The Front Line

Nov 18, 2016 — Tonight we salute the unique gifts of actor and monologue artist Spalding Gray, whose solo performance pieces inspired soaring flights of cinema like Jonathan Demme’s Swimming to Cambodia and the two Steven Soderbergh films that make up our double bill....

May 12, 2016 — When director Amy Heckerling visited Criterion, she reflected on her days as a struggling filmmaker, the allure and disappointment of moving to the West Coast, and her love for old-Hollywood actors.

Dec 5, 2012 — The following is excerpted from an interview that originally appeared in the February 1, 1981, issue of L’avant-scène: Cinéma. It was conducted by Olivier Eyquem and Jean-Claude Missiaen. Eyquem is a documentalist and former staff member at Positif; he blogs...

Aug 29, 2012 — With humor and melancholy, Franc Roddam’s coming-of-age drama, based on the Who’s iconic album, shows us a g-g-generation on the edge.

Mar 17, 2020 — Released in, or rather let loose upon, the first year of the new millennium, Spike Lee’s febrile and ferocious media satire Bamboozled—the fifteenth feature-length “joint” of a prolific career—found its writer-director in an unflinching mode and an unforgiving mood. According...

Sep 16, 2014 — The following interview is from filmmaker and writer Chris Rodley’s 1997 book Lynch on Lynch. The interviews in the book were conducted by Rodley between January 1993 and December 1996. Eraserhead took five years to complete. You must have been...

Jul 29, 2019 — The late Dutch actor worked with directors as varied as Paul Verhoeven, Ermanno Olmi, Ridley Scott, and Nicolas Roeg.

Apr 27, 2023 — Over the course of her four-decade career, the pioneering Indian documentary filmmaker has demonstrated the important roles that joy and pleasure play in the process of political change.

Feb 11, 2021 — The body never lies.Instead, it keeps score, with our very gestures and walk and physical eccentricities speaking to the traumas and desires we’d like to keep hidden. But there are some people so aware of this truth, and the power...

Oct 11, 2019 — Highlighted this week are an alternative history, the state of the documentary, and the influence of Antonioni and Pialat.