Film

The Italian film director died last week at the age of 67. Film critic Stephen Schiff says that Leone's movies had a unique symbolism and vision of the American West that only an outsider could have imagined.

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz says that some composers elevate film scores, including Bernard Hermann, who wrote the music for several Alfred Hitchcock movies. A new collection of those compositions is now out on CD.

Jazz critic KEVIN WHITEHEAD reviews a reissue of a MILES DAVIS album that was originally the soundtrack for Louis Malle's first feature film.

Critic-at-large Laurie Stone recently attended the Lincoln Center's celebration of Hollywood star Bette Davis, who is now 81. The gala included a series of film clips which, according to Stone, highlighted the power, confidence, and humanity of Davis's performances.

Hurt stars in the new film Scandal, about the Profumo sex scandal of the 1960s. He also portrayed Joseph Merrick in David Lynch's The Elephant Man. He joins Fresh Air to discuss how he fully inhabits his characters, and how his early life led him to acting.

Film critic Stephen Schiff says the new film, based on W.P. Kinsella's baseball-themed novel Shoeless Joe, is designed to make men cry, while still preserving their masculinity. It's skillfully made and acted, but Schiff thinks Field of Dreams is sappy and, ultimately, pointless.

Winfield won an Academy Award for his role in Sounders, and is a featured actor in the television show Wiseguy. He joins Fresh Air to talk about his career to date, and his involvement with black arts and civil rights movements.

Part 2 of the Fresh Air interview with Bob Balaban. He talks about the kinds of roles he played early in his career, and his show business lineage: his grandfather was a movie producer; his father helped operate a movie theater chain; and one of his uncles was president of Paramount.

Part one of the Fresh Air interview with Bob Balaban. He made his directorial debut with Parents, about a suburban family's dark secret. As an actor, he starred in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Absence of Malice.

Part 2 of the Fresh Air interview. Crowe talks about how, at 22, he posed as a high school student to research his movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High. He says youth culture had already changed drastically in the four years since he had graduated, especially with rise of Reagan youth.

Film critic Stephen Schiff reviews Cameron Crowe's directorial debut, about a lovestruck high school graduate, the beautiful overachiever he desires, and her doting father. Schiff says the plot is remarkably similar to The Graduate -- only Say Anything is the better movie.

Part I of the Fresh Air interview with Cameron Crowe. His new movie, Say Anything, is about a young man coming to terms with adult love. The film is Crowe's directorial debut.

Ken Tucker reviews the home video release of I Wanna Hold Your Hand, about a group of teenage Beatles fans in New Jersey. The film, directed by Robert Zemeckis, was a commercial fop, but Tucker, who says it's insightful without indulging in cliches, hopes it will find a new audience on tape.

26-year-old Daniel Waters wrote the new black comedy Heathers, about high school cliques and teenage suicide. He joins Fresh Air to discuss the thinking behind his macabre satire.

Film critic Stephen Schiff says that Louis Malle's Murmur of the Heart was overshadowed by the string of exceptional movies also released in 1971. The film is shocking in its sexuality and subtlety.

Film mogul Samuel Goldwyn's son gave permission to A. Scott Berg to write the movie producer's biography. Berg says the elder Goldwyn entered the United States illegally, and later built himself by working at a glove factory before helping develop the studio system.

Critic Ken Tucker reviews the home video release of The Great Ziegfeld, a biopic about the famed impresario. The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture, an honor Tucker says was undeserved. Yet the film is fun, despite some slow moments, and paints a clear picture of a bygone era of of Hollywood.

Film critic Stephen Schiff admits he's instantly charmed by movies about unfamiliar worlds. He says the new road movie Powwow Highway, about two American Indians confronting the development of tribal lands, has promise, but is ineptly written and directed. But, somehow, Schiff didn't mind watching it.

Taylor has cast over fifty films to date. Early in her career, she formed a professional relationship with Woody Allen, and has worked on sixteen of his movies.

Film critic Stephen Schiff hoped that the age of the teen comedy was over -- but he was impressed by Heathers, which captures the emotional intensity of high school life.