Children of the Sea

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...

Sep 18, 2012 — Marcel Carné’s theatrical spectacle set in early nineteenth-century Paris is an operatic work about passion and artifice.

Nov 9, 2009 — The following essay, written in October 1987, after the release of Wings of Desire, originally appeared in The Logic of Images, a collection of Wim Wenders’s writing that was published in 1992. In the last few years, since Paris, Texas, Berlin...

Mar 26, 2007 — Across five films, the Swedish director defined his guiding themes and cinematic style.

Apr 29, 2026 — Deep Dives You look at Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Third Generation (1979), and you see the snarky, risky spirit of the New Wave movements that emerged around the world in the 1960s and ’70s in full, defiant bloom. But what...

Oct 16, 2025 — Vivacious and winning in comedies, she also brought a fierce power to her dramatic roles.

May 16, 2022 — This month we’re reading about David Fincher, Sofia Coppola, Hong Sangsoo, and Werner Herzog.

Dec 11, 2018 — Note: The terms black and white were part of the way racial categories were referred to in South Africa under apartheid. Other terms, like nonwhite and non-European, were also used to mark racial segregation. In the following essay, the term...

Jan 16, 2018 — Today we’re opening with an item that bumps New York from its usual top spot in these “goings on” roundups, because the first four titles lined up for this year’s Berlin Critics’ Week (February 14 through 22) have been announced:...

Dec 30, 2017 — Cinema lost a few giants this year, some soldiers, some heroes, duly heralded or not, and links from a good number of the names here will take you to collections of remembrances. I’ve also added notes and a few more...