The Life of an Actor

Jun 10, 2009 — Kind Hearts and Coronets, that most wicked comedy of ill manners, had established Alec Guinness as an acting force—and coming so soon after he had disappeared into the role of Fagin in David Lean’s Oliver Twist, his dazzling embodiment of...

Jun 16, 2008 — Decades later, we’ve come to understand that Claude Sautet’s film—in a less gaudy and obvious, more secretive, insidious way—was just as revolutionary as Breathless.

Jan 31, 2005 — Like the movie’s rattletrap trucks lurching down the highway as they carry way-too-heavy loads, the characters in Jules Dassin’s brilliantly volatile Thieves’ Highway struggle under psychological and moral baggage until they can lay their burdens down. Working from a novel...

The actor and writer selects two Bette Davis favorites, praises the divine insight of Defending Your Life, and shares what makes 12 Angry Men such an enduring classic.

Oct 16, 2024 — This month, celebrate Noirvember with a dazzlingly dark lineup of hard-boiled pleasures.

Jul 17, 2024 — This month, we’re celebrating the expansive, archetype-exploding films of Paul Thomas Anderson, as well as the career of his frequent collaborator Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Aug 1, 2022 — The Austin Film Society presents films directed by Anna Karina, Juliet Berto, Jeanne Moreau, and Delphine Seyrig.

May 12, 2022 — New York’s Museum of the Moving Image presents a series of nineteen films shot by the accomplished cinematographer.

Jul 4, 2018 — In his big-screen breakthrough, Sam Shepard delivers tenderness, ferocity, and the quiet expressiveness of a silent film star.

Aug 16, 2017 — French New Wave icon Jeanne Moreau possessed a stillness, a way of surrendering to the camera, that made her utterly unique among modern actors.