The Duke of Burgundy
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2015 in Ten Double Features
Every cinephile knows the curatorial bliss of a great double feature. A flexing of film nerd muscles while sitting on your ass for three to five hours, a double bill brings two films into dialogue with one another based on style, subject, theme, or whatever connective tissue you can find. Double features, like well-sequenced mixtapes, require the instincts of a programmer. Thanks to streaming, digital rentals, and the perennial ease of sneaking into a second film at your local AMC, the work of making a double bill happen has never been easier. Below, I rally through 10 great double features from […]
by Soheil Rezayazdi on Jan 5, 2016 -
“Someone Always Has to Compromise”: Peter Strickland on The Duke of Burgundy
With The Duke of Burgundy, the cinephilic English director Peter Strickland has made his third — and perhaps best — film to playfully riff on genre conventions. What begins as a bloodless tale of mistress and maid blossoms into a poignant, cyclical exploration of a couple’s inability to compromise on sexual predilections. Best experienced with an uninitiated pair of eyes, The Duke of Burgundy is an increasingly rare film that, for all its reflexive homages and aural intricacies, never forgoes substance for style. Filmmaker spoke to Strickland about scripting tone, genre aesthetics, and the ways in which his film aims to […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Jan 22, 2015 -
Trailer Watch: Peter Strickland’s The Duke of Burgundy
One of my would-be favorites of 2014 — it comes out next month — finally has a trailer. The Duke of Burgundy, Peter Strickland’s follow-up to the giallo homage Berberian Sound Studio, displays some of the best uses of repetition since Jacques Rivette. What begins as a fetishistic case of master and servant becomes increasingly murky as roles and hierarchy are blurred, then challenged. It’s a viewing experience that handily rewards the uninitiated so I won’t say much more, just that Sundance Selects will release it on January 23, and you’d do best to see it on a wide screen with surround sound.
by Sarah Salovaara on Dec 17, 2014
