Water and Power

Nov 11, 2013 — A boldly silent film in the talkie era, Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece has a grace that has never been equaled.

Sep 24, 2013 — Marketed as a movie of volcanic passion, Roberto Rossellini’s first film with Ingrid Bergman is rather a pragmatic take on the negotiations of matrimony.

Jul 23, 2013 — Asked by French journalists in a 2001 interview what recent films he most admired, Brian De Palma named Ang Lee’s 1997 The Ice Storm. It was surprising to hear one of the leaders of a filmmaking revolution that aimed at...

Feb 27, 2013 — More than eighty films into his career, Kenji Mizoguchi made this emotionally devastating masterpiece, from a story by Ogai Mori.

Oct 30, 2012 — All of them actors? Nearly everyone wears a mask in Roman Polanski’s devilishly clever work of horror.

Mar 26, 2012 — A Night to Remember, the 1958 British film adaptation of Walter Lord’s 1955 book about the brief life and agonizing death of the Titanic, has proven unsinkable. With its Olympian yet unfailingly life-size view of the disaster that scuttled illusions...

Mar 21, 2012 — The famed collaboration between director Mikhail Kalatozov and cinematographer Sergei Urusevsky, which, with its distinctive combination of effective melodrama and a wild, powerful visual style, helped make Kalatozov the most successful Soviet cinematic export of his generation, in fact spanned...

Jul 27, 2010 — Americans got The Secret of the Grain. In France, they got La graine et le mulet (The Grain and the Mullet)—basically, “Couscous and Fish.” Depending on whose table you eat dinner at, the French title can seem as elemental as...

Nov 2, 2009 — The following, written in 1986, is from the first treatment for Wings of Desire. And we, spectators always, everywhere,looking at, never out of, everything!—Rilke, “The Eighth Elegy” At first it’s not possible to describe anything beyond a wish or a...