To Rome with Love

Oct 24, 2011 — “For a long time I stayed away from the Acropolis,” says the narrator of Don DeLillo’s novel The Names. “It daunted me, that somber rock. I preferred to wander in the modern city, imperfect, blaring. The weight and moment of...

Apr 30, 2009 — The concept of “obscenity” is tested when we dare to look at something that we desire to see but have forbidden ourselves to look at. When we feel that everything has been revealed, “obscenity” disappears and there is a certain...

Sep 3, 2007 — Jim Jarmusch is a difficult director because he works from the frontiers. What does it mean to be a “frontier” director in the film world today?It means a clear refusal, for ethical and aesthetic reasons, to be part of the...

Aug 18, 2003 — The two versions of Vittorio De Sica’s neorealist romance offer case studies in Hollywood and European sensibilities as they existed in the early 1950s.

Mar 11, 2002 — This compendium of visual delights displays director Federico Fellini’s team of performers, writers, and designers at full and exhilarating stretch.

Feb 19, 2021 — This week’s round takes us from Italy in the 1950s and ’60s to America in the ’70s and Hong Kong in the ’90s.

Jul 29, 2020 — The show must go on. The festival presents a lineup of new work from Frederick Wiseman, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Ann Hui, Lav Diaz, Abel Ferrara, and more.

Mar 24, 2014 — Rome is as exquisite as it is suffocating in Paolo Sorrentino’s profound tale of contemporary entropy.

Mar 5, 1990 — Vittorio De Sica’s neorealist masterwork is one of the greatest portraits of old age and loneliness ever brought to the screen.

Jul 19, 2023 — This month we’re reading Pasolini, Chris Marker, Christian Petzold, Lorenza Mazzetti, Derek Jarman, and more.