Critics in Conversation: The Critic and the Actor
In the second part of a three-chapter conversation conducted over months via a large Google Doc, Manuela Lazic and Adam Nayman discuss acting and how film critics interpret performances.
Critics in Conversation: Manuela Lazic and Adam Nayman – First Cinematic Loves, Current Inspirations and Finding Your Voice
In the first part of a three-chapter conversation conducted over months via a large Google Doc, film critics Manuela Lazic and Adam Nayman discuss what makes a writer’s voice, colleagues that keep inspiring them and how, a generation apart, they became interested in movies and writing.
Chasing Chabrol: ‘La cérémonie’
“If you have an ounce of capitalist discomfort, La cérémonie will surely begin to boil your blood, and that’s where things get interesting.”
Chasing Chabrol: ‘Les biches’
“Les biches remains one of the more elusive and symbolic films of Chabrol’s career, as the narrative adopts a dreamlike structure that often obscures reality and truth.”
Chasing Chabrol: ‘Les bonnes femmes’
“Whereas a film centered on violence would typically reveal escalating notes of danger, Chabrol refocuses his attentions on nervous energies — unfulfilled lust, romantic insecurity and escalating paranoia.”
Chasing Chabrol: ‘Violette Nozière’
“Youth is central to Violette, and Isabelle Huppert’s petite frame and almost childlike features lend the film a skewed point of view that is coloured neither by experience or shame.”
The Moreau Files: ‘The Bride Wore Black’
“The Bride Wore Black has a rather deft sense of humor that raises it above many of the other brightly-lit neo-noirs of the 1960s. The irony does not come from the film’s anti-style, but rather in the brazen reversal of gender roles and Moreau’s deadpan delivery.”
The Moreau Files: ‘Les Amants’
“It is incredible to think that Louis Malle was only 25 years old when he made Les Amants, as it seems to hold the wisdom and erotic impulse of a much older man.”
The Moreau Files: ‘Ascenseur pour l’échafaud’
“For all the beauty of Malle’s classic, Moreau’s half-mad gliding has become the signature image of the film.”
The Moreau Files: ‘Diary of a Chambermaid’
“Celestine is a difficult role in that it relies on a careful balance between sex appeal and misplaced indignation. While Moreau’s Celestine uses her sex as a means to raise her social place early in the film, her priorities seemingly shift as she uses her body in order to expose a murderer and rapist (or so she believes).”