Category Archives: Art Reviews and Articles

[Film: The Merchant of Venice, Michael Radford, 2004]
Remakes are Not your Enemy:

Analyzing a Scene from Michael Radford’s Film Version of The Merchant of Venice

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Introduction:

Antonio Reproaching Shylock - The Merchant of Venice - Michael Radford, William Shakespeare - 2004 court scene analysisIn an era when we lament the fact that the remake, the sequel, and the reboot have come to dominate the media landscape, it can be easy to forget that older forms of art (in particular, theatre) used to survive exclusively through their continual reinterpretation and re-presentation. Since his death, William Shakespeare has arguably garnered more of such ‘remakes’ and ‘reboots’ than any other artist, yet there are still great, interesting, and even somehow new versions of his works every year, on the stage and on the screen.

It is worth pointing out, then, that a remake or reboot is only bad if it adds nothing new to the original work and does not present an interesting version of the original work. And if that seems like a tired point to you, then I would like to make that case in a new way (a remake of my own, as it were) by zeroing in on one of Al Pacino’s scenes from Michael Radford’s film version of The Merchant of Venice, and discussing why it works so well as a new presentation of older material.

The nature of this article is such that it requires spoiling basic plot details of The Merchant of Venice, so you should only continue reading after this paragraph if you either do not mind spoilers or have already seen the film (or read the play, or seen a staging, etc.).

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[Film: The Merchant of Venice, Michael Radford, 2004]
Remakes are Not your Enemy:

Analyzing a Scene from Michael Radford’s Film Version of The Merchant of Venice

 was last modified: September 9th, 2024 by Daniel Podgorski

[Game: Dead Space, EA Redwood Shores, 2008]
AAA Horror that Works:

How the Original Dead Space Maintains a Tense Atmosphere

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Introduction:

For those of you who didn’t have enough horror over the Halloween weekend, I recommend checking out a great game which just turned seven years old, Dead Space. I decided that Your Mid-week Mission series, which is now two months old, is long overdue for something besides a 2-D, pixel art, indie PC game (as much as I obviously enjoy those). So I’m getting about as far from that as possible with this article about a AAA action horror third-person shooter.

In particular, this article will explore what makes Dead Space succeed as a horror game, which is a genre with a disproportionate number of failures. I intend to encourage any fans of the horror or third-person shooter genres to play the first part of the Dead Space trilogy as soon as possible, so let’s get to why.

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[Game: Dead Space, EA Redwood Shores, 2008]
AAA Horror that Works:

How the Original Dead Space Maintains a Tense Atmosphere

 was last modified: November 22nd, 2025 by Daniel Podgorski

[Work: Beowulf, (Author Unknown), c. 700-1000]
Ending Unending Feuds:

The Portent of Beowulf‘s Historicization of Violent Conflict

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Introduction:

Beowulf first page - history, violence, feuds, cyclesIt has long been a clichéd truism that history is written by the victors; this assertion is often paired with the acknowledgment that a history written by those who lost major conflicts or were subjugated would be starkly different. The ubiquity of such sentiments clearly declares the paramount nature of considering perspective in approaching any historical account, whether that work is presented as non-fiction or fiction.

In the Old English verse work Beowulf, the question of perspective can be considered within the literary context of looking at speaker, syntax, and diction. One is meant, in light of the aforementioned modern sentiment, to look both at what that speaker aims to communicate about the events and individuals as well as at how and why the communication is thus structured.

That speaker, in historicizing the Geatish-Swedish Wars, actively obfuscates chronology, emphasizing the cyclical, muddy, and endless nature of feuding conflict so as to present the impotence of war, the tragedy of revenge, and the dependence of the two on a preoccupation with the past.

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[Work: Beowulf, (Author Unknown), c. 700-1000]
Ending Unending Feuds:

The Portent of Beowulf‘s Historicization of Violent Conflict

 was last modified: March 26th, 2020 by Daniel Podgorski

[Topics: Empiricism, Pragmatism, Rationalism]
Epistemological Compromise:

On the Unintuitive (yet Vital) Compatibility of Rationalism and Empiricism

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Introduction:

David Hume Sketch by M.R.P. - infallible foreknowledge - free will - determinism

Caricature Sketch by M.R.P.

This will be another post about two apparent philosophical opposites. And just like my considerations of moral realism and anti-realism; consequentialism and deontology; and free will and determinism, I will be arguing that there is to some degree a worthwhile common ground on which philosophers can safely tread. As you’ve probably noticed, the apparent opposition for this article is that between two topics in epistemology (the study of knowledge), which both confront the question of knowledge’s basis and origin: rationalism and empiricism.

Roughly speaking, rationalists hold that some or all of our knowledge is known independent of and prior to sense experience, whereas empiricists hold that some or all of our knowledge comes solely from sense experience. For a far-reaching and specific introduction to these topics in epistemology, see this encyclopedia entry; for my (hopefully somewhat pithier) thoughts on these topics, read on.

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[Topics: Empiricism, Pragmatism, Rationalism]
Epistemological Compromise:

On the Unintuitive (yet Vital) Compatibility of Rationalism and Empiricism

 was last modified: December 5th, 2022 by Daniel Podgorski

[Film: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Steven Spielberg, 1977]
Spielberg Before the Sentiment:

Discord and Discovery in Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind

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Introduction:

Steven Spielberg - Close Encounters of the Third Kind - epistemology, knowledgeIn the study of film, the group ready to identify Steven Spielberg as an immensely influential, clever, and popular director, but not a particularly artistic filmmaker, is no minority. The reasons for this are not all that difficult to figure out, after you are familiar with a large number of his films.

Spielberg’s dramas are often overwhelmingly saccharine; his action films often sacrifice tension to safety and predictability; his historical films play loose with the facts and the tone, often in the interest of either the aforementioned sentimentality or else American nationalism; and many of his films across all genres rely on reductive, trite moralizing. A prime example of many of these issues is fan-favorite Saving Private Ryan, which represents at times a relentless, graphic, unsentimental portrait of armed conflict, but which is interspersed with and ends with a clarification that the film loves a good soldier, loves America, and loves any war America should happen to fight.

Praising and Criticizing Spielberg:

With all that stated and recognized, however, I do not count myself among those who dismiss Spielberg as a creator of blockbusters, and nothing more. Even if I would agree that many of his films (even many of his most popular films) do not stand up well under scrutiny, I think that some of his films do pass beyond the (unjustly maligned) category of entertainment, and into the hallowed category of art.
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[Film: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Steven Spielberg, 1977]
Spielberg Before the Sentiment:

Discord and Discovery in Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind

 was last modified: October 10th, 2022 by Daniel Podgorski