Origin

Dec 9, 2013 — The critic and WCP executive director offers a personal take on art cinema and a primer on the project’s scope and mission.

Dec 2, 2013 — With its dazzling array of characters, acerbic take on American entertainment and politics, and innovative approach to sound, this is the ultimate Robert Altman movie.

Nov 25, 2013 — He massages, he gambles, and he’s great with a blade. Who is this blind swordsman, anyway?

Nov 18, 2013 — When Tokyo Story was released in late 1953, Western audiences were just being exposed to Japanese cinema. Akira Kurosawa had made his breakthrough with Rashomon three years earlier, and Kenji Mizoguchi was moving to the forefront of the international festival...

Nov 12, 2013 — Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig create a luminous, romantic portrait of a young woman looking for fulfillment in New York City.

Nov 11, 2013 — A boldly silent film in the talkie era, Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece has a grace that has never been equaled.

Nov 3, 2013 — The legendary Italian director discusses La notte’s inspirations and themes in this 1961 newspaper article that coincided with the film’s French release.

Oct 24, 2013 — In John Cassavetes’s personal cinema, the director was always trying to break away from the formulas of Hollywood narrative, in order to uncover some fugitive truth about the way people behave. At the same time, he took seriously his responsibilities...

Oct 23, 2013 — If there’s one quality that separates John Cassavetes’s movies from almost everybody else’s, it’s the density of detail in the storytelling. His films need to be read closely, from beginning to end. There are no lulls with Cassavetes, no lapses...

Oct 21, 2013 — As a film star, John Cassavetes embodied the kinetic, wild-eyed, insanely grinning villain. He seemed born to the role, with his volatile energy and dynamic outbursts, luminous yet curiously deadened eyes, wide-gaping mouth (David Thomson has likened it to a...