Checks and balances: creaky and cringe as it is, James L Brooks's Ella McCay is distinguished by the familiar warmth and polished witticisms of one of our most experienced entertainers ...

After years of respecting the work of Meryl Streep, what was it that made audiences suddenly fall in love with her in The Devil Wears Prada? It’s not that we ever took her for granted—14 Oscar ...

Checks and balances: creaky and cringe as it is, James L Brooks's Ella McCay is distinguished by the familiar warmth and ...

In the past decade, the making and showing of experimental film worldwide has gone from strength to strength, so much so that it can be categorically said that avant-garde cinema is as vital now as it ...

Classical Hollywood fetishism has found a most enchanting ambassador. Farran Smith Nehme of The Self-Styled Siren turns the articulation of cliché and convention into a sport—no surprise she’s chosen ...

Yes. I think, if I may say so, it’s like a sentence by Picasso I was once struck by: “I like to paint until the painting refuses me.” I would say that cinema won’t refuse me for a couple more films, a ...

Just about 10 years ago, Manny Farber and I were taking one last walk through a retrospective show of his paintings. He stopped to scrutinize a large board called Ingenious Zeus—vegetables, branches, ...

Originally published in Libération, March 5, 2003. With thanks to Antoine de Baecque. “What interests me is history, and politics only interests me to the degree that it is the mark history makes on ...

Camera comes in low over an immense Western lake, its destination apparently a small island at the center that seems to consist of nothing but treetops. Draw nearer, then sweep over and pass the ...

1. Johnny Guitar Nicholas Ray, 1954 2. Mouchette Robert Bresson, 1967 3. Laura Otto Preminger, 1944 4. Barry Lyndon Stanley Kubrick, 1975 5. Muriel Alain ...

In writing to President Johnson in December 1965 about his intention to make a film about the Green Berets, John Wayne explained that it was “extremely important that not only the people of the United ...

Even today, he still frets about the undue attention to his youthful beauty. For him it has been almost a straitjacket. “You want to be seen for what you can do… The ‘golden boy’ thing became a screen ...