Portrait from Life

Jul 9, 2017 — A veteran of Japan’s legendary Shochiku studios, the versatile genre auteur Yoshitaro Nomura made his mark with a string of impeccably constructed thrillers. Five of his best are now available to stream on the Criterion Channel on FilmStruck.

Jul 5, 2017 — Robert Pattinson is on the cover of the new issue of Film Comment and online we find a brief excerpt from editor Nicolas Rapold’s interview with the star of Josh and Benny Safdie’s Good Time.Amy Taubin describes what, for her,...

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...

Jun 30, 2017 — “Founded in 1946 and situated in the picturesque Czech spa town,” the “Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) is seen as one of the most prestigious events on the circuit,” writes Orlando Parfitt at the top of his preview of...

Jun 27, 2017 — Let’s break the pattern a bit and open today’s entry with the recommended listening first. Karina Longworth’s outstanding podcast You Must Remember This has just returned from a well-deserved hiatus with a new series, “Jean and Jane.” As in Seberg...

Jun 21, 2017 — The interview of the day, hands down, dates back half a century. Via Movie City News comes word that American Cinematographer has posted Herb A. Lightman’s interview with Alfred Hitchcock, which originally ran in its May 1967 issue. What makes...

Jun 20, 2017 — “Bertrand Tavernier joins a growing list of filmmakers who've made what amounts to an epic video essay with My Journey Through French Cinema, a three-hour-plus leap into notable French filmmaking from roughly 1930 to 1980,” writes Clayton Dillard at Slant....

Jun 16, 2017 — The title of the first part of Tom Paulus’s projected three-part essay for photogénie, “The Love Connection: Another Jam Session on Narrative,” references “Jam Session on Non-Narrative,” a conversation that took place between film critics Jonathan Rosenbaum, David Ehrenstein, and...

Jun 1, 2017 — “The greatest filmmakers, like the greatest novelists and poets, are trying to create a sense of communion with the viewer,” writes Martin Scorsese in the new issue of the TLS. “They’re not trying to seduce them or overtake them, but,...

May 30, 2017 — Now that the Cannes Film Festival has wrapped, we’ve got some catching up to do. Let’s begin with Scout Tafoya’s report for the Village Voice on a recent symposium “on film criticism and scholarship commemorating the legacy of German film...