Man of the Story

Nov 27, 2008 — An enormous welter of insoluble problems is on display in Luis Buñuel’s classic—the ending solves nothing; the story just begins again.

Sep 22, 2008 — With their rotating casts of sourpuss Finns and their stringent compositions, Aki Kaurismäki’s films would seem the least likely candidates for laughs, yet his black-comic precision has made him one of the most warmly embraced filmmakers on the international art-house...

Jun 30, 2008 — The novelist Mishima Yukio stepped behind the camera to adapt his own short story, which depicts the act of seppuku as a thing of beauty.

Jun 23, 2008 — The year 1950 marked a turning point in Anthony Mann’s career, the moment when he passed from the series of brilliant film-noir B movies that had established him to the westerns that made him a major figure. Mann released three...

Mar 17, 2008 — Francesco Rosi’s film is a painstakingly documented reconstruction of the nefarious relationships between the Mafia, banditry, and economic and political power in Sicily between 1943 and 1950.

Jun 18, 2007 — Yasujiro Ozu had already directed forty-five features by the time he started work on Early Spring, in 1955, but the artistic and commercial success of his previous film, Tokyo Story (1953), had rejuvenated him.

Feb 12, 2007 — In this classical whodunit made just after the close of World War II, swirling sexual frustrations and resentments find expression in a series of apparently motiveless murders.

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...

Jun 19, 2006 — Decades after its backyard birth, Jack Woods’s DIY horror movie has forged a model of inspiration for succeeding generations of effects artists and low-budget filmmakers.

May 22, 2006 — Luis Buñuel’s merciless satire concerns the smallness of our vision of progress and our narrow attempts to achieve it through rational or moralistic planning.