The Decline

Oct 25, 2012 — The following piece by Sunday Bloody Sunday screenwriter Penelope Gilliatt originally appeared as the introduction to the 1971 U.S. publication of the script. A friend of mine who had started scrubbing at fourteen and went on to be a barmaid...

May 23, 2012 — Iranian master director Abbas Kiarostami voyaged to Italy to make a film that questions love, relationships, and Western art cinema.

May 26, 2003 — Transcription of a speech given by long-time Derek Jarman collaborator and friend, actress Tilda Swinton

Jun 19, 2019 — To mark the anniversary, editors are highlighting some of her best work while critics and acolytes measure her impact.

Apr 14, 2025 — The director of Wake in Fright and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz was ninety-four.

Aug 18, 2020 — Chris Hegedus and D. A. Pennebaker’s restless, captivating Direct Cinema triumph Town Bloody Hall is a work of oceanography, documenting one splashy moment in the cresting and crashing of American feminism’s second wave. The film chronicles the “Dialogue on Women’s...

Feb 9, 2018 — Catching up with notable recent interviews, we naturally have to begin with the one that’s sparked so much crossfire for a full week now. Last October, Uma Thurman declined to comment on the #MeToo movement because “when I have spoken...

May 15, 2012 — Circumlocutory critic Perkus Tooth sits down with a very patient Spike Jonze to talk gerunds and colons.

Dec 2, 2025 — In a string of short films he made in the 1920s, Man Ray brought a restlessly inventive spirit to a young medium, pushing the boundaries of cinematic form with frenetic editing, abstract imagery, and surrealist camera tricks.

Oct 18, 2022 — Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s hypnotic serial-killer film dives into the realm of the uncanny and envisions the breakdown of Japanese society.