Jeremy Purves

Only Lovers Left Alive (Jarmusch, 2013)

“For rhythm and harmony penetrate deeply into the mind and have a most powerful effect on it, and if education is good, bring balance and fairness, if it is bad, the reverse.” – Plato “It is part of the business of the critic to preserve tradition – where a good tradition exists. It is part […]

Jeremy Purves

The Immigrant (Gray, 2013)

“The waters of the harbor were translucent and aquamarine; they ran thick with shards of ice and white islands as big as polar bears. Ellis Island lay in the distance, its Byzantine domes and blood-red roofs glowing the morning sunshine … Having passed through already, I knew the power of the Island and feared that […]

Jeremy Purves

Frances Ha (Baumbach, 2012)

“As individuals, we find that our development depends upon the people whom we meet in the course of our lives.  (These people include the authors whose books we read, and characters in works of fiction and history.)  The benefit of these meetings is due as much to the differences as to the resemblances; to the […]

Jeremy Purves

Black Mirror (Brooker/Channel 4)

“As we contemplate the world converted into a huge machine and managed by engineers, we gradually grow aware of its lack of meaning, and of its emptiness of human value; the soul is stifled in this glorification of mechanical efficiency.  And then we begin to feel the weakness of such a creed when confronted by […]