To Be or Not to Be

Apr 20, 2009 — The French scientist-educator-filmmaker Jean Painlevé’s groundbreaking work consistently revealed not only a commitment to informed science and effective communication but to the creative expression of ideas.

Nov 27, 2008 — An enormous welter of insoluble problems is on display in Luis Buñuel’s classic—the ending solves nothing; the story just begins again.

May 21, 2007 — In January 1948, British film producer Sir Alexander Korda, head of British-Lion and London Film Productions, commissioned novelist Graham Greene to write and research “an original postwar continental story to be based on either or both of the following territories:...

Jan 22, 2007 — A delightfully old-fashioned morality tale, Robert Day’s low-budget space flick is far more than the standard monster fare it was initially sold as.

Jan 5, 2004 — “Sometimes I think of my death,” Kurosawa has written: “I think of ceasing to be . . . and it is from these thoughts that Ikiru came.” The story of a man who knows he is going to die, the...

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

Aug 20, 2001 — Before Lars von Trier, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Andrei Tarkovsky, Ingmar Bergman, Robert Bresson there was Carl Th. Dreyer. The first great film artist to pursue the ineffable in cinema, Dreyer gave depth to what early silent filmmakers innately understood yet took...

May 5, 1998 — John Woo’s last film made in Hong Kong before his emigration to the U.S. reflects the city's anxieties and state of crisis throughout the decade.

Apr 10, 1989 — In the Hollywood heyday of the ‘30s and ‘40s, America was synonymous with rip-snorting action-adventure movies. Audiences throughout the world thrilled to such classics as Gunga Din, The Sea Hawk, and Union Pacific. In the 1950s the Japanese made their...

Jun 26, 2026 — We’re tracking the unconventional flows of Zidane, Eephus, and Castration Movie; plus Pedro Costa on Mizoguchi and Tourneur.