The Silent Hour

Sep 8, 2023 — We’re celebrating Ousmane Sembène’s centennial, reading interviews with Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Kasi Lemmons, and watching soundies.

Jul 4, 2018 — In his big-screen breakthrough, Sam Shepard delivers tenderness, ferocity, and the quiet expressiveness of a silent film star.

Jun 13, 2018 — Can a screenwriter influence—even change—the course of film history? With his script for Rashomon (1950), Shinobu Hashimoto, who turned 100 this year, did just that. The film launched its director—Akira Kurosawa—to world fame and brought international audiences to the glory...

Oct 3, 2017 — New York. Paul Schrader’s First Reformed (reviews from Venice and Toronto) has been added to the lineup of the ongoing New York Film Festival as a Special Event. There’ll be a single screening on Friday evening.Lucrecia Martel, whose Zama is part of the festival’s Main Slate,...

Oct 1, 2017 — “Sean Baker follows his 2015 breakout feature Tangerine with another high-energy movie about people whose imaginations are undaunted by living on the margins,” begins Amy Taubin, introducing her interview with the director for Film Comment. “In The Florida Project, six-year-old...

Sep 20, 2017 — New York. “Like a modern character from Crete’s ancient Minoan culture, trailblazer artist Joan Jonas weaves symbols and media to transfigure feminist and psychological themes,” writes Mónica Savirón for BOMB. “Her work juxtaposes sculpture, painting, film, video, and performance as...

May 30, 2014 — The long relationship between director and festival has never been without its complications.

Aug 19, 2013 — This moving drama about gender, race, and class in 1960s Kolkata is a pioneering work from Satyajit Ray.

May 26, 2026 — Women’s hands dance over typewriter keys. The percussive racket they make, like the tapping of an unruly chorus line, takes the place of music during the opening credits of The Office Wife (1930), which appear over a montage of female...

Oct 29, 2019 — Matewan opens in the pitch-black darkness of a West Virginia coal mine. A miner lights the carbide lamp on his helmet. The small open flame he wears provides the only flicker of light in this cramped space next to a...