The Kingdom of Shadows

This site has two goals. I imagined the site acting as a personal card catalogue, providing notes on all the films I have seen, and a structured way for someone who is interested in cinema to learn about different ways to watch films, and different things one can get out of films. The second, slightly more ambitious goal, is to provide a framework for presenting my understanding of the concept of culture. The notes on each film are going to focus on cross referencing thematic patterns between several different films, and I will be slowly developing sister sites based on literature, theater, music and the fine arts, that will also be connected to the notes on this site (and vice versa). My goal is to present films, and works of art in general, not as texts which we slip into and slip out of, but rather as objects as interrelated ideas, that reference the world we live in.

I intend to provide notes to a new film every day of variable length, and a "What is Cinema" posting every week. The "What is Cinema" postings will provide short thoughts on the nature of the medium, and its relationship to life, culture, etc.. I will also be developing thematic lists as I go along, that will look a certain types of films from a different angle then most any other review site. This will be my main project in the beginning, and I hope a few people will use the lists for an online rental queue.

Navigating the site:

The sites navigation is rather self-explanatory. On the right you see a list of index's, and they will take you to lists of films. Since currently the site is rather small I would suggest at this time sticking to the thematic index and the recent posts list right below it. I began posting content on Jan. 21, 2007, all posts archived prior to that are indexes.