The Brazilwood Man

Apr 26, 2011 — Good news for admirers of Adrian Tomine’s simply gorgeous illustrations for the Criterion two-DVD special edition of Yasujiro Ozu’s The Only Son and There Was a Father: the artist has joined forces with art and literary comics publisher Drawn & Quarterly to...

Apr 22, 2011 — At a time when many talk of cinephilia as going the way of the woolly mammoth, it’s more than a little inspiring to come upon a place like the Aperture Cinema in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. This two-screen art-house theater (which...

Apr 12, 2011 — After Army of Shadows, Melville and I stayed in touch . . . One day, he announced: “I’m going to make a new film. You’re not composing the score for it; I’ve contacted Michel Legrand . . .” Of course, I was disappointed....

Apr 11, 2011 — I believe in my world. I believe in brotherhood and everything that goes with it. Like honor, loyalty, and friendship. The reason why Le cercle rouge is a classic gangster film is because it embodies this kind of romanticism. For...

Thanks to the two most famous roles of her career—the enigmatic woman referred to only as A in Alain Resnais’ _Last Year at Marienbad_ and the middle-aged widow stuck in domestic routine in Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du...

Mar 28, 2011 — Topsy-Turvy is both an anomaly among the films of Mike Leigh and, contrary as it may seem, a Rosetta stone. On the one hand, it is Leigh’s only costume picture and only biopic—a far cry from the bittersweet, realistic films...

From sweeping epics to more intimate, luminous films, this English filmmaker’s pictures were driven by his deep interest in complex characters, his brilliant way with actors, and his classic sense of storytelling.

Mar 24, 2011 — Costumer Lindy Hemming began her decades-long collaboration with Mike Leigh at London’s Hampstead Theater Club, where the director, with his now legendary method of extended improvisation, was guiding his company toward what would become, in April 1977, Abigail’s Party. “At...

Mar 16, 2011 — We are currently working on a special edition of Todd Solondz’s Life During Wartime, including a supplement in which the director will answer viewer questions about his film. If you have something you’d like to ask him, please e-mail it to...

This pioneer of American independent cinema made emotionally naked human dramas suffused with kinetic, heightened realism.