Parerga

Jun 18, 2007 — Yasujiro Ozu had already directed forty-five features by the time he started work on Early Spring, in 1955, but the artistic and commercial success of his previous film, Tokyo Story (1953), had rejuvenated him.

Mar 12, 2007 — Kon Ichikawa’s incendiary and extraordinarily brutal war film renders the emotional carnage that festers long after the battle’s end.

Oct 16, 2006 — Lodge Kerrigan’s grim, lucid dispatch from the murky depths of madness situates itself inside the tormented consciousness of a schizophrenic.

Jun 27, 2005 — Kô Nakahira’s taboo-busting melodrama heralded a reinvention of Japanese cinema.

Jun 27, 2005 — Ko Nakahira’s Nikkatsu Studio youth flick helped transform postwar Japanese cinema.

Oct 18, 2004 — Nixon as Hamlet, Nixon as Lear, Nixon as Blanche DuBois, Nixon as Krapp—clutching every last tape to his breast with the wild fury and despair of a man on the precipice . . . Nixon in his study, poring over...

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...

Aug 19, 2002 — Ronald Neame’s dramedy has the distinction of being the only “feel-good” realistic spy film ever made, walking a fine line between topicality and escapism.

May 12, 2001 — Bertrand Tavernier’s adaptation is the story of a saintly madman in a world where the concepts of good and evil have no meaning.

May 15, 2000 — Twenty-five years after its first appearance, Bergman’s film of The Magic Flute remains the finest screen version of an opera ever produced. Shot in sumptuous color by Sven Nykvist, and featuring some of the finest Nordic singers of the day,...