Story of My Death

Jun 9, 2017 — “The 25 Best Films of the 21st Century. So Far.” Frankly, this time of year, my cursor tends to fly right over a headline like that, having worn itself out on such lists from Thanksgiving through Oscar Night. But this...

Apr 20, 2010 — In 1992, I went to Paris to see some movies that weren’t turning up on these shores, at least not as quickly as I wanted them to. At the time, it meant something particular to be going to Paris to...

Feb 9, 2010 — You can’t keep a good woman, or a great movie about a good woman, down. By all accounts, goodness in the real Lola Montez reflected the vagaries of character, not talent. She was, as Cosmo Brown says of Lina Lamont...

Sep 8, 2009 — “It’s not my fault that I’m Japanese . . . yet it’s my worst crime that I am!” The words are those of Kaji, hero of The Human Condition (1959–61), but in his anguish and existential despair, he also speaks...

Oct 6, 2007 — In Gus Van Sant’s first feature, gayness—blind, unembarrassed homosexual lust—is the narrative’s driving force.

Sep 18, 2000 — Reviewing Laurence Olivier’s 1948 film of Hamlet, James Agee—then a critic at Time—wrote: “The man who brings Hamlet, his friends, and his antagonists to life has tackled one of the most fascinating and most thankless tasks in show business. ....

Apr 21, 2017 — George Stevens’s Oscar-winning comedy captures the first sparks of attraction that ignited one of the great on- and offscreen romances in Hollywood history.

Nov 30, 2009 — The following essay was originally written for Criterion’s website in 2005, on the occasion of the DVD release of Powell and Pressburger’s The Tales of Hoffmann. We have posted it here to coincide with BFI Southbank’s ongoing Hein Heckroth exhibition...

Oct 14, 2014 — What happens offscreen is as important as what’s on- in John Ford’s subtle, elegiac take on the Wyatt Earp–Doc Holliday story.

Feb 27, 2013 — More than eighty films into his career, Kenji Mizoguchi made this emotionally devastating masterpiece, from a story by Ogai Mori.