Black Book

Apr 23, 2021 — This week we’re reading A. S. Hamrah on the contenders for this year’s Oscars and Ben Hecht on the state of Hollywood in 1938.

Apr 8, 2021 — The London-based, British Ghanaian artist and filmmaker Larry Achiampong explores race, class, and history in a multidisciplinary practice that, as described in the biography on his website, seeks to “examine his communal and personal heritage—in particular, the intersection between pop...

Mar 26, 2021 — Today’s round features writing on Catherine Breillat, William Greaves, Thom Andersen, and Patricia Highsmith.

Mar 25, 2021 — In With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together, an autobiography cowritten by legendary creative and life partners Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, Dee tells the story of working as a screenwriter on 1968’s Uptight. It’s a brief account, about...

Feb 24, 2021 — We’re losing Cinefex but gaining a newly robust Screen Slate. And the new Cineaste is out, along with this year’s Hollywood issue of Vanity Fair.

Feb 23, 2021 — Released in 1985, during the exuberant flowering of films by women brought on by second-wave feminism, Joyce Chopra’s Smooth Talk now feels less of those years than like a harbinger of the #MeToo movement, an early challenge to a cultural...

Feb 19, 2021 — This week’s round takes us from Italy in the 1950s and ’60s to America in the ’70s and Hong Kong in the ’90s.

Feb 12, 2021 — In an interview with bell hooks published in 1996, Camille Billops responded to a question about the transgressive candor of her films by saying “It is probably exhibitionism on my part [. . .] some people say our films have...

Jan 22, 2021 — List-topping westerns, color-drenched musicals, and rule-breaking documentaries are in the news this week.

Jan 5, 2021 — The director overcame anti-Semitism or misogyny to make such unique films as Hester Street and Chilly Scenes of Winter.