To Be or Not to Be

Mar 9, 2015 — François Truffaut’s adultery drama is at times corrosively funny and at others frighteningly tense, but it’s always incisive and humane.

Jul 29, 2014 — Combining a tragic romance and the story of a workers’ strike, this musical melodrama is perhaps Jacques Demy’s most neglected masterpiece.

Jun 25, 2014 — Only a small fraction of the footage Peter Davis shot for Hearts and Minds made it into his 112-minute Academy Award­–winning documentary on the Vietnam War. Davis and his crew filmed hundreds of hours in the United States, Vietnam, and...

Jun 24, 2014 — One of the most important contributions Peter Davis’s Hearts and Minds makes to our national dialogue on the Vietnam War is its portrayal of ordinary Vietnamese. For years, the Vietnamese had been conspicuous by their absence in American film and...

May 14, 2014 — The author recalls his meetings and correspondence with the uncompromisingly independent British director.

Mar 5, 2014 — A few years ago, as I was collaborating on the Criterion release of Last Year at Marienbad, I had the chance to meet Alain Resnais. We had released Hiroshima mon amour and Night and Fog a few years earlier, and...

Dec 22, 2013 — The author reflects on his interactions with the great filmmaker.

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.

Apr 9, 2013 — This essay by novelist, playwright, and culture critic Gary Indiana originally appeared in the 1992 book Everything Is Permitted: The Making of “Naked Lunch.” Burroughs’s work tends to affect people like a Rorschach test. It separates cultural conservatives from avant-gardists,...

Oct 16, 2012 — After breaking out with Maria Full of Grace, filmmaker Joshua Marston visited a strange new land with persistent and deadly traditions.