By Michael Tapper. When thinking about Robin Wood, his book Personal Viewsalways comes to mind. He published it in 1976 – a transitional period between what he called his life as ‘an ideal bourgeois man’ and his coming out as a gay, feminist and socialist in his manifesto ‘Responsibilities of […]
Exodus collides with the Kedma
By Robin Wood. This article discusses (ultimately!) two films about the founding of modern Israel: Otto Preminger’s Exodus(Hollywood, 1960), and Gitai’s Kedma(2002). Both titles are also the names of the ships from which the Israelis land in Palestine – legally, in Exodus, illegally (by just four days!) in Kedma. It […]
Revenge is Sweet: The Bitterness of Audition
By Robin Wood. Auditionstands apart from the rest of Miike Takashi’s other films to date: this seems to be the general consensus, and it is confirmed by the three other films by him I have seen. It is the only one of the four that interests – more than interests, […]
Only (Dis)Connect; and Never Relaxez-Vous; or, ‘I Can’t Sleep’
By Robin Wood. Claire Denis: Cinema of Transgression, Part 2 (Read Part 1 here.) What it isn’t I have before me two statements about I Can’t Sleep(J’ai pas sommeil, 1994) by reputable and intelligent critics: 1. On the cover of the video, Georgia Brown (who used to write for The […]
Running Track: 50 Scores from World Cinema
By John Caps. Some seasons ago, Lincoln Center’s Film Comment magazine published an annotated survey of the history of Hollywood film music, “Soundtracks 101.” There I took readers from the beginning of descriptive/narrative soundtrack scoring in 1933’s King Kong through latter day experiments in sight/sound correlation like Waking Life where […]
The Most Dangerous Man in America: An Interview with Rick Goldsmith
By Amy R. Handler. The case of Daniel Ellsberg and the ‘Pentagon Papers’ is re-visited in a fascinating documentary by Rick Goldsmith and Judith Ehrlich. It is not surprising that their film, The Most Dangerous Man In America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers was a 2010 Academy Award nominee. […]
Pieces of Momoko Ando: A Conversation With the Director of Kakera
By Johan Nordström and Doris Lang. Momoko Ando, born in 1982, is one of Japan’s hot and upcoming new directors, whose debut film Kakera: A Piece of Our Liferecently had a simultaneous release in England and Japan, after first having played the festival circuit. Momoko Ando, the daughter of actor-director […]
Peter Strickland: Director of Katalin Varga
By Henry Rowsell. Prior to the release of his debut feature length film, Peter Strickland was not a well known name in the British film industry, however Katalin Varga(2009), a harrowing vengeance noir cast against the dramatic and intermittently haunting landscape of Transylvania, has drawn the critical acclaim of judges […]
‘Like Birds in the Trees’: Charles Burnett on Life in Watts, the Abattoir, and Brain Surgery
By Jamie Isbell. Charles Burnett’s journey as a filmmaker has not been one of equidistant success after success. Starting out with untracked intentions of becoming an electrical engineer and no grasping desire to become a man with a movie camera, he was in a strange position of observation in his […]
Larry Cohen: Film Crazy
By Patrick McGilligan. ‘Mr. Cohen has mined a career out of one simple question – what’s the worst that could happen? – which he answers with the stinging, compelling heat of the exploitation thriller.’ (Elvis Mitchell, The New York Times, April 27, 2003) There’s no mistaking a Larry Cohen film. […]