The Common Man

Apr 9, 2013 — This essay by novelist, playwright, and culture critic Gary Indiana originally appeared in the 1992 book Everything Is Permitted: The Making of “Naked Lunch.” Burroughs’s work tends to affect people like a Rorschach test. It separates cultural conservatives from avant-gardists,...

May 5, 2014 — The celebrated divot points manfully toward the crest of the next hill, and the next, and the next, and to the horizon after that. Always forward! Into the sunset! Kirk Douglas is on the move: a wagon train of grimace,...

Aug 14, 2006 — The appearance of Eric Rohmer’s Six Moral Tales in the midst of the sixties’ sexual revolution brought unexpected sobriety to the European sexual drama and the comedy of erotic manners. Their stateside popularity successfully challenged the sauciness and candor audiences were...

May 12, 2023 — This week: Swiss anarchists, Spanish analogue filmmakers, Warren Sonbert, and Jerzy Skolimowski.

Jan 26, 2022 — Rotterdam opens as Sundance winds down and Berlin sets up.

Apr 2, 2018 — Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey saw its world premiere on this day, April 2, in 1968 at the Uptown Theater in Washington, D.C. Two days later, it opened in two more theaters, one in Hollywood and one in New...

Mar 18, 2016 — The French filmmaker discussed revisiting the world of his breakthrough feature, his desire to communicate with a younger generation, and his signature cinematic flourishes.

Dec 28, 1993 — In his touchstone of postwar Japanese cinema, Kenji Mizoguchi uses woman’s fate to reveal the human cost of oppression.

May 31, 2022 — Wayne Wang’s breakthrough feature, a milestone in Asian American cinema, is a humorous and intimate snapshot of San Francisco’s Chinatown.

Oct 24, 2024 — The director of such classic political docudramas as On the Bowery and Come Back, Africa defied the conventions of nonfiction filmmaking with his innovative approach to collaboration and performance.