Her First Mate

Oct 16, 2020 — First Person One of the internet’s more delightful creations is a compilation of Aaron Sorkin quotes assembled by a man named Kevin Porter in 2012. Its purpose is to expose the screenwriter’s propensity for repetition. Some of the examples, plucked...

Oct 15, 2019 — The witch has a long history in Western cinema. Nowadays, we tend to associate her with horror, but early depictions resist easy categorization. She appeared in American silent films as early as 1908 (in a short called The Witch). The...

Jun 18, 2019 — Bruno Dumont’s remarkable first feature examines the intermingling of the sacred and the profane in the French provinces.

Mar 28, 2017 — In his first English-language feature, Michelangelo Antonioni examines the elusiveness of the real through the lens of a murder mystery.

Feb 5, 2017 — Kirsten Johnson interrogates the thorny ethics of nonfiction filmmaking in her intriguingly elliptical blend of essay, travelogue, and memoir.

Oct 19, 2016 — Martha Karsh, editor of The Beatles A Hard Day’s Night: A Private Archive, published in September by Phaidon, talks about her family’s Beatlemania and assembling a book about the world’s most famous rock band.

Jul 19, 2016 — Time is both inescapable and irretrievable in Alain Resnais’s boldly disorienting masterpiece, which stars Delphine Seyrig as a widow haunted by her memories of World War II.

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.

May 1, 2015 — In his first feature, Jean-Pierre Melville found subtly radical ways to adapt Vercors's underground French novel about quiet resistance against the German occupation.

Dec 16, 2014 — The prolific and popular Keisuke Kinoshita made his fascinating first movies at a time of great difficulty and censorship, yet their spirit and brilliance shine through.