The Music Man

Nov 15, 2016 — Harrod Blank shared a few words in remembrance of legendary singer-songwriter Leon Russell, the subject of his father Les Blank’s film A Poem Is a Naked Person.

Mar 9, 2012 — The cinematographer tells us how he and Louis Malle went about shooting Vanya on 42nd Street in a decrepit Manhattan theater.

Sep 21, 2010 — Warrendale: Man of ActionAllan King was one of cinema’s most acute chroniclers of unadorned reality, but the term documentary seems too puny to describe the intense, passionate stories he contrived to fashion from that reality. King’s early nonfiction features are...

Oct 6, 2009 — Our Jeanne Dielman–Criterion Collection Cooking Video Contest on YouTube has been a huge success, thanks to scores of filmmakers who served up more than fifty delectable entries! We’ve been amazed at the quality of the submissions, and now we need...

Apr 10, 2020 — Songbook Edward Yang’s A Brighter Summer Day is the War and Peace of Taiwanese juvenile-delinquent movies. It is also part of a tradition of films that use the process of a character slowly learning a single song as a narrative-building...

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...

Dec 16, 2022 — This week: Molly Ringwald and Caroline Champetier on Godard, interviews with Tony Kushner and Park Chan-wook, and the new Brooklyn Rail.

Aug 1, 2025 — On our minds this week: Renoir, Malick, Rozier, and a trip to FIDMarseille.

Apr 10, 2020 — This week we’re reading Peter Wollen on Performance, Thomas Elsaesser on puzzle movies, David Bordwell on how movies work, and more.

Mar 11, 2016 — Consider the story of Lolabelle, the rat terrier cast by Laurie Anderson—her human companion—in Anderson’s stirring, tender film Heart of a Dog.