Actor · 1932

Ellen Burstyn

5: briefs
13:00: average
65 min: in total

On film.briefs5

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

Martin Scorsese · 1974

Martin Scorsese’s 1974 film follows widow Alice Hyatt as she travels with her son from New Mexico to California, detouring through Arizona. Working first as a lounge singer, then a diner waitress, she navigates grief, economic precarity, and tentative new relationships. Ellen Burstyn won an Academy Award for her layered, unsentimental performance. The film avoids easy resolutions, favouring psychological fidelity and quiet observation over plot mechanics or stylistic flourish.

13:00

The King of Marvin Gardens

Bob Rafelson · 1972

The King of Marvin Gardens (1972) follows depressive Philadelphia radio host David Staebler as he visits his charismatic, scheming brother Jason in a decaying Atlantic City. Against the backdrop of soon-to-be-demolished hotels, Jason pitches a Hawaiian casino venture while tensions mount among the four adults sharing his suite. László Kovács’ muted cinematography and Bob Rafelson’s unhurried direction treat delusion as routine, not crisis — making this a film less about plot than about the weight of unfulfilled promise, both personal and architectural.

13:00

The Last Picture Show

Peter Bogdanovich · 1971

Peter Bogdanovich’s 1971 black-and-white coming-of-age drama follows two high school seniors in a dying Texas town between 1951 and 1952. Adapted from Larry McMurtry’s novel, it trades plot for atmosphere, using restrained performances, flat naturalistic lighting, and diegetic 1950s country music to evoke the slow erosion of community, certainty, and youth. Though praised for its supporting turns — Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman won Oscars — its structural looseness around the female lead and deliberate pacing divide viewers. It remains a landmark of American arthouse realism.

13:00

The Fountain

Darren Aronofsky · 2006

Darren Aronofsky’s 2006 film interweaves three timelines—a conquistador, a neurosurgeon, and a space traveller—all played by Hugh Jackman, bound to Rachel Weisz across centuries by love and loss. Shot on a Montreal soundstage with macro photography and a tightly controlled palette, it uses repetition, motif, and Clint Mansell’s score to explore mortality not as endpoint but as condition. Though commercially unsuccessful and critically divided, it has endured as a precise, austere, and emotionally resonant study of devotion in the face of time’s erosion.

13:00

Requiem for a Dream

Darren Aronofsky · 2000

Requiem for a Dream (2000), directed by Darren Aronofsky and adapted from Hubert Selby Jr.’s novel, traces four Brooklyn lives unravelling under addiction — to drugs, television, validation, and fantasy. Shot by Matthew Libatique and edited by Jay Rabinowitz with over 2,000 cuts, its visual and rhythmic intensity mirrors psychological disintegration. Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, and Marlon Wayans perform with physical and emotional extremity. Clint Mansell’s score reinforces the film’s oppressive momentum. Though lauded for its craft and emotional force, its schematic structure limits sociological depth. It remains a landmark of arthouse intensity — demanding, unrelenting, and formally singular.