Cinema Ritrovato 2017 – review – PEOPLE ON SUNDAY (“Menschen am Sonntag,” Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer, 1930, Germany)

During the years of the Weimar Republic, German film production flourished. In 1929, a collective of filmmakers got together to make a film named People of Sunday, which has now acquired a legendary status among connoisseurs. Historically, the film remains somewhat of an anomaly; it was made as a reaction against the celebrated Expressionist and…

“Shut up and deal.” The ideological implications of the ending of Billy Wilder’s “The Apartment” (1960)

Films that are set around Christmas holidays are generally uneventful and commercial affairs that lean shamelessly towards traditionalism and conventionality. Here, there is an understanding between spectator and film that any tension that will be created during the film will be resolved absolutely, unquestionably and, in most cases, happily, by the time that the film…