The Criterion Collection
May 20, 2009 — Iconoclasts are meant to kill their idols, and so it’s fitting that Shohei Imamura launched into his career as if on a patricidal rampage. Like Nagisa Oshima, the other towering figure of the Japanese New Wave, Imamura (1926–2006) rejected the...
May 3, 2009 — Though primarily a celebration of the best of today’s world cinema, the Cannes Film Festival has for some time now also been making room for the past, with its sidebar Cannes Classics. A program of restored and rediscovered films, Cannes...
Apr 15, 2009 — Many a morning have we staggered into work, bleary-eyed, from staying up late to watch some unexpected treat on Turner Classic Movies. So on this, TCM’s fifteenth anniversary, we’d like to thank the invaluable cable station for the memories—and the...
Mar 10, 2009 — “All movies are political,” the indefatigable Costa-Gavras told Leonard Lopate last week while stopping by his WNYC radio show. As busy and vital as ever, the seventy-six-year-old Greek filmmaker was in town for both the North American premiere of his...
Feb 9, 2009 — Luis Buñuel’s ferociously brilliant The Exterminating Angel (1962) is one of his most provocative and unforgettable works. In it, we watch a trivial breach of etiquette transform into the destruction of civilization. Not only does this story undermine our confidence...
Jan 11, 2009 — What happened when Bernardo Bertolucci went to see Stop Making Sense in Florence? Well, as he confessed to director Jonathan Demme, he not only loved the film but was also stunned by (and even a little envious of) the response...
Dec 29, 2008 — It is a good time to belong to the cult of Fuller. Those of us who consider ourselves members never forget our moment of induction. Some enlisted when his films first hit the screen—lucky enough to catch The Steel Helmet...
Tech Corner
Jan 23, 2008 — Of all the great places I get to go for transfer work, London is probably my favorite. First off, everyone speaks English, and there’s an abundance of great Indian food. But there’s also the excitement that when the workday ends,...
Nov 19, 2007 — Akira Kurosawa explores criminal machismo in his seventh film, which he felt was his official breakthrough in Japanese cinema.
Sep 3, 2007 — Jim Jarmusch is a difficult director because he works from the frontiers. What does it mean to be a “frontier” director in the film world today?It means a clear refusal, for ethical and aesthetic reasons, to be part of the...