The Set-Up

Aug 14, 2006 — La collectionneuse is a strong, sensuously lush, deceptively slight film, a Riviera fruit with a bitter, uncompromising aftertaste. In retrospect, it is both classically Rohmeresque and atypical, as befits a film in which the director was still finding his way....

Mar 27, 2006 — Louis Malle’s World War II–era drama follows a young collaborationist in rural France and asks how people with no interest in politics become active participants in brutal torture.

Jul 11, 2005 — Luchino Visconti’s adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s short story balances realism and fantasy.

Jun 21, 2004 — Nouvelle vague euphoria was at its height when Jean-Luc Godard made his enormously clever third feature.

Sep 29, 2003 — In May 1981, in the midst of shooting Lola, Rainer Werner Fassbinder sketched out his next film project: Sybille Schmitz. On the cover, he had written, “Story for a Feature Film*.” The asterisk pointed to this footnote: “It is possible...

May 26, 2003 — Transcription of a speech given by long-time Derek Jarman collaborator and friend, actress Tilda Swinton

Apr 28, 2003 — François Truffaut’s short Antoine Doinel film exposes an entire universe of male adolescent experience.

Jan 29, 2001 — Invisible monsters suck out your brains! And that’s just for starters.

Jan 7, 1997 — Vivre sa vie, made in 1962, was the fourth of Jean-Luc Godard’s films. He had so far turned out a gangster-movie knockoff (Breathless), a dark political picture (Le Petit soldat), and a sort-of-musical comedy (Une femme est une femme). Now...

May 10, 1993 — Green for Danger is a welcome twist on that most venerable of English concoctions, the drawing-room thriller. In this instance, the drawing room is instead a hospital not far from London, where surgery is conducted under a cascade of German...