Tricks

Mar 15, 2016 — Set during the height of McCarthy-era paranoia and arriving in 1962, in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis, John Frankenheimer’s high-anxiety Communist conspiracy thriller tapped into the darkest fears of Cold War America.

Feb 9, 2016 — Jan Troell’s narration of one Swedish couple’s arduous journey to America portrays the migratory quality of marriage—of “finding that you think of this person who is not you, or this place that is not the land of your birth, as...

May 1, 2015 — In his first feature, Jean-Pierre Melville found subtly radical ways to adapt Vercors's underground French novel about quiet resistance against the German occupation.

Jan 13, 2015 — Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s characters play an endlessly layered game of dress-up in this tale of sadomasochistic love.

Nov 4, 2014 — In cinema history, there truly is no gag like a Tati gag.

Oct 29, 2014 — George Sluizer’s singularly unsettling work of psychological terror is a model of lucid craftsmanship.

Oct 21, 2014 — There were plenty of advantages to living in Paris in the early 1970s, especially if one was a movie buff with time on one’s hands. The Parisian film world is relatively small, and simply being on the fringes of it...

Oct 2, 2014 — The following is a chapter on The Innocents from cinematographer Freddie Francis’s memoir, The Straight Story from “Moby Dick” to “Glory.” It is reproduced here courtesy of Scarecrow Press. The last picture I worked on as a cinematographer in my...

Jul 25, 2014 — Erik Skjoldbjærg’s sun-drenched noir follows a detective trying to conceal his amoral actions amid unforgiving daylight.

Jul 15, 2014 — Among the brainiest of all horror movies, David Cronenberg’s film goes beyond shock to investigate a disturbing world of psychic mutation.