Ronald Bergan
ronald.bergan
Articles by Ronald Bergan
Montgomery Clift: The Right Profile
Monday, 04 February 2013
Both on screen and off, Montgomery Clift was sensitive, hesitant, introspective, self-destructive and often tortured. A personality that expressed itself on film as if afraid of what the camera would... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Thessaloniki: Moving Pictures in the Cradle of Austerity
Sunday, 11 November 2012
Greece is in economic meltdown. Austerity is hitting most of the population very hard. Businesses are closing down. The amount of homeless has increased. There are strikes and huge anti-government... Read more... |
The Hitchcock Players: Anthony Perkins, Psycho
Monday, 20 August 2012
In Robert Bloch’s novel Psycho, Norman Bates was plump, balding, bespectacled and 40 years old, the physical antithesis of the lean, lanky and boyishly good-looking 28-year-old Anthony Perkins. ... Read more... |
The Hitchcock Players: Ivor Novello, The Lodger
Thursday, 09 August 2012
Whenever the name of Ivor Novello is mentioned, which is not often these days, the term “matinee idol” is inevitably appended. Novello, now best known as a songwriter, had already starred in nine... Read more... |
The Hitchcock Players: Herbert Marshall, Murder!
Sunday, 05 August 2012
The epithet "mellifluous" might have been invented to describe Herbert Marshall’s voice. It was lucky that sound came along at the time Marshall, after a prestigious stage career, entered films when... Read more... |
Opinion: Is Vertigo really the greatest ever film?
Saturday, 04 August 2012
The recent speculation as to whether Michael Phelps can be regarded as "the greatest Olympian" leads one to ponder the very notion of judging "greatness" hierarchically. If the only criterion for... Read more... |
theartsdesk Olympics: Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia!
Saturday, 21 July 2012
It was Lenin who realised early in the Russian Revolution that “of all the arts, film is for us the most important” and Hitler and Goebbels perceived the immense propaganda potential of the Olympics... Read more... |
Opinion: Why film stars should never play film stars
Wednesday, 11 April 2012
News that Nicole Kidman is to play Grace Kelly in a movie called Grace of Monaco convinces me that it is foredoomed. This time Kidman won’t have any prosthetics to help her resemble Grace Kelly, such... Read more... |
Vincente Minnelli: Celebrating Mr Hollywood
Monday, 02 April 2012
For most film buffs, the name of director Vincente Minnelli immediately recalls the quintessence of the MGM musical of the 1940s and 1950s - a world of fantasy, brilliant colours, stylish décor and... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Paris: The Oldest Film Star of All
Sunday, 29 January 2012
The news that work is to begin in February on a major renovation of the 122-year-old Eiffel Tower reminds us that no other monument in the world, including the Statue of Liberty, the Houses of... Read more... |
French Cancan: Jean Renoir in the Moulin Rouge
Saturday, 30 July 2011
When Jean Renoir returned to France at the end of 1953 after 13 years of exile, he felt as if he were beginning his career from scratch. His Hollywood films were not highly regarded, and neither The... Read more... |
The Battleship Potemkin Comes Out of the Closet
Saturday, 23 April 2011
When Sergei Eisenstein's film The Battleship Potemkin was first shown in Moscow in December 1925, just in time to commemorate the 1905 Revolution, the film played to half-empty theatres, because... Read more... |
