High and Low

May 30, 2017 — Now that the Cannes Film Festival has wrapped, we’ve got some catching up to do. Let’s begin with Scout Tafoya’s report for the Village Voice on a recent symposium “on film criticism and scholarship commemorating the legacy of German film...

Oct 18, 2016 — Guillermo del Toro’s anti–Wizard of Oz refracts the surreal traumas of the Spanish Civil War through the eyes of a young girl.

Feb 24, 2014 — A film of explosive passions, Abdellatif Kechiche’s coming-of-age triumph is about much more than just physical pleasure.

Apr 17, 2012 — Maybe it is something to do with the sensual seductiveness of cinema: as new-millennium Americans, we care nothing for Japa­nese poetry, little for Japanese painting and fiction, and certainly too much for Japanese cartoons, and yet Yasujiro Ozu, the least...

Oct 25, 1994 — Jim McBride’s David Holzman’s Diary, made for less than $3000 over 5 days of principal photography, manages to be twenty years ahead of its time and perfectly of its time. Spiritual forebear to the contemporary low-budget American independent film movement...

Jun 9, 2023 — One of Hollywood’s most beloved actors showed a turbulent, sometimes downright sinister side in his collaborations with director Anthony Mann, which include the classic westerns Winchester ’73 and The Man from Laramie.

Feb 22, 2023 — Siblings mourn the parents they’ve lost in new films from Dustin Guy Defa, Philippe Garrel, and Susana Nobre.

Dec 23, 2022 — A roundup of holiday reading featuring Ingmar Bergman, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Damien Chazelle, Ernst Lubitsch, and Carolee Schneemann.

Dec 13, 2024 — The week’s offered fine writing on Elaine May, Robert Siodmak and Ella Raines, and Christopher Nolan’s turning-point movie.

May 6, 2024 — Perhaps the most hard-to-categorize of the great Hollywood studios came into its own with a string of critically acclaimed films based on popular books and plays, including Born Yesterday, A Raisin in the Sun, and From Here to Eternity.