The Funeral

Oct 17, 2023 — I. “Morbid Cinema” On October 10, 1962, there appeared a brief paragraph from the Associated Press: “Tod Browning, eighty-two, who directed scores of movies between 1917 and 1939, is dead. He succumbed Saturday after an illness, and no funeral plans...

Mar 14, 2023 — A pivotal early film from legendary Hong Kong director John Woo, this martial-arts classic explores the heroic ethos of youxia, Chinese warriors willing to sacrifice their lives to fight for justice and fulfill their promises.

Feb 14, 2023 — Entrenched as an authoritative adaptation, this Oscar-winning hit is still admired, taught, and studied today for its spectacular re-creation of the past and its reinvention of the Shakespearean spoken word.

Nov 9, 2022 — New York’s Metrograph presents films by Park Chan-wook, Bi Gan, Ang Lee, Johnnie To, and Michael Mann.

Sep 28, 2022 — A high point of early Argentine cinema, Mario Soffici’s 1939 film about the plight of plantation workers is an unflinching examination of exploitation and violence.

Sep 27, 2022 — Darius Marder’s Oscar-nominated drama captures the isolation and despair of a man who suddenly goes deaf and struggles in vain to regain his former life.

Mar 1, 2022 — The first film I saw at last year’s Morelia International Film Festival opens on the image of a freshly dug grave. Shovelfuls of earth fall into the open pit as two doctors stand above it, lamenting the loss of yet...

Jan 18, 2022 — MoMA’s festival of film preservation presents Beat poets, crown jewels, a lonely Hungarian, and a Senegalese bad boy.

Oct 27, 2021 — Stephen Winter’s subversive, imaginative work simultaneously celebrates Black queer culture and fiercely threatens cinematic and societal conventions. In conversation as in his work, the director, producer, and writer deftly balances a warm wit with strikingly incisive honesty. Winter has played...

Aug 6, 2021 — Conversations with Agnès Godard and Brian De Palma and tributes to Chris Marker and Menelik Shabazz are among this week’s highlights.