And Then There Was Light

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.

Dec 6, 2017 — Before breaking events down by city, let’s note that, to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary, Canyon Cinema is taking four 16 mm programs and two digital packages on the road—coast to coast and many, many points in between. Here’s a map...

Sep 21, 2017 — The big “in the works” news today is the release of the trailer for Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs, embedded below. According to the official synopsis from Fox Searchlight, Anderson’s second stop-motion animated feature after Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) “tells...

Jun 30, 2017 — Jonathan Rosenbaum’s posted a revised version of his 1999 essay on the “Origins and Legacy of the Conspiracy Thriller”: “It’s a tradition that harks back to Louis Feuillade’s silent serial of 1915-1916, Les vampires, about a gang of ingenious working-class...

Mar 16, 2015 — Director and star Robert Montgomery suffuses his moody 1947 New Mexico–set noir with palpable postwar anxiety and expressive fatalism.

Jan 13, 2014 — With economy and panache, Michael Mann established his existential crime drama style with this breakthrough first feature.

Sep 13, 2011 — Robert Altman’s spellbinding drama about stolen identities is propelled by evanescent reveries of his own and inventive contributions from cast and crew.

Feb 2, 2011 — This essay first appeared in the winter 2010 issue of Brick, a literary journal based in Toronto. It is posted here by permission of the author. Michelangelo said he could sense the figure in the uncut stone; his job was...

Oct 6, 2008 — Jean-Pierre Melville’s ninth and to that point most commercially successful feature in France, was an important watershed in the director’s career.

May 12, 2008 — Today it may be hard to understand the shock waves that Louis Malle’s romantic drama created with its “frank” depiction of a woman’s sexual pleasure, but in the context of late-1950s France, it was a bombshell.