My Man

Jul 28, 2014 — Jacques Demy’s first full-fledged storybook fantasy challenges and subverts traditional fairy-tale norms.

Jul 17, 2014 — When I was in high school in the late ’70s, one of my closest pals was a semiprofessional magician. A top-flight pianist as well, Charles was making some tidy sums as an entertainer in restaurants and clubs around North Jersey...

Jul 15, 2014 — Ihave an unusually easy way of remembering when I first became fascinated by Robert Bresson’s films. Pickpocket (1959) was the first one I saw, at the old Orson Welles theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in my late teens; it was also...

Jul 15, 2014 — Among the brainiest of all horror movies, David Cronenberg’s film goes beyond shock to investigate a disturbing world of psychic mutation.

Jul 1, 2014 — The author’s recollections of the great English actor.

Jun 24, 2014 — In 1964, Richard Lester harnessed the Beatles’ exploding superstardom for a giddy day-in-the-life pop masterpiece.

Jun 12, 2014 — The filmmaker’s latest offering at the film festival reaffirms the author’s faith in him.

Jun 10, 2014 — Douglas Sirk once said: “This is the dialectic—there is a very short distance between high art and trash, and trash that contains an element of craziness is by this very quality nearer to art.” When All That Heaven Allows was...

Jun 2, 2014 — One Scene When I first heard about The Human Condition (1959–61), I was already familiar with director Masaki Kobayashi’s irreverent Harakiri (1962), a favorite film of mine where samurai are scum of the earth and honor is equivalent to dirt....

May 14, 2014 — The author recalls his meetings and correspondence with the uncompromisingly independent British director.