Piece by Piece

May 7, 2020 — A new memoir occasions a couple of profiles in which the actor spins a few tales many of us may find challenging to deal with.

May 4, 2020 — “You’ve never seen prairie grass with the wind leaning on it, have you, Diz?”Jean Arthur asks this poetic, expressively peculiar question of Thomas Mitchell in Frank Capra’s 1939 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and we understand her yearning for truth...

Apr 28, 2020 — “Fuck! Fuck you fuck me fuck old people fuck children fuck peace! Fuck peace.”Miranda July shouts at her car’s steering wheel. With a black Sharpie, she scrawls FUCK in huge letters on the inside of her windshield. She drives. Sunlight...

Apr 28, 2020 — I first fell in love with Miranda July’s work with her strange, wild, poignant short stories;  her stories led me to her novel  and first two feature films, which I watch so  often that they have over time become spiritual...

Apr 6, 2020 — An actress herself, Bosworth understood her subjects as few writers could. Plus: The latest in home viewing.

Apr 1, 2020 — Cultural institutions around the country are cutting back, but it’s the fear of losing Film Comment that has set off alarms among cinephiles.

Mar 27, 2020 — Following a briefing on the crisis, we turn to a few items that might help us take our minds off it.

Mar 24, 2020 — How do you talk about Leave Her to Heaven without talking about Gene Tierney’s face? You can’t. Because its planes and curves, its cunning expressions and its tantalizing opacity, are such a central piece of the movie itself. A series...

Mar 17, 2020 — The economic impact of the coronavirus crisis is immediate and harsh, but the lessons to be learned have been there for the taking for decades.

Mar 16, 2020 — This month we’re reading about Helen Scott, a liaison between Paris and Hollywood; Anna Karina’s novels; William Faulkner’s screenplays; and more.