Spirit

Sep 2, 2020 — Art speaks volumes in Céline Sciamma’s rapturous eighteenth-century love story Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and much of that is thanks to painter Hélène Delmaire. It is Delmaire’s vividly lifelike canvases that grace the film from start to finish,...

Sep 2, 2020 — Festival directors join Venice head Alberto Barbera, who encourages the industry to get back up and running again.

Aug 31, 2020 — Documentaries lead the charge this month on the Criterion Channel, with a wide-ranging offering of nonfiction films as formally imaginative and emotionally riveting as any scripted drama.

Aug 20, 2020 — The one-of-a-kind actress gave us unforgettable performances in Days of Heaven and Out of the Blue.

Aug 18, 2020 — A sensuous exploration of amorous discontent and dreadful miscalculation, The Comfort of Strangers (1990) could be described as an erotic thriller, though it rarely is: its eroticism is too perverse, its pedigree too highbrow. Directed by Paul Schrader and based...

Aug 17, 2020 — Deep Dives Baseball’s back in America—as of this writing, anyway—though for much of spring and early summer the Major League season hung in the balance as negotiations between the owners and the players’ union approached a peak of acrimony. Being...

Aug 11, 2020 — The Complete Films of Agnès Varda In September 2018, I screened Agnès Varda and JR’s Faces Places for the Michigan State University Film Collective. We had a lively discussion that went past the scheduled ending time. As I was getting...

Aug 11, 2020 — The Complete Films of Agnès Varda It’s the other famous shot in The Gleaners and I (2000) of Agnès Varda’s reaching hands. Not the one she said was taught around the world as the heart of her documentary-making, where, in...

Aug 7, 2020 — This week we’re reading about Setsuko Hara, Satyajit Ray, Buster Keaton, Rita Azevedo Gomes, and Beyoncé.

Aug 3, 2020 — The British director of sprightly musicals, wrenching family dramas, and gripping political thrillers was seventy-six.