The number of film critics who have indelibly shaped my understanding of the cinema is relatively small, perhaps a half dozen, maybe a dozen at the most. Susan Sontag is chief among them, although I’ve never thought of her as a critic per se. During a youth spent at academic institutions in Berkeley, Chicago, Cambridge […]
As the fall winds along, and the summer recedes into the past, the furor over the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s embattled film program gradually diminishes. And, yet, the museum, which is the largest of its kind west of the Mississippi River, and which has had a vibrant film program for more than forty […]
When I teach modern U.S. history, I find that students will wonder occasionally why American history courses invariably involve sustained discussions about race. The question is fair, actually, particularly when posed by international students who originate from places with entirely separate histories, where racial issues are sometimes different both in degree and kind. Race, as […]
I didn’t notice a single deep-focus shot in the entire eighty-seven minutes of Lucrecia Martel’s The Headless Woman (La mujer sin cabeza), which recently screened with Martel in attendance at the Billy Wilder Theater in Los Angeles. Virtually every frame, like the one above, contains a shallow depth-of-field, with the point of focus preserved almost […]
Criterion’s new edition of Alain Resnais’ Last Year at Marienbad gave me the occasion to revisit the film, at a point in time when I was already hoping to do so. I’ve always seen Marienbad as one of the most unique of cinematic experiences; it makes viewers entirely conscious of the process of cinema while […]