The Contact

Sep 10, 2012 — The term quadrophenia had multiple meanings for the Who. In both the 1973 album and the 1979 film titled with it, it is meant to evoke the personality of Jimmy, the protagonist, divided into four parts, each in conflict with...

Mar 15, 2011 — The site of Louis Malle’s film Au revoir les enfants was the Petit-Collège d’Avon, a residential prep school located on the grounds of the Carmelite monastery abutting the park of the fabled French palace of Fontainebleau. Malle attended this school...

Sep 17, 2007 — Today we are used to seeing dance artistically presented on television and in movies—these films about Martha Graham helped to make that happen.

Aug 28, 2024 — Critics look ahead to their most-anticipated films in Venice, the festival that kicks off the season.

May 26, 2016 — During the conductor and composer’s visit—a day after he’d led the New York Philharmonic in a live orchestral performance of the score to City Lights—we talked about his love for early cinema, the delicate process of restoring Chaplin’s music, and...

Dec 5, 2012 — The following is excerpted from an interview that originally appeared in the February 1, 1981, issue of L’avant-scène: Cinéma. It was conducted by Olivier Eyquem and Jean-Claude Missiaen. Eyquem is a documentalist and former staff member at Positif; he blogs...

Dec 14, 2017 — Following the announcement that Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs will be opening the sixty-eighth Berlin International Film Festival (February 15 through 25), the Berlinale now presents the first eleven titles lined up for its Panorama section, including new work from Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Tokyo Sonata),...

Apr 16, 2007 — Jules Dassin’s noir is arguably the meatiest and most resonant prison film ever made in Hollywood, drawing explicit parallels to the Nazi encampment experience.

Jun 3, 2002 — In addition to being his funniest film, The Horse’s Mouth is the most personal, and touching, of all Alec Guinness’ movies. Apart from starring as the brilliant but bedraggled artist Gulley Jimson, Guinness also adapted the Oscar-nominated screenplay from Joyce...

Oct 15, 2050 — Voice-over narration has existed since the beginnings of cinema and has been an integral part of some of the great masterworks of narrative film, from The Magnificent Ambersons to Double Indemnity to Jules and Jim to Taxi Driver. It spans...