Character

Jun 21, 2017 — The pain of thwarted young love serves as the narrative center of Marcel Pagnol’s The Marseille Trilogy, but in many ways it is the character of César—a father figure who bears witness to the doomed romance between his son, Marius,...

Jun 20, 2017 — At the dawn of sound cinema, French theater titan Marcel Pagnol immortalized his epic vision of his native Provence in three exquisite humanist dramas.

Jun 20, 2017 — With both films now streaming on the Criterion Channel, director Carroll Ballard discusses the parallels between his short documentary Rodeo and Francesco Rosi’s bull-fighting classic The Moment of Truth.

Jun 16, 2017 — The title of the first part of Tom Paulus’s projected three-part essay for photogénie, “The Love Connection: Another Jam Session on Narrative,” references “Jam Session on Non-Narrative,” a conversation that took place between film critics Jonathan Rosenbaum, David Ehrenstein, and...

Jun 14, 2017 — New York’s BAMcinemaFest opens tonight with Aaron Katz’s Gemini and closes on June 24 with Alex Ross Perry’s Golden Exits. “Now celebrating its ninth year, this modest yet prestigious festival, so shrewdly curated, so reliably comprehensive a treasury of contemporary...

Jun 12, 2017 — Informed by his work in theater and his travels through rural America, Nicholas Ray brought an outsider’s perspective to genre filmmaking in his debut feature.

Jun 12, 2017 — “As incredible as it seems,” write Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin in the new issue of Sight & Sound, “Philippe Garrel, at the precocious age of 16, had already sketched most of the now familiar elements of his cinematic...

Jun 9, 2017 — “The 25 Best Films of the 21st Century. So Far.” Frankly, this time of year, my cursor tends to fly right over a headline like that, having worn itself out on such lists from Thanksgiving through Oscar Night. But this...

Jun 7, 2017 — With revivals of Japanese films being presented in the coming days in New York, Chicago, Berlin, Cologne, and Vienna, a quick reminder: As noted yesterday, the lineups for the New York Asian Film Festival (June 30 through July 13) and...

Jun 7, 2017 — The Spanish filmmaker, whose short film Mystery is featured on the Criterion Channel, discusses his love for Luis Buñuel and the influence of Catholicism on his worldview.