Desire as a Postcard: Michael Mann’s Cinema and the Postmodern Male Subject
In a world in which the space of the city, once peremptorily defined by its lights and shadows, has been transformed into a reflection of itself devoid of identity, an[…]
Category: Artists
The Haptic Screen: A Phenomenology of Modern Auteurism from Christopher Nolan to Charlotte Wells
This essay attempts to map a “haptic geography” of contemporary cinema, exploring how directors like Christopher Nolan, Bong Joon-ho, Denis Villeneuve, Paul Thomas Anderson, Céline Sciamma, Charlotte Wells, and Yorgos[…]
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Directors · Satire · Scandinavian Cinema
You’ll All be Crying by the End, Ha! The Question of Sincerity in Breaking the Waves
Our prevailing moviemaking ethos calls for emotion to be tempered through a kind of ebb and flow structure, for an emotion to be slowly built toward and quickly moved away[…]
Counterculture · Profiles · Writers & Critics
Carole Eastman: Rediscovering a Hollywood Maverick
Judging from the total lack of information on screenwriter Adrien Joyce (Carole Eastman), Academy Award nominee for her original story and screenplay of Five Easy Pieces, I could have concluded[…]
Artists · Sex & Relationships · TV & Streaming · TV series
The Radical (Dis)Honesty of Caveh Zahedi’s The Show About the Show
“Even without him, it’s still about him.” * * * Filmmaker Caveh Zahedi calls his series The Show About the Show (2015 – 2025) radically honest. Arguably, he pays the[…]
Cinematographers · Erotica · Photographers
A Forgotten Catalyst of Cinematography: Paul Outerbridge and the Triggers of Detachment
Cinematographers usually frame influence through cinema and painting – Vittorio Storaro citing Caravaggio, Roger Deakins invoking Johannes Vermeer, Conrad Hall recreating Edward Hopper’s lonesome framing – yet many of the compositional systems they use today were first stabilized[…]
Counterculture · Directors · Exploitation & Erotica · Fairy Tale · Indies · Sex & Relationships
Sacred Without Symbol: Walerian Borowczyk and the Canon’s Fear of the Erotic
Even in the age of reevaluation, Borowczyk remains a problem critics would rather sidestep than solve. His films don’t fit the revival mold. They can’t be easily slotted into “elevated”[…]
Actors & Personalities · Comedy · Screwball Comedy
Jane Palmer’s Gentle Anarchy: Lady in a Jam (1942) and the Lost Liberty of Screwball Comedy
In a contemporary landscape populated by often-faltering comedies – films that try desperately to be clever only to end up feeling heavy – this 1942 picture recalls an elementary truth:[…]
Activist & Political · Class System · Directors · Italian Cinema
Closing with the Past: Marco Bellocchio’s Cinema and the Movement of History
Even after the radical shift in register with his collaboration with Massimo Fagioli, everything still holds up: the essence of historical struggle remains the true core of Bellocchio’s cinema, whether[…]
Counterculture · Crime · Cult Cinema · Directors · Drama · Satire
The Kubrick Production: How Stanley Kubrick Stage-Managed Reality
Every aspect of his professional life was stage-managed with the same precision he brought to a tracking shot. The results were remarkable. Total artistic control achieved at a young age.[…]
Activist & Political · Counterculture · Crime · Drama · Urban Conflict · Writers & Critics
One Battle After Another: On the Movie, the Critics, and the Moment
For a popular entertainment, One Battle is ultimately hopeful but not pandering. Viewers do not leave the theater with the spoon-fed feel-good reassurances offered by a Rocky or a Star[…]
Festivals & Awards · Film Culture · Film History · Programmers · Silents
Silent Screens, Digital Dreams: Experiencing Pordenone Online
The online program emphasizes this living quality of film history. Each restoration carries its own provenance, its own narrative of survival. * * * October finds audience viewing habits leaning[…]
Directors · Film Culture · Film History · Film Studies · Memoir · Writers & Critics
A Cinephile’s Paradise: The Quirky Education of a Film Scholar – Joseph McBride, in conversation with Danny Peary
Joseph McBride, filmed in 1970, is taking notes on his wrist, a habit he picked up while reviewing films, in his role as the critic and historian Mister Pister in[…]
Activist & Political · Directors · Italian Cinema · LGBT & Queer
From Gospel to Grotesque: The Cinema of Pier Paolo Pasolini
Pasolini is in the canon – but only as a statue, not a voice. His name appears in film textbooks, his films screen at retrospectives, and Salò gets trotted out[…]
Directors · Drama · French Cinema · Nouvelle Vague
Games of Logic and Longing: The Quiet Radicalism of Éric Rohmer
In an age of clickbait politics and algorithmic attention spans, there’s something quietly revolutionary about refusing to manufacture drama. Rohmer’s refusal to manipulate emotion – to cue violins or insert[…]
Drama · Essays · Film Crews · Hollywood · News · Production · Production History · Stuntwork
The Silver Screen Is Rusting: Why Rust Can’t Happen Again
Even if Rust is defined as professional by its crew, the danger that allows a crew member to die cannot coexist with the description of professional. If that is professional,[…]
Comedy · Directors · Indies · Interviews · Thrillers & Action
Joel Potrykus talks Vulcanizadora, Being “Really Immature,” and What He Thinks Hell Is Like
I love it when someone just absolutely shoves the vision down your throat. * * * Vulcanizadora, Joel Potrykus’ fifth feature film, hit the festival circuit last spring with a[…]
Directors · Drama · Religion & Spirituality
The Secret of Creativity: The Inspirations of Paul Schrader’s First Reformed
“That’s the secret of creativity. You have to steal around. If you keep going back to that same 7-Eleven, they’re going to catch you. So you go over to the[…]
Directors · Essays · Experimental & Underground · French Cinema
Forever Alex: Leos Carax’s It’s Not Me (C’est pas moi, 2024)
Carax suggests that the constant availability of images as immaterial streams – reduced to binary code and accessible through handheld devices – has diminished their impact. One of the film’s[…]
Actors & Personalities · Drama · Westerns · Women in Film
Tea in Monument Valley: On Vera Miles and The Searchers
An excerpt from Vera Miles: The Hitchcock Blonde Who Got Away, to be released March 25 by University Press of Kentucky, exploring Miles’s impressive career and her relationships with the[…]
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