Patterns

Aug 30, 2016 — Set in nineteenth-century Macao, Orson Welles’s adaptation of a classic tale by Isak Dinesen is a hypnotic meditation on the pitfalls of storytelling.

Jul 25, 2016 — In his masterful reimagining of the story of John Smith and Pocahontas, Terrence Malick meditates on the nature of beauty and America’s path from innocence to experience.

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.

Nov 3, 2015 — We present an excerpt from the book David Lynch: The Man from Another Place, by Dennis Lim.

Oct 30, 2015 — Creating the design that graces our cover of Masaki Kobayashi’s haunting set of ghost stories involved inks, a tank of water, and a fair bit of ingenuity.

Aug 3, 2015 — On film noir’s unparalleled roster of resonant titles—Kiss of Death, Out of the Past, and Where Danger Lives, to name three—none is more emblematic or iconographically cogent than Night and the City. Juxtaposing two of noir’s essential, virtually ontological qualities,...

Jun 22, 2015 — Terry Gilliam touches down in the real world for the first time with this fanciful tale of blurred class boundaries in New York City.

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

Dec 9, 2014 — Liliana Cavani’s tale of the sadomasochistic bond between an ex-SS officer and a former concentration camp prisoner is a transgressive take on history and fascism.

Sep 2, 2014 — The following is excerpted from the book-length study Terence Davies, out September 8. See the bottom of the post for a clip of the scene it describes. Excerpt copyright 2014 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois...