The Text of Light

Sep 2, 2021 — Translated into English for the first time, this afterword to Hirokazu Kore-eda’s novelization of his film explores the director’s attraction to fiction writing and how the art form differs from narrative cinema.

Apr 9, 2021 — A round on the origins of works by Isabel Sandoval, Sky Hopinka, Steve McQueen, Pasolini, and Rivette.

Dec 21, 2020 — This month we’re reading David Bordwell on the Massive Auteur Monograph, Rachel Kushner on Marguerite Duras, and Adam Gopnik on early animation.

Oct 16, 2019 — This month’s round includes new critical assessments of Bresson and Rohmer, Hollywood memoirs, and interviews with living legends.

Oct 7, 2019 — Critics respond to the New York Film Festival’s selection of new moving image art.

Oct 2, 2018 — Performances There’s an irreducible reserve about Kristen Stewart, an appearance of not doing much on-screen, that I mistook for lack of talent when I first saw her mumbling into her shirt in the Twilight franchise. Still, playing Bella Swan, chastity...

May 21, 2018 — W hether she’s pushing herself to new heights on stage and screen or nurturing her passions as a painter and poet, Juliette Binoche is as creatively voracious now as she’s ever been. Her combination of strength and disarming vulnerability as...

May 8, 2018 — Horror movies are often understood as products of the imagination, but in the case of Caroline Monnet and Daniel Watchorn’s work, the conventions of the genre are grounded in stories of real-life injustice. Set in a Canadian residential school for...

May 1, 2015 — In his first feature, Jean-Pierre Melville found subtly radical ways to adapt Vercors's underground French novel about quiet resistance against the German occupation.

Jun 10, 2025 — At MoMA, curator David Schwartz celebrates seventeen landmark New York screening venues.