The Singer Not the Song

Jan 19, 2016 — Inside Llewyn Davis takes its protagonist on a Hero’s Journey of characteristically Coen-esque proportions—a voyage at turns serious and comic, and framed by an exquisitely curated selection of folk melodies.

Dec 2, 2013 — With its dazzling array of characters, acerbic take on American entertainment and politics, and innovative approach to sound, this is the ultimate Robert Altman movie.

Jan 15, 2007 — Allison Anders, Dean Lent and Kurt Voss’s influential indie paints a compelling picture of the Los Angeles punk-rock scene of the 1980s: what it was like on the inside—and what it was like inside the musicians’ heads.

Dec 9, 2018 — Songbook The final scene of Robert Altman’s 1975 film Nashville belongs to the transient wannabe singer Albuquerque, played by the late Barbara Harris. Up to that point, the storyline has followed numerous musician characters who are striving to get discovered or bolster...

Sep 14, 2022 — Always innovating, Godard was one of the most vital and influential figures in the history of cinema.

Apr 15, 2021 — Catherine Breillat and Todd Field are getting back behind the camera, while Scorsese and Spielberg forge ahead with their latest projects.

May 30, 2017 — Now that the Cannes Film Festival has wrapped, we’ve got some catching up to do. Let’s begin with Scout Tafoya’s report for the Village Voice on a recent symposium “on film criticism and scholarship commemorating the legacy of German film...

Nov 15, 2016 — Harrod Blank shared a few words in remembrance of legendary singer-songwriter Leon Russell, the subject of his father Les Blank’s film A Poem Is a Naked Person.

Jun 7, 2015 — Critic Glenn Kenny reveals the connection between two classics: Nicolas Roeg’s film Don’t Look Now and Robert Wyatt’s album Rock Bottom.

Sep 29, 2020 — Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project No. 3 What can it mean for cinema to be revolutionary? Answering a version of this question in a 1977 interview, the Cuban filmmaker Humberto Solás stressed the importance of real-world context. In a capitalist...