The Current
A magazine of film culture past and present, with new articles, interviews, and videos published every day
Recent Articles
Silent Rapture in Winston-Salem
One of the greatest of all silent films screens at a/perture cinema this Saturday, with a presentation by a Wake Forest University religious-studies professor.
Is Fassbinder’s Working-Class TV Drama Effective as Political Art?
A public-television commission intended to raise class consciousness, Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day inspired heated debates about its political orientation.
Ping Zhu Harnesses the Wild Energy of Tampopo
With her thick, flowing brushstrokes and eccentric sensibility, illustrator Ping Zhu captured the buoyant flavor of Juzo Itami’s “ramen western.”
Shampoo: First as Farce
Seen as a light-hearted farce upon its release, this star-studded comedy by Hal Ashby stands as one of Hollywood’s most prescient portraits of post-Watergate politics.
John Grant’s Top 10
John Grant is an Iceland-based musician whose most recent album, Love Is Magic, is now available via Partisan Records.
The Commentary That Made Home-Video History
Film historian Ronald Haver breaks down one of classic Hollywood’s most iconic action sequences in this clip from our laserdisc release of King Kong.
Crisis and A Ship to India: Bergman in the Making
Two early works by Ingmar Bergman show the Swedish master grappling with the conventions of melodrama, which would go on to influence his later explorations of spiritual torment.
A Pair of Perverse Shockers, Newly Restored
If you’re in the mood for some auteurist horror, be sure to catch Marco Bellocchio’s Fists in the Pocket and Brian De Palma’s Sisters in New York this week.
What Damien Chazelle Learned from Maurice Pialat’s Stumbled-Upon Cinema
The Oscar-winning director of La La Land explains how an early encounter with À nos amours taught him to mix spontaneity and surprise into his own highly stylized worlds.
Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day: The Utopia Channel
In a world vulnerable to authoritarianism, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s television epic stands as an example of how an artist can speak to a broad audience about revolutionary politics.
An Art-House Experience at the Foot of the Rockies
A vibrant movie theater in the college town of Missoula, Montana, takes the spotlight in the Criterion Channel series Art-House America.
Video
Spotlight
Under the Influence
In this ongoing series of videos, we invite contemporary filmmakers to discuss movies that have had a lasting impact on their work.
