Personal statement:
10 Cinematic Epiphanies
1. Reading Kael's Review of Last Tango in Paris
2. Seeing McCabe and Mrs. Miller and realizing what films could be and do.
3. Coming home from Young Adam and understanding that earnest, competent, intelligent movies can still be flops.
4. Writing my review of Son Frere and grasping that brilliant movies can be disconsolate and devastating. Or maybe it was Leaving Las Vegas.
5. Reading John Simon's review of Last Tango in Paris and realizing intelligent doesn't necessarily mean accurate or fair.
6. Listening to people in my film class rave over Amadeus and rolling my eyes.
7. Watching a family walk out of Hearts and Minds when I was 16.
8. Reading a review of 9 1/2 Weeks by Roger Ebert and thinking that sometimes you can try too hard to like a movie.
9. Hearing couples argue as they were leaving The Accused (1988: Jodie Foster and Kelly MCGillis) .
10. Ed Luter, a teacher at Richland College in Dallas, Texas, taught me all about Semiotic Encoding. I remember catching on to a bit of subtext in the original version of Cape Fear and nearly falling on my ass.