Murray Lerner’s ‘Festival’: A Prototype for the Music Documentary
“‘Festival’ challenges our preconceptions about the past – in this case, that of folk music and of music documentaries themselves.”
Vague Visages Is FilmStruck: Jeremy Carr on Erich von Stroheim’s ‘Greed’
“‘Greed’ is like the gold within the soil, a gem that must be mined from its sullied context.”
The Song of the Cloud-Capped Mountain: Anushka Meenakshi and Iswar Srikumar’s ‘Kho ki pa lü’
“‘Kho ki pa lü’ is about a lot of things, but it’s mostly about music. It is about Li, the songs that people sing when they cultivate rice in small müles.”
The Tattoos Tell the Story: Viggo Mortensen’s Painted Body
“Mortensen uses his body to display his characters’ essential tensions, as they ride the line between truth and lies, loyalty and betrayal, chaos and control.”
‘Ali: Fear Eats the Soul’: Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Timely Melodrama
“Fassbinder created a masterpiece that is relatable due to his depictions of racism, discrimination and the complexities of identity — themes which still resonate loudly today.”
Conduits of Fear: The Vital Role of The Youth in Horror
“Horror is a genre that believes, rightly, that young people are the future.”
Secret Defense: A Close-Up on Arnaud Desplechin’s ‘Esther Kahn’
“Phoenix delivers an opaque but strikingly physical performance, reminiscent of the women in Charlie Chaplin’s films.”
Norman McLaren: Genius in Motion
“Unconventional but playful, rarely has the avant-garde been so joyful to discover.”
Why I Wear the Mask: Tom Hardy’s Performances of Limitation
“Behind the mask, lurking within the timbre of the vocal choices, buried beneath the shaped physique, there is truth.”
The Joy of Creating: On Takeshi Kitano’s ‘Hana-bi’
“‘Hana-bi’ is a deeply personal labour of love made by an artist observing his own enigmatic nature from a variety of angles in an attempt to arrive at some clarifying epiphany.”
Clothes Make the Man: Remembering Harry Dean Stanton
“Harry Dean Stanton was dependable, durable and made whatever part his own, no matter how big or small.”
My Summer of Dunst: Series Conclusion
“Kirsten Dunst deserves an apology, and a second look, from all of us.”
Vague Visages Is FilmStruck: Kate Saccone on Lotte Reiniger’s ‘The Adventures of Prince Achmed’
“As the artist who painstakingly moved her hand-cut figures frame-by-frame, Reiniger’s presence is impossible to ignore while watching her films.”
Ten Years Later, Adam Green’s Cult Slasher ‘Hatchet’ Still Cuts
“It’s rare to find a movie that pays homage to the good ol’ days while also paving its own way, but ‘Hatchet’ is that.”
Vague Visages Is FilmStruck: Jeremy Carr on Louis Malle’s ‘Black Moon’
“Communication — or the lack thereof — is key to ‘Black Moon.’”
‘Rat Film’: Light and Dirt, Cinema and Rodents
“The past informs the present.”
Dead Kennedys at TIFF 2017: The Rise of a New Zeitgeist
“Step aside, LBJ, your time in the spotlight is done.”
The Woman and the Puppet: On Abel Ferrara’s ‘New Rose Hotel’
“Her power lies in her opaqueness.”
The Sadness of Desert Trolls: On Robert Altman’s ‘3 Women’
“Altman balances searing interpersonal conflicts with a visual rhythm that’s downright whimsical.”
My Summer of Dunst: Volume 5
“Dunst remains in control of her persona, but she’s also at the mercy of Hollywood scheming.”