The Class

Jun 26, 2013 — On the life and work of the famous Czech author, and the pleasures and challenges of translating him.

Jan 14, 2013 — For our release of Alfred Hitchcock’s early suspense classic The Man Who Knew Too Much, we turned to modern-day horror master and Hitch aficionado Guillermo del Toro (Cronos) to offer viewers a primer on just how important this thriller is...

Jan 10, 2013 — Repertory Picks Starting this weekend and running through April 24, the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley will be highlighting the vast career of Alfred Hitchcock, from his early British films to his later Hollywood thrillers. This Saturday, January 12, they’re...

Aug 28, 2012 — The boy Quadrophenia’s Jimmy was based on (or was he?) talks to us about the mod life.

Jun 11, 2012 — Charlie Chaplin’s transcendent, visionary comedy is made up of one iconic moment after another.

May 16, 2011 — Among the most enduringly popular motives for murder, in films as in life, is the desire to remove an impediment to happiness—to get somebody, once and for all, out of the way. In life, of course, the goal of freeing...

Feb 22, 2011 — It wasn’t intended. No one could have predicted it. But Sweet Smell of Success turned out to be a terminus where several movie genres and subgenres converged and curdled, producing a uniquely delicious perfume of everlasting cynicism. Inhale deeply. And...

Jul 19, 2010 — “Why do you want to dance?” “Why do you want to live?” A question followed by another question stands at the beating heart of The Red Shoes. It’s an entirely rhetorical exchange, but it underscores the power and the mystery...

Dec 1, 2009 — The first words we hear are Sam Cutler’s: “Everybody seems to be ready—are we ready?” We were nowhere near ready for what was to come, there at the bitter end of the sixties. I remember that rainy day so well,...

Dec 3, 2008 — Gliding on silvery reels of steel, and tricked out with Lars von Trier’s panoply of visual effects, the film ravishes with its elaborately storyboarded tunnel vision.