Interview

Jun 17, 2013 — The author introduces a new Current series that will feature his reminiscences about his encounters in international cinema circles over the past five-plus decades.

Feb 19, 2013 — Elia Kazan’s masterwork is a vivid, tough look at a time and place, and a transcendent human drama.

Feb 5, 2013 — Keisuke Kinoshita’s most experimental film is a resplendent, kabuki-inspired, folk-derived drama about mortality.

Jan 8, 2013 — The two movies that opened the door to “youth culture” in Hollywood, The Graduate and Easy Rider, were milestones, to be sure. But can it really be said that they were milestones in the art of cinema? “I think The...

Jan 8, 2013 — In Monte Hellman’s hypnotic road movie Two-Lane Blacktop, folk singer James Taylor gives a lead performance that is both unassuming and arresting, the kind of askew, unshowy, vanity-free acting that perhaps only a nonprofessional actor is capable of. As the...

Nov 27, 2012 — Among the many pleasures of Heaven’s Gate is its evocative score. It was arranged by David Mansfield, who also performed nearly all of it and even appears on-screen, unforgettably, as a fiddler on roller skates. When Mansfield came by the...

Nov 20, 2012 — Michael Cimino’s visionary western is a superbly realized account of a shocking real American tragedy.

Nov 14, 2012 — Pier Paolo Pasolini is without question one of the most controversial filmmakers who ever lived. He is also among the most fascinating. He brought rigorous social and artistic philosophies to every project he embarked on, and boldly voiced beliefs that...

Oct 2, 2012 — Mary Woronov first hit the scene as a Warhol superstar. (A great clip of her in a screen test for Warhol is a subject for a whole other post.) In honor of the release of Paul Bartel’s Eating Raoul, which Mary stars...

Jun 18, 2012 — Theater’s ultimate autobiographer, Spalding Gray, and cinema’s invisible-man auteur, Steven Soderbergh, teamed up for an eye-opening movie monologue.