Only the Dead

Nov 21, 2019 — Every love affair requires a border crossing. The person you see across a crowded bar, or meet at a dinner party, or find on a dating app is another country altogether—maybe a nice place to visit, but do you really...

Jul 25, 2017 — “So,” wrote Chris Marker in 2003, looking back on his school days, “with scissors, glue and crystal paper, I made a faithful copy of the actual Pathéorama reel. After that, frame by frame, I began to draw a series of...

Jul 24, 2017 — In Issue 13 of Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, editors Loretta Goff and Caroline V. Schroeter “bring together eight articles from around the world that interrogate the representation of race, ethnicity and identity on screen.”Kenta McGrath writes about...

Jun 26, 2017 — “There can be no debate over the fact that for most of its history Cannes has been the key launching pad for what will account for a fair percentage of the year’s most important films,” grants Cinema Scope editor Mark...

Nov 25, 2015 — Akira Kurosawa's 1952 film about one man’s mortality offers a study in postwar Japan, Kurosawa vs. Ozu, and the realization that knowing how to die requires learning how to be alive.

Nov 25, 2010 — Five Easy Pieces is not a statement about America but a closely observed report. Or, perhaps, a confession.

Oct 13, 2020 — I know I need somethingOr someone. From “Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day” (1978), by Nikki Giovanni While the screen is still dark, Gladys Knight’s voice drifts in, in a strong, sincere belt: “How can I / Work out this...

Jun 21, 2012 — The following interview with actor Ruth Gordon originally appeared in the April 4, 1971, edition of the New York Times. “Have ya gotta angle for the story?” The accent—part New England hayseed, part Dead-End Kid—is unmistakable. It belongs to Ruth...

Apr 24, 2012 — Among the most widely seen photographs of Hollis Frampton is one of him as a young man, a self-portrait taken in 1959, if we are to trust the narration he composed to accompany its inclusion in his 1971 film (nostalgia)....

Nov 14, 2011 — In 1989, the Communist rule that had dominated Eastern Europe since the end of the Second World War collapsed with astonishing rapidity. If the long-term political, economic, and ideological consequences of Europe’s reunification are still unfolding, there was an immediate...