The Political Life and Times of Mosen Makhmalbaf

There is also an excellent article on Makhmalbaf’s life and cinema in the latest Cineaste. A highpoint of the essay is the way The Cyclist, which has long been one of my favorite films, is posed as a transitional film. Both formally and biographically, one can see Makhmalbaf caught between dialectics of past and present, faithfulness and criticism, hope and exhaustion in almost every frame of The Cyclist. From there, it is handy to see the way his cinema developed. Here... Read More

Sicinski Reviews Inventing Film Studies

From among the most recent Cineaste offerings comes a review of a new collection of essays called Inventing Film Studies. In the review, Michael Sicinski loosely outlines debates about the history of film criticism as well as most of the essays in the collection. One of the most notable seems to be an essay by Mark Betz on the movement of film criticism from publications targeted to non-academics to the lengthy, complicated theoretical tomes that define the guild today. I have... Read More

The Big Apple & Les Fils Dardennes

That’s it. I’m moving to Manhattan. This afternoon. Friday at the latest. Today the Film Society of Lincoln Centre launches “Beyond L’Enfant: The Complete Dardenne Brothers” with two screenings and the opening of an exhibition of photographs by Christine Plenus, the Dardenne set photographer. Friday night is The Big Event, as Kent Jones hosts a conversation with Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, “an intimate look at their lives behind the lens.”... Read More