The Only Witness

Jul 18, 2017 — During a period of personal turmoil, Andrei Tarkovsky created this enigmatic masterpiece, which explores spiritual and metaphysical mysteries through the prism of a science-fiction epic.

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...

May 2, 2017 — On a trip to the Library of Congress’s Mostly Lost workshop—affectionately known as “film-geek heaven”—Imogen Sara Smith joined early-cinema aficionados in uncovering treasures from the vaults.

Jul 12, 2016 — Herk Harvey’s influential, low-budget horror classic Carnival of Souls is an eerie exploration of the mutability of place and the purgatorial state of dreaming.

Aug 25, 2015 — In Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s moving and humane critique of capitalism, true interpersonal communication is the only thing that can save us.

Jun 1, 2015 — A legionnaire turned fruit seller misses out on Germany’s economic miracle in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s breakthrough melodrama.

Apr 14, 2015 — Preston Sturges revealed a lot about himself and the movie business in this hilarious and socially committed comedy.

Oct 1, 2014 — In the hands of director Serge Bourguignon, a potentially sensationalistic story becomes a poetic and complex investigation of love and pain.

Oct 25, 2013 — "I“m not acting,” stage star Myrtle Gordon (Gena Rowlands) tells her bemused director after a violent episode with her ghostly muse in Opening Night. That’s a loaded claim to be making in a movie that so conclusively smudges the line...

Sep 24, 2013 — Marketed as a movie of volcanic passion, Roberto Rossellini’s first film with Ingrid Bergman is rather a pragmatic take on the negotiations of matrimony.