Bright Lights Film Journal | Articles by Tom Sutpen

writers gone wild!
Keep up with Bright Lights between issues by visiting our companion blog, Bright Lights After Dark.

Tom Sutpen

When not writing about film, Tom Sutpen produces community television in the Greater Boston area and collects Jean Goldkette recordings.

Close to Home: The Films of Su Friedrich on DVD — Autobiography sometimes trumps art in these uneven works

The Reckless Art of Erich von Stroheim: Part One: The Pinnacle — "Like every other skilled fabulist on earth there would forever be a part of Stroheim that truly believed his own fantasies."

Cultural Equity: On the Documentary Lomax the Songhunter — "Every smallest branch of the human family at one time or another has carved its dreams out of the rock on which it has lived." (Alan Lomax)

Just Another Guy on the Lost Highway: Revisiting Two-Lane Blacktop — "It's not some metaphorical struggle between two mighty kings of the road. It's more like a self-deceiving ritual carried out by two of its prisoners."

Buried Alive: On Frederick Wiseman's Juvenile Court
"The great legal scholar Lenny Bruce once observed that
in the halls of justice the only justice is in the halls . . ."

Far from the Madding Multiplex: The Subtle Horror of The Innocents
Watkins' savaging of commodified culture remains disturbingly relevant

Distribute This! Privilege (Peter Watkins, 1967, Great Britain)
Watkins' savaging of commodified culture remains disturbingly relevant