre mon cœur s'est arrêté (The Beat That My Heart Skipped, 2005), dir. Jacques Audiard.
I haven't seen this since it came out, but I watched the '70s original (Fingers) fairly recently. Time to compare!
I haven't seen this since it came out, but I watched the '70s original (Fingers) fairly recently. Time to compare!
November 3, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Tonight's film: De battre mon cœur s'est arrêté (The Beat That My Heart Skipped, 2005), dir. Jacques Audiard.
I haven't seen this since it came out, but I watched the '70s original (Fingers) fairly recently. Time to compare!
I haven't seen this since it came out, but I watched the '70s original (Fingers) fairly recently. Time to compare!
Quote with your favourite film and album* from the year you were born
November 2, 2025 at 9:17 AM
Quote with your favourite film and album* from the year you were born
Some of the films I enjoyed most for the first time last month
November 1, 2025 at 11:19 AM
Some of the films I enjoyed most for the first time last month
Halloween viewing with my daughter:
#NowWatching
#NowWatching
October 31, 2025 at 7:27 PM
Halloween viewing with my daughter:
#NowWatching
#NowWatching
#LetterboxdFriday #LastFourWatched
Left Bank modernism, two from the Soviet Union, and an 1980s creature feature
Left Bank modernism, two from the Soviet Union, and an 1980s creature feature
October 31, 2025 at 9:41 AM
#LetterboxdFriday #LastFourWatched
Left Bank modernism, two from the Soviet Union, and an 1980s creature feature
Left Bank modernism, two from the Soviet Union, and an 1980s creature feature
First watch: Muriel ou le Temps d'un retour (1963, dir. Alain Resnais). Ghosts of wars past and present haunt a Boulogne uneasy with its own reconstruction. Delphine Seyrig stars as widow Hélène, whose life is upended by the return of a wartime lover claiming to have just returned from Algiers. 1/4
October 31, 2025 at 9:27 AM
First watch: Muriel ou le Temps d'un retour (1963, dir. Alain Resnais). Ghosts of wars past and present haunt a Boulogne uneasy with its own reconstruction. Delphine Seyrig stars as widow Hélène, whose life is upended by the return of a wartime lover claiming to have just returned from Algiers. 1/4
First watch: I am Cuba (1964). Soviet-backed propaganda film about the Cuban revolution, directed by Mikhail Kalatozov. An anthology in four main parts, it recalls Rossellini's Païsa (1946), in taking a "bird's eye" view of the conflict and its contexts, but with literally aerial perspectives. 1/3
October 30, 2025 at 9:38 AM
First watch: I am Cuba (1964). Soviet-backed propaganda film about the Cuban revolution, directed by Mikhail Kalatozov. An anthology in four main parts, it recalls Rossellini's Païsa (1946), in taking a "bird's eye" view of the conflict and its contexts, but with literally aerial perspectives. 1/3
First watch: The Ascent (1977, directed by Larisa Shepitko). Gripping, powerful drama about Soviet partisans fleeing Nazi troops in snowbound rural Belarus, on the Eastern Front of WWII. As with husband Elem Klimov's Come and See eight years after, a film of great intensity and lyricism. 1/3
October 28, 2025 at 9:28 AM
First watch: The Ascent (1977, directed by Larisa Shepitko). Gripping, powerful drama about Soviet partisans fleeing Nazi troops in snowbound rural Belarus, on the Eastern Front of WWII. As with husband Elem Klimov's Come and See eight years after, a film of great intensity and lyricism. 1/3
First watch: Dial M for Murder (1954). Although not as technically ambitious as Rope (1948), another adaptation of a crime play that served as a self-imposed confined setting for Hitchcock. Also more of a "howcatchem" than a "whodunit", it stars Ray Milland, Grace Kelly and Robert Cummings. 1/3
October 27, 2025 at 9:50 AM
First watch: Dial M for Murder (1954). Although not as technically ambitious as Rope (1948), another adaptation of a crime play that served as a self-imposed confined setting for Hitchcock. Also more of a "howcatchem" than a "whodunit", it stars Ray Milland, Grace Kelly and Robert Cummings. 1/3
Inspired by hearing about its making on a podcast: now (re)watching with my wife and daughter (who've never seen it!). It's probably been 30 years since I last saw this...
October 25, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Inspired by hearing about its making on a podcast: now (re)watching with my wife and daughter (who've never seen it!). It's probably been 30 years since I last saw this...
First watch: Poulet au vinaigre (1985, aka "Cop au vin"!). Not, despite the puntastic title, a comedy, but full of dark wit & sardonic detachment. When Inspecteur Lavardin (Jean Poiret) arrives about half way through to investigate a murder conspiracy in a small town, he seems respectable enough 1/2
October 25, 2025 at 7:19 AM
First watch: Poulet au vinaigre (1985, aka "Cop au vin"!). Not, despite the puntastic title, a comedy, but full of dark wit & sardonic detachment. When Inspecteur Lavardin (Jean Poiret) arrives about half way through to investigate a murder conspiracy in a small town, he seems respectable enough 1/2
First watch: The Spiral Staircase (1946). Robert Siodmak brings German expressionist visuals to this gothic-tinged proto-slasher about a killer who stalks women because of their disabilities. Cue Dorothy McGuire as Helen, who has been left mute since her parents died in a fire.
1/3
1/3
October 24, 2025 at 9:37 AM
First watch: The Spiral Staircase (1946). Robert Siodmak brings German expressionist visuals to this gothic-tinged proto-slasher about a killer who stalks women because of their disabilities. Cue Dorothy McGuire as Helen, who has been left mute since her parents died in a fire.
1/3
1/3
First watch: Et Dieu... Créa la Femme (And God Created Woman, 1956). Brigitte Bardot's international breakthrough, about the romantic fortunes of an inconstant young woman from Saint Tropez, directed by then-hubby Roger Vadim. 1/3
October 23, 2025 at 5:38 AM
First watch: Et Dieu... Créa la Femme (And God Created Woman, 1956). Brigitte Bardot's international breakthrough, about the romantic fortunes of an inconstant young woman from Saint Tropez, directed by then-hubby Roger Vadim. 1/3
Maurice Binder deputizes handsomely for Saul Bass on the psychedelic title sequence, while Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer team up again for the theme music (just as they did for Hepburn on Breakfast at Tiffany’s, which I saw for the first time last week). 2/4
October 22, 2025 at 10:21 AM
Maurice Binder deputizes handsomely for Saul Bass on the psychedelic title sequence, while Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer team up again for the theme music (just as they did for Hepburn on Breakfast at Tiffany’s, which I saw for the first time last week). 2/4
First watch: Charade (Stanley Donen, 1963). Often billed as the best Hitchcock film Hitchcock never directed, a romantic-comedy-thriller starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn that channels North By Northwest. Is it more than a sum of its parts? I think so, yes! 1/4
October 22, 2025 at 10:21 AM
First watch: Charade (Stanley Donen, 1963). Often billed as the best Hitchcock film Hitchcock never directed, a romantic-comedy-thriller starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn that channels North By Northwest. Is it more than a sum of its parts? I think so, yes! 1/4
First watch (in two sittings!): The Brutalist (dir. Brady Corbet, 2024). Adrien Brody stars as Hugarian-Jewish architect László Tóth, trying to rebuild his life in America after the concentration camps. Although it borrows from the biopic mode, it is entirely fictional. 1/4
October 21, 2025 at 8:29 AM
First watch (in two sittings!): The Brutalist (dir. Brady Corbet, 2024). Adrien Brody stars as Hugarian-Jewish architect László Tóth, trying to rebuild his life in America after the concentration camps. Although it borrows from the biopic mode, it is entirely fictional. 1/4
Due to my daughter's *repeated* refusal to admit that she is scared by the films I've shown her, we are now watching:
October 18, 2025 at 6:58 PM
Due to my daughter's *repeated* refusal to admit that she is scared by the films I've shown her, we are now watching: