The Public Woman

Oct 3, 2019 — By the time Charlie Chaplin was making The Circus, from 1925 into 1928, his production company was a smooth-running organization. Numerous problems plagued the comic during the shoot—scratches on the first month of rushes, a fire that damaged the studio...

Apr 23, 2019 — Elia Kazan can be and has been called many things: a cinematic genius, an actor’s director, a womanizer, a government stoolie, an uncompromising artist and three-time Academy Award winner. But whatever your opinion of his personality, his temperament, or his...

Mar 20, 2018 — The careers of three iconic German artists—Bertolt Brecht, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Volker Schlöndorff—converged in this unflinching portrait of destructive genius.

Sep 5, 2025 — We’re listening in this week on conversations with Charlie Kaufman, Alice Diop, and Zeinabu irene Davis.

Jan 28, 2025 — We’re reading about Wes Anderson and David Cronenberg and looking forward to books on David Lynch and Pedro Almodóvar.

Nov 6, 2023 — Paul B. Preciado’s Orlando, My Political Biography begins its theatrical run across North America.

Oct 31, 2023 — With the full force of her imagination, director Nikyatu Jusu examines the complicated nature of Black motherhood, as well as the importance of Black communion as an antidote to racial oppression.

Aug 1, 2023 — “Do you want me to turn them loose?” This is what cowboy Perce asks a sad-eyed Roslyn in John Huston’s elegiac The Misfits (1961), and that one question about untying the mustangs he and fellow wranglers Gay (Clark Gable) and...

Jun 20, 2023 — Two young San Francisco residents navigate the potential for romance and their opposing views on race in Barry Jenkins’s moving debut feature.

Apr 27, 2022 — In his uncompromising chronicles of modern Japanese society, the celebrated filmmaker shows a deep understanding of both larger-than-life individuals and collectives of ordinary citizens.