The First Time () also writer

Apr 20, 2015 — "Afilm about India without elephants and tiger hunts”—this was how Jean Renoir described his objective in making The River. Guided by Rumer Godden’s autobiographical novel, he rejected the India of exotic action and spectacle to make a meditative, almost mystical...

Apr 14, 2015 — Preston Sturges revealed a lot about himself and the movie business in this hilarious and socially committed comedy.

Feb 26, 2015 — The threat of death hangs over Watership Down, Martin Rosen’s wise and uncompromising animated adaptation of Richard Adams’s classic novel about rabbits on a survival mission.

Oct 2, 2014 — The following is a chapter on The Innocents from cinematographer Freddie Francis’s memoir, The Straight Story from “Moby Dick” to “Glory.” It is reproduced here courtesy of Scarecrow Press. The last picture I worked on as a cinematographer in my...

Jul 29, 2014 — Combining a tragic romance and the story of a workers’ strike, this musical melodrama is perhaps Jacques Demy’s most neglected masterpiece.

Jun 20, 2014 — Peter Weir’s sun-dappled, sexually charged nightmare about a disappearance in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Australia still unnerves due to its radical lack of resolution.

Jun 5, 2014 — The following is excerpted from an interview with Red River editor Christian Nyby that critic Ric Gentry conducted in 1991.

Apr 27, 2014 — A leading light of commedia all’italiana, Dino Risi specialized in fleet, satirical takes on contemporary Italian culture, and this road-trip smash was his most trenchant.

Sep 9, 2013 — As outré as it is, the most subversive thing about this classic farce is its take on what’s normal.

Apr 9, 2013 — David Cronenberg and William S. Burroughs: it was a meeting of the mutant minds years in the making.