More Serious Than Love: Éric Rohmer’s ‘A Summer’s Tale’
“The film identifies the dark heart of summer, the humid stagnation and sense of dread that is the season’s essence.”
At the Cinémathèque: L’ange et la femme (Gilles Carle, 1977)
“A deeply affecting and personal vision, it’s an essential entry in the history of eroticism in Canadian cinema.”
Of Love and Other Demons: ‘The Devil Is a Woman’ (Josef von Sternberg, 1935)
A Weekly Column on Love and Erotica in Cinema by Justine A. Smith
At the Cinémathèque: ‘The Pillow Book’ (Peter Greenaway, 1996)
“As formally challenging as ‘The Pillow Book’ may be, it romantically creates a love affair unbound by its physical limits, connecting it to past and present through art and literature.”
Classes, Clashes and the City of Michelangelo Antonioni’s ‘Le amiche’
“With ‘Le amiche,’ Antonioni further bridges the gap between comparatively conservative melodrama and the groundbreaking narrative and visual abstraction he would soon unleash.”
Piecing Together the Fragments of Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘A Married Woman’
“With ‘A Married Woman,’ Godard appears fully devoted to topical bullet points through an essayistic structure, forgoing conventional narrative, character development or expedient pacing.”
The Feminine Grotesque #10: Genre Is a Woman and She Has Fangs – On ‘A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night’
“After viewing ‘A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night’ for the first time, I wondered, ‘Doesn’t a woman have to be at least a little bit monstrous to survive?'”
Violently Tender: The Secret Humanism of Vincent Gallo’s ‘Buffalo ’66’
“Though bleak and at times brutal, ‘Buffalo ’66’ manages to evoke a world of sensitivity that’s, dare I say, rather feminine.”
The Feminine Grotesque #7: She’s a Loaded Gun – On ‘The Last Seduction’
“As Bridget Gregory in ‘The Last Seduction,’ Linda Fiorentino is like the shock of hearing a gunshot in the dead of night. She embodies, more than any other character, the ethos of the modern femme fatale.”
Of Love and Other Demons: ‘The Rose Tattoo’ (Daniel Mann, 1955)
“An incredible failure, ‘The Rose Tattoo’ has value in understanding the confines of the production code and the importance of good direction.”
Of Love and Other Demons: ‘Gilda’ (Charles Vidor, 1946)
“‘Gilda’ is one of the great examples of onscreen masochism.”
Of Love and Other Demons: Sam Peckinpah and Sex – ‘The Ballad of Cable Hogue’
“Cable Hogue ogles and desires Hildy because she appeals to him sexually: there are no shades of grey here, no self-reflection. In the world of Peckinpah, sex is often just sex.”
Of Love and Other Demons: ‘Tabu’ (Miguel Gomes, 2012)
“The strength of ‘Tabu’ lies in how powerfully sex is captured, offering aural and visual textures that inspire sensorial memories.”
Case for Criterion: Jamie Babbit’s ‘But I’m a Cheerleader’
“Babbit recognizes that the characters in question have a difficult choice to make: to subscribe to a dominant culture and survive or to ‘be themselves’ and ostensibly be shunned.”
Case for Criterion: Xavier Dolan’s ‘Heartbeats’
“Critics have labeled ‘Heartbeats’ as derivative and pretentious, flamboyant and bratty, but it’s exactly the kind of film where such criticism means that it’s doing its job.”
Chasing Chabrol: ‘Les bonnes femmes’
“‘Les bonnes femmes’ pushes the boundaries of expectations, leaving the audience in a place of vulnerability.”
Review: Rafaël Ouellet’s ‘Gurov and Anna’
“‘Gurov and Anna’ toys with perceptions and ultimately gives into both cynicism and brutality. While not for the faint of heart, Ouellet’s film offers a pointed portrait of obsession and ego…”
The Moreau Files: ‘The Lovers’
“It is incredible to think that Malle was only 25 years old when he made ‘The Lovers,’ as it seems to hold the wisdom and erotic impulses of a much older man.”
The Moreau Files: ‘Jules and Jim’
“In the male dominated world of the French New Wave, Catherine in François Truffaut’s ‘Jules and Jim’ stands out as a mysterious and particularly beguiling female presence.”
Some Like It Hot (and Hilarious): Angus MacLachlan’s ‘Goodbye to All That’
“Angus MacLachlan’s ‘Goodbye to All That’ is a witty romance with real-life consequences for millennials to consider.”