The Small Back Room

Nov 22, 2009 — “The most concrete emblem of every economic cycle is the dump,” writes Naples native and best-selling Italian muckraker Roberto Saviano somewhere near the conclusion of his extraordinary 2006 “nonfiction novel” Gomorrah, a seethingly cogent and literarily constructed indictment of the...

Mar 27, 2006 — Louis Malle’s World War II–era drama follows a young collaborationist in rural France and asks how people with no interest in politics become active participants in brutal torture.

Sep 23, 2002 — In 1940 and 1941, David O. Selznick won back-to-back Academy Awards for Best Picture. In 1942, unsurprisingly, he was depressed. His wife, Irene, persuaded him to seek help, and, less than one year later, hale and hardy, he was eager...

Aug 20, 2024 — Delon brought to the films of Melville, Visconti, Deray, and Losey one of the most beautiful faces in all of cinema.

Feb 12, 2024 — Bob Young worked with Michael Roemer on Nothing but a Man and directed ¡Alambrista! and The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez.

Aug 8, 2018 — The selection of thirty films features highlights from Cannes, Locarno, Venice, and Toronto.

Jul 15, 1991 — For only his second studio film, Peter Bogdanovich chanced directing an adaptation of Larry McMurtry’s elegiac novel about teenagers who come of age in a dying Texas town in the early fifties.

Oct 16, 2024 — This year’s special anniversary edition will open with Malcolm Washington’s August Wilson adaptation, The Piano Lesson.

Jun 15, 2020 — This month we’re looking at books on topics ranging from Japanese animation to Hollywood movie stars to jazz on the big screen.

Jun 24, 2018 — During a period when studios gave him carte blanche, Josef von Sternberg created a sublime cinematic language that shrugged off one orthodoxy after another.