Maestro

Jun 11, 2015 — The author recalls the two great cinematographers and their work.

Nov 25, 2014 — More than just observational, Les Blank’s sensual documentaries are personal and participatory celebrations of American culture.

Jul 17, 2014 — When I was in high school in the late ’70s, one of my closest pals was a semiprofessional magician. A top-flight pianist as well, Charles was making some tidy sums as an entertainer in restaurants and clubs around North Jersey...

Sep 30, 2013 — The author describes his interactions with the great Polish filmmaker.

Jul 30, 2013 — Guillermo del Toro’s ghostly fable beautifully reflects the director’s fascination with the personal and the political.

Nov 5, 2012 — The following originally appeared as the afterword to the 2003 New American Library edition of the novel Rosemary’s Baby. Having observed that the most suspenseful part of a horror story is before, not after, the horror appears, I was struck...

Sep 26, 2012 — Countercultural icons Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov makes square subversive in Bartel’s cult classic.

Sep 25, 2012 — No mere jigsaw movie, David Fincher’s thriller is also a nuanced character study, a satire of corporate culture, and a film about filmmaking.

Mar 27, 2012 — Coward and Lean? It may not sound as natural as Launder and Gilliat or Powell and Pressburger, perhaps because we don’t instinctively think of Noël Coward as a filmmaker or of David Lean as part of a team. But they...

Jul 19, 2011 — In May 1956, an Indian film was screened at the Cannes Film Festival. It wasn’t well attended. The Indian delegation had done little to promote it, arranging only a single midnight screening that clashed with a party in honor of...