The Fin

Sep 1, 2015 — Anyone interested in the art of nonfiction filmmaking should get familiar with the work of Allan King. The Canadian documentarian was a pioneer of the Direct Cinema movement of the 1960s, alongside Albert and David Maysles, Richard Leacock, and D....

Aug 25, 2015 — In Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s moving and humane critique of capitalism, true interpersonal communication is the only thing that can save us.

Feb 26, 2015 — The threat of death hangs over Watership Down, Martin Rosen’s wise and uncompromising animated adaptation of Richard Adams’s classic novel about rabbits on a survival mission.

Jan 26, 2015 — Scenes without endings, sounds without corresponding images, actions without seeming motivation—Lucrecia Martel’s sense-heightening debut offers a cinema of subtraction.

Jan 21, 2015 — Money can’t buy love and happiness in Preston Sturges’s classic comedy—or can it?

Jul 1, 2014 — The author’s recollections of the great English actor.

May 14, 2014 — The author recalls his meetings and correspondence with the uncompromisingly independent British director.

Oct 25, 2013 — "I“m not acting,” stage star Myrtle Gordon (Gena Rowlands) tells her bemused director after a violent episode with her ghostly muse in Opening Night. That’s a loaded claim to be making in a movie that so conclusively smudges the line...

Sep 23, 2013 — The neorealist master and the Hollywood icon forged a brilliant artistic path together, despite the backlash their controversial romance generated.

Oct 9, 2012 — British wartime audiences ate up these rule-breaking costume pictures—entertainments for a populace seeking escapism.