Center of My World

Feb 2, 2017 — In her just-released Sundance hit The Lure, Agnieszka Smoczyńska evokes both the decadence and decrepitude of 1980s Poland through the adventures of Silver and Gold, two man-eating mermaid sisters who decide to go terrestrial and soon become a nightclub singing...

Jan 20, 2017 — Did You See This? Over at the BFI, John Berra has published a guide for getting to know some of Chinese-language cinema’s most revered filmmakers, including Edward Yang, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and Wong Kar-wai. For its upcoming edition in Hong Kong...

Dec 6, 2016 — Photo by Janet Pierson In the late eighties and early nineties, American independent film was coming into its own both artistically and commercially, and John Pierson was at the center of the movement. Once described by the New York Times...

Jun 29, 2016 — In this essay, first published in Grand Street in 1994, Dr. Strangelove coscreenwriter Terry Southern offers a lively behind-the-scenes look at the film’s production.

Nov 25, 2015 — Akira Kurosawa's 1952 film about one man’s mortality offers a study in postwar Japan, Kurosawa vs. Ozu, and the realization that knowing how to die requires learning how to be alive.

Oct 20, 2015 — Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien is back with an awe-inspiring martial-arts epic.

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 15, 2014 — Ihave an unusually easy way of remembering when I first became fascinated by Robert Bresson’s films. Pickpocket (1959) was the first one I saw, at the old Orson Welles theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in my late teens; it was also...

Apr 18, 2014 — The following interview, conducted by Stig Björkman, originally appeared in Björkman’s 1999 book Trier on von Trier.

Jan 13, 2014 — With economy and panache, Michael Mann established his existential crime drama style with this breakthrough first feature.