Pi

Oct 24, 2013 — In John Cassavetes’s personal cinema, the director was always trying to break away from the formulas of Hollywood narrative, in order to uncover some fugitive truth about the way people behave. At the same time, he took seriously his responsibilities...

Oct 23, 2013 — If there’s one quality that separates John Cassavetes’s movies from almost everybody else’s, it’s the density of detail in the storytelling. His films need to be read closely, from beginning to end. There are no lulls with Cassavetes, no lapses...

Oct 22, 2013 — The disc of Faces that you now hold is the most beautiful copy possible of a film that was meant to look lousy. Digital technology painstakingly reproduces John Cassavetes’s lighting, which allowed his actors to move about freely, and so...

Oct 22, 2013 — This delicately creepy Hollywood horror movie lives up to its reputation as a classic of the genre.

Oct 21, 2013 — As a film star, John Cassavetes embodied the kinetic, wild-eyed, insanely grinning villain. He seemed born to the role, with his volatile energy and dynamic outbursts, luminous yet curiously deadened eyes, wide-gaping mouth (David Thomson has likened it to a...

Oct 16, 2013 — Georges Franju deftly balances fantasy and realism, clinical detachment and operatic emotion, beauty and pain, all presided over by Edith Scob’s haunting, haunted eyes.

Oct 15, 2013 — Georges Franju’s masterpiece is the most chilling expression in cinema of our ancient preoccupation with the nature of identity.

Oct 7, 2013 — René Clair, Fredric March, and Veronica Lake cast sensational spells in this screwball supernatural treat.

Sep 26, 2013 — Roberto Rossellini officially left neorealism behind with his modern masterpiece, an intimate tale of marriage on the rocks.

Sep 25, 2013 — Roberto Rossellini’s tale of modern sainthood demonstrates the importance of opening oneself to the wider world.