The Way

Jan 7, 1997 — Vivre sa vie, made in 1962, was the fourth of Jean-Luc Godard’s films. He had so far turned out a gangster-movie knockoff (Breathless), a dark political picture (Le Petit soldat), and a sort-of-musical comedy (Une femme est une femme). Now...

Jul 4, 1994 — Mike Leigh was born in the north of England in 1943. He was trained in the theater at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and in film at the London Film School. When he arrived in London in the early...

Sep 13, 1993 — If, as François Truffaut said, quoting Renoir back in 1958, “The film director’s task consists of getting pretty women to do pretty things,’” then never did he apply himself more faithfully than in Confidentially Yours specifically for Fanny Ardant, not...

Mar 30, 1992 — John Schlesinger’s controversial masterpiece made moviegoers squirm with its bold, bleak portrayal of unrequited love, gay and otherwise, and it remains as jolting and thought-provoking as ever.

Dec 3, 1990 — Over the years I have had a recurrent nightmare in which I am summoned to a large, unfamiliar building in a middle-European satellite country (Bulgaria, perhaps) to tell the idea of Annie Hall to the Bulgarian Minister of Green Lights,...

Feb 11, 1990 — Bob Rafelson’s ultimate road movie is a relaxed masterpiece, a film of laid-back innovation that hasn’t aged one iota since its original release.

Dec 18, 1989 — When Tootsie opened in December, 1982, the ad copy read: “In the next 72 hours this desperate, unemployed actor will secretly audition for the female lead of a soap opera.”  That was the plot line to the movie even when...

Dec 11, 1989 — Michelangelo Antonioni’s classic divided film history into that which came before and that which was possible after its epochal appearance.

Nov 17, 1986 — The best of all the Spencer Tracy/Katharine Hepburn comedies, Adam’s Rib is as fresh and topical today as it was in 1949 when it was first released. Written by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin and directed by George Cukor, this...

Jul 10, 2016 — The author, a filmmaker and film professor who cowrote a book on Abbas Kiarostami, remembers the late Iranian director.