Bonnie Greer
24 July 2024
How to know when it's time to go
It is a great virtue, and a great gift as well, to know when to stop. Especially when you’re at the top
Read the full article17 July 2024
The conundrum of shooting assassination movies
The cinema looks at the clash of realities that is the US – and makes movies out of it
Read the full article10 July 2024
How The Citadel changed history
King Vidor’s film helped put Labour into government
Read the full article03 July 2024
Why Wilson was one of the most boring films in cinema history
It was so dull that Churchill made his excuses and went to bed in the middle of it – even though it was screened especially for him
Read the full article26 June 2024
Why it was RIP for RP
Received Pronunciation was the epicentre of how you had to talk in British plays. Then a play called Look Back in Anger by John Osborne arrived
Read the full article19 June 2024
Monsters are one of the conundrums of great art
A person considered to be a kind of sexual demon vis-a-vis his actors male and female can also make beautiful, great films
Read the full article12 June 2024
Audrey Hepburn, the famine survivor who lit up the screen
Hepburn had come to know early on that delicate thread between life and death. And that she had survived
Read the full article05 June 2024
Jack Cardiff, a poet of the cinema
The cinematographer not only understood what a camera is meant to do, he visually understood what cinema should do
Read the full article29 May 2024
Cinematic paradoxes
Many actors, in real life, are the opposite of who they portray or seem to be
Read the full article26 May 2024
Vote Gaza, get Trump
Of course American students have the right to protest over Gaza. But what happens as a result may put Donald Trump back in the White House
Read the full article22 May 2024
French cinema in wartime
In her elusive beauty and skill, Arletty was the rival to Garbo
Read the full article15 May 2024
The films which caught the times of 1968
In 1968, three films caught the times in different ways. And they all starred women
Read the full article08 May 2024
High Noon was a portal for the new cinema to come
Fred Zinnemann’s classic Western is full of tired, scared, cynical people. In that, it is like a Godard or a Cassavetes
Read the full article01 May 2024
Jean Harlow always said what needed to be said
There was always something vulnerable about her, something half-said, the rest buried somewhere deep and inaccessible
Read the full article24 April 2024
Bonnie Greer’s Vintage: How Roberto Rossellini gave us the real Rome
Quo Vadis is fun but Rossellini's neorealism showed us Rome as it was
Read the full article17 April 2024
Bonnie Greer’s Vintage: Orson Welles would have loved the trial of Trump
Both Welles and Frank Capra were masters of portraying the crooked side of the American Dream
Read the full article10 April 2024
Bonnie Greer’s Vintage: Joseph L Mankiewicz
Joe gave women agency, even if they were wearing an apron; even if they were frightened about losing a man
Read the full article03 April 2024
Bonnie Greer’s Vintage: Gregg Toland
One shot tells you everything about this immortal cinematographer
Read the full article20 March 2024
Bonnie Greer’s Vintage: Stereotypes
Vintage cinema abounds with stereotypes, and it is the hardest element of the genre to watch
Read the full article19 March 2024
Badenoch’s trivialising of racism may make her Tory leader. But at what cost?
The Tories’ response to Frank Hester’s racist comments must signal a turning point for the country
Read the full article13 March 2024
Bonnie Greer’s Vintage: Frank Capra
A Frank Capra picture always embodied what Abraham Lincoln appealed to in US citizens: “The better angels of our nature”
Read the full article06 March 2024
Bonnie Greer’s Vintage: Fred Astaire
In the Top Hat dance sequence we see a master dancer at the top of his game
Read the full article28 February 2024
Bonnie Greer’s Vintage: Garbo and Poitier
The Face is the real storyteller in vintage, and the close-up its greatest tool
Read the full article21 February 2024
Bonnie Greer’s Vintage: Billy Wilder and the spirit of Weimar
Beneath Weimar, beneath that endangered republic, was always the sense that life was fleeting
Read the full article14 February 2024
The enduring lesson of All the King’s Men
Robert Rossen’s classic is a reminder to Americans that dictators don’t work for the people – they use them as a tool
Read the full article07 February 2024
The beauty and genius of Cary Grant
There is no question in my mind that Grant is the greatest film actor of all time
Read the full article31 January 2024
How four Brits unleashed America’s hidden anarchy, 60 years ago
The Beatles gave young Americans gold standard permission to be different from their parents
Read the full article24 January 2024
Silos of hierarchy are holding Britain back
The House of Lords, where real monarchy lies, must be abolished
Read the full article17 January 2024
America’s belief in the ‘inside job’ will put Trump back inside the Oval Office
Robert Redford portrayal in Three days of the Condor is eerily similar to Trump's contemporary success
Read the full article10 January 2024
I dislike everything Badenoch says.. but I’d still like to see her lead the Tories
Opposing right-wing politicians of colour runs the risk of entering a dangerous world of contradiction and nuance
Read the full article03 January 2024
Just stop the right’s defunding of art, and culture will stop selling itself to oil
Britain needs a government that doesn’t shy away from culture and art
Read the full article20 December 2023
Milei and Maduro, riders on a storm that’s coming from the south
The populist leaders of Argentina and Venezuela fly under the radar in the northern hemisphere, but the threat they pose is very real
Read the full article