Warner Bros.' Last Stereoscopic Stand

On Warner’s stereoscopic systems in the 1950s, and some new 3-D restorations premiered at Il Cinema Ritrovato 2026. – EK

In the 1950s 3-D arrived with the loud bang announcing an immersive cinema — Natural Vision, Paravision, Metrovision, and other “visions” — that would supposedly end “flat” filmmaking, but went out with the faint hiss of a flat tire. It kept being revived, except that each time nobody could sustain it for more than a couple of years, the last revival coming in the early 2010s. In the meantime, while it seems destined never to become a true cinematic mainstay, the classics of 3-D cinema continue to enjoy a cult following whenever they can be screened in their original dual-35mm format or in digitally reproduced 3-D DCPs.

This programme (below) looks at some of the lesser-remembered 3-D output of Warner Bros that produced the most universally popular early 3-D films, House of Wax (1953). Warner soon developed its own stereoscopic system, WarnerVision – engineered by Albert W. Tondreau, Mike McGreal, and Fred Gage – with which the terrific western Hondo (1953) was shot. (I was lucky enough to see a double-projector screening of this at the Film on Film Festival at BFI Southbank, and I must say I prefer it to digital reproductions of the 3-D system.)

Warner was also responsible for producing some of the more artistic and less gimmicky 3-D films, such as Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder, released in 1954, just as the format was rapidly falling out of fashion by the end of the year. The two main directors represented here, Andre De Toth and Roy Del Ruth, not only have their names rhyme, but also their cinematic sensibility: unabashed shockers displaying a keen understanding of sets and movement.

"Fabrizio, That’s Enough!" – A Conversation with Guy Maddin

Photo © Valerio Greco

Below is the introduction I gave to welcome Guy Maddin on stage, followed by a video recording of our conversation, which you can watch below.

Set design reference photos for Wee Willie Winkie (John Ford, 1937)

https://cinearchitecture.tumblr.com/post/827732696355799040/set-design-reference-photos-for-wee-willie-winkie

Cinema at 33⅓ RPM: Movie Themes Interpreted by Jazz Musicians

A slightly different edit of a piece originally published in MUBI Notebook in June 2015. Click on each title for the YouTube links. — EK

Jazz has long demonstrated its capacity to borrow from various, sometimes contradictory sources in order to create something that transcends the original elements. Since the earliest days of jazz, it has been inspired by military and funeral marches; has stylishly interpreted popular songs; and even brought the classical intricacies of Wagner and Bartok into the domain of swinging brasses and reeds. This multiculturalism and eclecticism of jazz makes it akin to cinema which, in turn, has transformed pop culture motifs into something close to the sublime and mixed ‘high’ and ‘low’ artistic gestures to remarkable effect.

In the history of jazz, the evolution from ragtime or traditional tunes, to discovering the treasure trove of Broadway songs was fast and smooth. As for American cinema, the emergence of ‘talkies’ meant rediscovering Broadway, its stars and directors, and above all its musicals and their songs. In the 1930s, jazz became cinema's rival in extracting tunes from the American theatre and transforming them into immortal standards. Both film and jazz used popular songs as a structuring framework, around which band leaders, musicians, directors and choreographers could develop more sophisticated and occasionally daring ideas.

Just as the emergence of television began to make itself felt at picture houses across the States, where declining attendance figures reflected a shift in the culture, jazz experienced a similar deadlock which contributed to the decline of the big bands. The effects of the war for returning Americans overseas, and the new possibilities for enjoying entertainment in the home gave rise to very different strategies of survival: The film studios began to produce more sumptuous, glossy and costlier motion pictures to overshadow television, while jazz bands were downsized, becoming more intimate – or “indie”, if you like. Instead of big bands, modest outfits of three to six musicians was jazz’s answer to the times. In this respect, one might find the origins of John Cassavetes and 1960s independent cinema not only in Hollywood, but in the Coleman Hawkins Quartet.

Film review: Everybody Digs Bill Evans

Review published in the October issue of Sight & Sound under the title A Gentle Sonata of Loss. — EK

Three Suicides and an Album

Synopsis: 

At the height of his fame, tragedy strikes when jazz pianist Bill Evans loses his bassist, Scott LaFaro, in a car accident. Already battered by drug addiction, the devastated Evans seeks refuge with his family, struggling to piece both his life and himself back together.

The Hollywood Left and the Blacklist: A Chat With the Curator of Locarno’s Timely Retrospective for the Age of Trump & Co.

Dalton Trumbo (left) and John Howard Lawson campaigning before being sent to prison in 1950

This interview with me was conducted by Georg Szalai for The Hollywood Reporter. You can read Georg's intro here. — EK

Georg Szalai: Have you been working on this retrospective for Locarno for a long time, and how easy was the decision that the time was ripe for it?

Ehsan Khoshbakht: I had this project lined up for later because it needed more research, but suddenly it felt senseless to delay it any further—it’s about what’s happening right now. Even some of the terminology has come back into use. Just look at recent press releases from the White House. You’ll find phrases that sound like they come straight out of the McCarthyism playbook: “Radical Left Lunatics,” “subversive un-American,” and so on.

What’s especially interesting is that the Left, the Right, and even the center have all appropriated the language of that era for their own purposes. There’s a mix here of genuine confusion—often rooted in a limited understanding of the historical context—and a more deliberate effort to repurpose language for one’s own ends.

Rouge et noir : la gauche hollywoodienne et la liste noire

Traductions françaises des synopsis de films pour la rétrospective «Red & Black», Festival du film de Locarno 2026. – EK

A Viewer's Guide to the Locarno Film Festival's Hollywood Left and the Blacklist Retrospective

Body and Soul

Brief notes on all the titles to be screened in Locarno as part of the Red & Black retrospective. — EK

Debris, Heartbreak, Unhealed Wounds: The Legacy of the Hollywood Blacklist

The Hollywood 19

 

These questions were sent to me by email by the Italian critic Maurizio Porro. If I have understood correctly, he used parts of my responses in his Corriere della Sera article on the forthcoming Hollywood Blacklist retrospective that I have curated for the Locarno Film Festival. — EK

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Are there obvious points of contact between the titles?

They’re all connected like the branches of a tree. Some of those branches are revealed to be connected by this programme for the first time.

The most immediate connection is the central narrative, which traces the cinema of the radical and the left in Hollywood from the US entry into the Second World War and its alliance with the USSR through to the formation of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings for Hollywood, the blacklist that ensued, and eventually the gradual demise of this system of arbitrarily banning talent from working in the film and television industries.

These films are also connected by individuals—either in front of or behind the camera—who were targeted by the witch hunt. If you ask me why an Argentine film by a French director, such as Native Son, is in the programme, I would answer that the writer of the novel on which the film was based—the great Richard Wright—was also targeted during the McCarthy era. Unable to make the film in the US, it was produced in Argentina. Nobody dared to play the leading role, so Wright himself appeared in it. The programme therefore offers an expansive notion of the blacklist that even includes the jazz bandleader and clarinetist Artie Shaw. We will also screen one of his short films.

Like a Hunter at Night: Programming for Il Cinema Ritrovato

Screening of Guy Maddin's Careful at Sala Scorsese

 

I was interviewed by Spanish journalist David Pardillos Rodríguez for Infobae España via email. I share my responses here. — EK

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- Please introduce yourself to our readers who may not know you: what is your role, and what do you do for the festival? What is a typical day like for you as you prepare for this year’s edition?

Along with Gian Luca Farinelli, Cecilia Cenciarelli, and Mariann Lewinsky, I work as a co-director of Il Cinema Ritrovato, the annual film festival in Bologna dedicated to film history, preservation, and restoration. There is no “typical” day in what we do. Our work more closely resembles the struggles of a hunter at night. You go out and seek the game. Many nights you come home empty-handed. Some nights you come home with something you believe can feed a large family with a large appetite for essential cinema. And then there are those rare nights when you capture the tiger. It involves watching a huge number of films and trying to figure out how they can be arranged into meaningful juxtapositions and illuminating strands.