Paul Verhoeven was once described as a one man Dutch film industry, a writer and director who cut his teeth in his homeland before making the successful transition to Hollywood and the mainstream. Early works were well received internationally on the award and festival circuits b... Read More »
The car, and more specifically, the act of driving is one of the most resonant existential metaphors in pop culture. People often make the mistake of thinking driving is about speed, but it isn’t, not really. Driving is about control, about being able to guide yourself, to escape... Read More »
Watching Nicolas Winding Refn’s 2008 film Bronson, about the man notoriously known as “Brittan’s Most Violent Inmate”, is fun because you get to see where some of Refn’s ideas for Drive (2011) came from and some of what informed lead actor Tom Hardy’s interpretation of Bane for T... Read More »
The last two films of the Pusher trilogy were written, directed, and produced by Nicolas Winding Refn in one year due to the box office failure of Fear X. Seeing as they were so rushed in the end, it’s quite surprising that Pusher 3 (I’m the Angel of Death) is what I consider the... Read More »
Significantly improving upon Pusher (1996), his first feature film—and first of the trilogy—Nicolas Winding Refn uses Pusher II (2004) to demonstrate his natural talent for storytelling, character development, and psychological exploration. While these elements are perceptible ... Read More »
In Refn’s first feature film, Pusher, he establishes a sensationalist style of unremitting violence through hand camera movements, close-ups, and saturated colours. As a result, Refn’s films have a highly close and personal feel to them; the characters, which are undeniably the m... Read More »
Nicholas Winding Refn is a master at marrying style and substance to the point where the line between them blurs completely. His films are about the way he shoots them and what that communicates in regards to the world of the film, and our own. His style is incredibly calculated ... Read More »
Nicolas Winding Refn’s tumultuous follow up to Pusher (1996), his provocative feature film debut, is a winding, pathological display of psychological draining. Exercising his formal aesthetic in the vein of mental turbulence, with incisive editing points sharpening up the express... Read More »
