My Fellow Americans

Feb 12, 2018 — In “Twin Peaks: The Return, or What Isn’t Cinema?,” a four-part essay at Reverse Shot, Nick Pinkerton first stakes out a position. Referring to one of Marcel Duchamp’s most famous pieces, he writes: “For a hundred years now it’s been...

Aug 1, 2017 — New York. The Film Society of Lincoln Center has announced that its retrospective Jane Campion’s Own Stories will run from September 8 through 17. “For four decades now, Campion has moved freely across genres—family melodrama (Sweetie), gothic romance (The Piano),...

Jun 20, 2017 — “Bertrand Tavernier joins a growing list of filmmakers who've made what amounts to an epic video essay with My Journey Through French Cinema, a three-hour-plus leap into notable French filmmaking from roughly 1930 to 1980,” writes Clayton Dillard at Slant....

May 25, 2017 — In Tuesday’s dispatch to the Village Voice from the Cannes Film Festival, Bilge Ebiri wrote about one of the best films he’d seen so far, The Rider, “directed by Chloé Zhao (whom I interviewed). It follows a young rodeo cowboy...

Feb 23, 2017 — An elder statesman of independent filmmaking, Samuel Fuller spun his newsroom and frontline experiences into his movies, developing a unique cinematic voice that was always raw and personal.

Sep 20, 2016 — Cloaked in chiaroscuro and innuendo, this stylistically innovative creature feature leaves its greatest horrors to the imagination.

Nov 25, 2014 — More than just observational, Les Blank’s sensual documentaries are personal and participatory celebrations of American culture.

Oct 23, 2013 — If there’s one quality that separates John Cassavetes’s movies from almost everybody else’s, it’s the density of detail in the storytelling. His films need to be read closely, from beginning to end. There are no lulls with Cassavetes, no lapses...

Sep 10, 2013 — Martin Ritt’s 1965 movie of John le Carré’s first great novel (and first best seller), The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, declares “a plague on all your houses” to capitalists, Communists, and ruthless intelligence operatives. It’s one espionage...

Nov 28, 2010 — “What we need are good old American—and that’s not to be confused with European—Art Films.” So declared the then twenty-nine-year-old beatnik Method actor Dennis Hopper in an unpublished 1965 manifesto. “The whole damn country’s one big real place to utilize...