The Criterion Collection
Nov 17, 2014 — Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable’s effortless banter is pure magic, but Frank Capra’s comedy is rooted in the reality of the times.
Jun 13, 2014 — Did You See This?• Hilton Als takes a long last look at the legendary Ruby Dee. • Marco Bellocchio, back and vibrant as ever • Jerry Lewis has still got it. • Oscar Wilde, journalist • On Norman Mailer’s masterful...
Dec 12, 2013 — A beloved filmmaker in India, the Bengali director Ritwik Ghatak digs into his region’s traumatic history in this epic melodrama.
Essays
Nov 29, 2011 — Elephant Boy: Child’s Play It’s hard to imagine a movie role more perfectly suited to the actor playing it than Toomai in Elephant Boy (1937), the part that made Selar Shaik—known as Sabu—one of the least likely superstars in Western...
The clockwork precision, the array of characters, the potential consequences—and all that shiny loot.
Short Takes
Oct 22, 2009 — Sheila Heti of the Believer had a chance to talk to Agnès Varda during the Toronto International Film Festival—or rather, a chance to be one of a group of reporters whom Varda, at the festival with her film The Beaches...
Jun 30, 2009 — Quick, how many directors can you name who have pulled a 320-ton steamship over a mountain? Yes, that megalomaniacal masterpiece Fitzcarraldo is just further proof that Werner Herzog stands alone in the annals of filmmaking. And though this tireless artist...
Production Notes
Jul 7, 2008 — Sometimes it’s pretty tough for me to divorce my inner fanboy from the (probably unrealistic) ideal of a business-only, detached producer. One such moment was when I saw that Anthony Mann’s The Furies was a part of our Paramount deal....
Essays
Jun 18, 2007 — The audacious and outrageous political comedy by Yugoslav filmmaker Dušan Makavejev jolts viewers out of complacency and encourages freedom, creativity, and bliss.