The Senses of Cinema 2011 World Poll presents a selection of readers’ and writers’ favourites (and least favourites) from the realms of theatrical release, festivals and other film culture activities from the year.
Feature Articles
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The cinema turns every viewer into a detective. Murray Pomerance goes in search of “signs” and their significance in films.
Originally published in early 1950, this is, quite possibly, the first time Rivette commits his views on cinema to print. And fascinating thoughts they are in the light of his writing and filmmaking to come.
An excerpt on one of the masterpieces of 6os cinema from Mary Wiles’ forthcoming book on Jacques Rivette, published by Illinois University Press.
A true poet of the cinema, the director of, amongst others, Russian Ark and The Sun, talks philosophy, religion, aesthetics and the Russian soul.
Using interview footage of Sokurov and combining it with other elements, the filmmakers produce a contemplative video-essay on the director.
An insightful historical survey of the practice and aesthetics of visual abstraction from silent cinema to the present.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of France’s first filmmakers’ co-op, the Collectif Juene Cinéma. Marcel Mazé, founder and president, discusses its fascinating history.
Though he shared a San Francisco studio loft in the 1960s with friends Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, John Korty eschewed the studio system and devoted himself to making low budget films the equal of any thing that emerged from the American independent cinema of the time.
When fire destroyed the negative to Sara Driver’s 1982 debut feature, the film was thought lost forever. And then, the fortuitous discovery of a print amongst the belongings of the famed author Paul Bowles lead to its re-emergence.
The folly of Lars von Trier’s words at Cannes should not taint the achievements of this mesmerising and haunting film.
As fate would have it, this colossal film stands as Raul Ruiz’s swansong. No better way to end a long and labyrinthine career.
“The brain is the flesh.” Using ‘Artaud-Deleuze’ as a guide, Marko Bauer traverses the cerebral territory of Gaspar Noé’s film. Enter at your peril.
David Phelps provides a comprehensive analysis of the stylist features of one of the great directors of the Japanese New Wave.
Considered one of the best offerings from recent Iranian cinema, Joseph Burke argues that one of the achievements of A Separation is to “make us believe again in a moral world.”
In the afterglow of Wim Wenders’ Pina, Miriam Ross looks at the re-invention of the dance film in the 3D era.
The director of Look Both Ways and My Year Without Sex passed away earlier this year. Jonathan Dawson pays homage to a distinctive talent.
Framed as an introduction to her translation of Serge Toubiana’s tribute, Bérénice Reynaud pays homage to Claudine Paquot, long time head-of-publications at Cahiers.
Jacopetti’s fame will always be tied to the phenomenal success of Mondo Cane; a ground breaking film in more ways than could have been anticipated at the time.
Terrence Malick’s poetic and ambiguous film has for the most part divided critics. Moritz Pfeifer offers his thoughts on a film where choosing sides may be inevitable.
Samuel Bréan, founding member of the French Association of Audiovisual Translators, offers some absorbing insights in to Godard’s subtitling strategies.
The socio-cultural currents that informed the Weimer Republic have always provided a fascinating backdrop to German silent cinema. This article weaves a range of issues around an analysis of Joe May’s 1929 classic, Asphalt.
Joseph Natoli digs into this genre-blending hybrid of a film, which inadvertently has much to say about America’s fading sense of history.
Gregory Stephens provides an indepth analysis of Chaplin’s classic allegory on the machine-age.
How much damage did the policies of the Reagan administration inflict on American rural communities? Stephen Larson provides the answers.
A supposed nostalgia for the old West Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall has made its appearance in a number of films. Dorothea Otto discusses Herr Lehmann and other titles pertinent to the theme.
Neurologist and cinephile, Robert Stowe, looks at Reinhard Hauff’s 1979 political drama about a man recovering from brain trauma.
Abigail Loxham discusses the documentary work of José Luis Guerín, Albert Solé and Carla Subirana in the light of Catalan history.
Taking his cue from a number of Deleuzian concepts, Thierry Jutel casts a fresh look at the Coen brothers film.
In his now infamous press conference, Lars von Trier’s comments about Nazis and Jews received the overwhelming focus of attention, but other contentious words were overlooked.
Jean Baudrillard’s encounter with cinema, and cinema’s encounter with Baudrillard’s thought are the twin subjects of this extensive discussion of American cinema of the 1970s and beyond.
Socratic lessons can be articulated in all manner of ways. Pedro Blas Gonzalez examines John Huston’s 1947 fable about avarice and greed.
Of the great Ernst Lubitsch masterpieces, this luminous 1932 comedy has perhaps received less praise than it deserves.
In light of Sidney Lumet’s recent passing away, this article pays tribute to his powerful 1964 dramatised study of a post-Holocaust survivor living a life of quite desperation in Harlem.
The author brings together two seminal films from differing eras that challenge audiences in complex and confronting ways.
In the late 1970s, Catherine Berge’s encounter with both the films and person of King Vidor was a seminal turning point in her life. Here, she talks about her personal history with the director and her 1980 film devoted to him.
A great director, no doubt, but as Peter Tonguette demonstrates, King Vidor was equally proficient at the art and craft of editing.
Often seen as the figurehead of the so-called “mumblecore” cineastes, Joe Swanberg discusses the aesthetic and technological practices that inform this indie phenomenon.
Author Jiwei Xiao analyses the aesthetics and the theme of memory that underpin the films of Jia Zhangke, the foremost contemporary Chinese director of his generation.
Flannery Wilson looks at the characterization of Taipei in a range of films, and sees something different to the norm emerging in director Arvin Chen’s depiction of the city in his 2010 Au Revoir Taipei.
Earlier this year, the Korean American Film Festival in New York held a retrospective of Kim-Gibson’s work. In this interview she discusses politics, art and the documentary form.
Set amongst the world of refugees and asylum seekers in the port city of Calais, Philippe Lioret’s 2009 film says much about France’s confrontation with the symbolic ‘other’.
An introductory essay on the post-colonial emergence of a regional cinema often overlooked in contemporary film history.
José Luis Guerin discusses his recent film Guest, based around the year-long itinerary of the director visiting many film festivals and cultures.
The esteemed director of I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone, Goodbye, Dragon Inn and more recently, Face, reflects on a whole range of subjects to do with his films and, more broadly, the cinema in general.
Taking their cue from the theatre-going exercise that was Chacun son cinema, the editors of this dossier canvassed an international spectrum of scholars and cinephiles on their seminal moments and reflections in general on movie-going.
Linda Ehrlich previews a forthcoming major exhibition based on ‘video-letter’ exchanges between directors such as Jonas Mekas, José Luís Guerin, Alberto Serra, Lisandro Alonso, and others.
Many token obituaries on the actress would have her still under the shadow of one film, Last Tango in Paris. However, her life and career were far more rich and complex.
The controversial filmmaker discusses a range of polemical topics such as sex, violence, feminism, pornography, censorship, and her recent adaptations of classic fairytales.
