The Work

Feb 24, 2010 — Major Barbara: Stage to Screen It was one of the most improbable linkups in the history of either theater or cinema—as unlikely as Andrew Undershaft’s turning over his munitions empire to Adolphus Cusins, his not-quite-yet son-in-law (and newly declared “foundling”),...

Jan 26, 2010 — Today, most people’s knowledge of George Bernard Shaw doesn’t extend much further than his classic comedy Pygmalion. But the legendary playwright and theater critic (1856–1950) wrote more than sixty plays. In February, we at the Criterion Collection will do our part...

Jan 19, 2010 — A Belgian in New York It was in the 1970s, the first decade of her career, that Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman created the works that would define her. Informed as much by her brushes with the experimental film scene in...

Oct 25, 2009 — Costa-Gavras’s 1969 political assassination thriller Z appeared at the end of a decade of burgeoning cultural change and rampant paranoia. In the United States, this Algerian-French coproduction sparked a sensation, not just relaying the European political crisis but perfectly capturing...

Sep 22, 2009 — Abandoning the cinematic conventions and references that informed his previous works, Jean-Luc Godard’s explosive crime drama reaches new heights of spontaneity and lightning invention.

Jul 27, 2009 — We enter Roman Polanski’s harrowing Repulsion as if in the middle of the story, but it’s actually the beginning of the end. Polanski unceremoniously drops us into a beauty salon where a pampered matron takes to task our heroine, a...

May 13, 2009 — It doesn’t really come as a surprise that Chris Marker is a devoted inhabitant of the virtual world Second Life. After all, one could call the playful French filmmaker and multimedia artist’s kitty—and alter ego—Guillaume-en-Egypt a trailblazing avatar (when asked...

Apr 23, 2009 — This interview, conducted by Michael Henry, first appeared in the May 1978 issue of Positif.

Nov 23, 2008 — The possession of a real voice is always a marvel, an almost religious thing.

Jan 21, 2008 — Lindsay Anderson’s adaptation of David Storey’s novel is a clenched fist of a movie that follows a professional Rugby League player who instinctively channels feeling through physical aggression.