The Decline

Oct 22, 2007 — Through the alcohol-induced convulsive movements of Firmin, a fallen diplomat, John Huston puts what is perhaps his own fear of decline, of departure without making peace with one’s loved ones, on the screen.

Sep 28, 2022 — A high point of early Argentine cinema, Mario Soffici’s 1939 film about the plight of plantation workers is an unflinching examination of exploitation and violence.

Jul 19, 2004 — Marcel Carné's third feature is as epochal as any film made in France in the 1930s, exemplifying the style known as “poetic realism.”

Nov 19, 1989 — Almost as long as they’ve been able to talk, films have been able to sing and dance. Frequently high-style, often rapturously romantic, most musicals have nonetheless been content to remain light, sophisticated entertainment. Still, there has always been a minority...

Nov 27, 2018 — With The Magnificent Ambersons, Orson Welles created a model of period filmmaking, lightly deploying historical signifiers while focusing on the haunting power of his actors’ faces.

Apr 21, 2022 — In 1948, leftist filmmaker Leo Hurwitz directed a documentary whose title summed up the uncertainty of its moment: for America’s antifascists, the end of the Second World War was a Strange Victory indeed. Using newsreels from the war’s front lines,...

Dec 2, 2013 — With its dazzling array of characters, acerbic take on American entertainment and politics, and innovative approach to sound, this is the ultimate Robert Altman movie.

Feb 21, 2006 — Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) is an Ealing comedy in name only. True, it’s undeniably a comedy and was made by (though largely not at) Ealing. But in virtually every other respect, it deviates startlingly from the commonly accepted stereotype....

Oct 22, 2024 — In his entrancingly deviant directorial debut, Harmony Korine captures life in an impoverished, tragedy-stricken small town in all its beautiful fragility.

Jun 17, 2019 — Performances I can’t remember a time in my childhood when I saw a grown-up cry. It wasn’t that the elders around me were all that even-tempered; most of them were no less capable of lashing out in anger or indignation...