Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > The Brothers Quay - David Edelstein (review date 5 May 1987)
The Brothers Quay - David Edelstein (review date 5 May 1987)
David Edelstein (review date 5 May 1987)
SOURCE: "Double Your Pleasure," in The Village Voice, Vol. XXXII, No. 18, May 5, 1987, p. 66.
[In the following positive review of The Brothers Quay, Edelstein describes scenes from the four films and comments on the theme of decay, a common element in several of the works.]
The Brothers Quay are 39-year-old American twins who live in London and make the damnedest little movies with puppets, primitive machines, and the occasional animal organ. For only a week, the Film Forum will introduce New York audiences to four of their films—74 intense, hypnotic minutes' worth. Their camera floats among wires, rickety scaffolding, Expressionist scenery; artifice is frankly acknowledged, even celebrated. The movements of the puppets are slightly jerky, as in the early work of Méliès or King Kong; elsewhere, the textures are squishy and pulsating. The Quays like decay. It's the combination of...
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- Introduction
- ∗Principal Works
-
Criticism
- Mark Le Fanu (essay date Spring 1984)
- Tony Rayns (review date June 1986)
- The Brothers Quay with Chris Petit (interview date June 1986)
- Julian Petley (review date June 1986)
- Raymond Durgnat (review date June 1986)
- Michael O'Pray (review date June 1986)
- Peter Greenaway (review date Summer 1986)
- Richard Combs (review date July 1986)
- Roger Noake (review date July 1986)
- Vincent Canby (review date 29 April 1987)
- David Edelstein (review date 5 May 1987)
- Amos Vogel (review date May-June 1987)
- Terrence Rafferty (essay date June 1987)
- Georgia Brown (review date 2 April 1991)
- Jonathan Romney (essay date March 1992)
- Jonathan Romney (review date May 1992)
- Denise Tilles (essay date January 1993)
- Michael Atkinson (essay date September-October 1994)
- The Brothers Quay with Ryan Deussing (interview date 9 February 1996)
- Stephen Holden (review date 13 March 1996)
- J. Hoberman (review date 19 March 1996)
- Further Reading
- Copyright
