This Is Not a Film

May 19, 2017 — Let’s open today’s round of interviews with one from the archives, a conversation with Michelangelo Antonioni that originally ran in Corriere della Sera in 1982 but evidently took place during the final stages of shooting Blow-Up (1966). It’s been translated...

Jan 1, 2017 — The Korda brothers’ voluptuous fantasy Jungle Book—directed by Zoltán, produced by Alexander, and art-directed by Vincent—captures that mood-swinging moment in late childhood when the adult world seems to be unbearably corrupt and nothing could be more exhilarating than escaping to...

Sep 21, 2016 — An exhilarating blend of noir and splatter-flick tropes, the Coen brothers’ debut feature established their unique brand of cosmic fatalism.

Feb 3, 2016 — For more than two decades, photographer Gregory Crewdson has been creating otherworldly images that reveal an eerie side of Americana. His works, typically tableaux of small-town life, transform the everyday into the uncanny.

Dec 29, 2015 — Kitchen Conversations“I almost have the impression that films come by themselves and you’re like a slave to them—one of them decides to go for it, and you run after it,” said director Deniz Gamze Ergüven when she and her eight-month-old...

Sep 28, 2015 — Rarely has schizophrenia been closer to the surface of American cinema than in the transitional period of 1968–71. Hollywood had just abandoned its censorship code after nearly thirty-five years, and the behemoth studios were heaving and rattling into oblivion or...

Aug 13, 2015 — The films Agnès Varda made while living on the West Coast of the United States are some of the most searching and challenging of her stellar career.

May 1, 2015 — In his first feature, Jean-Pierre Melville found subtly radical ways to adapt Vercors's underground French novel about quiet resistance against the German occupation.

Oct 2, 2014 — People struggle to escape their socially dictated roles in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s moving, Douglas Sirk–inspired melodrama.

Aug 18, 2014 — The director explains the inspiration for his provocative erotic comedy, and how he dove into it even before finishing his previous movie.