Subscribe to Film Comment today . There’s no single way to celebrate the holiday season, but nearly every custom is centered on family and friends gathering together. In the first segment of this episode, Digital Editor Violet Lucca spoke with Julien Allen, Reverse Shot and Cinema Scope writer, to explore the British tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas and the works of M.R. James. In the second, Lucca is joined by Michael Koresky, Director of Editorial and Creative Strategy, Film Soc...
Dec 27, 2016•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . On the other side of the visibility hurdle, questions about queer representation in film persist. Is visibility enough? How much is an appropriate amount? Do all queer films need to support the cause? Where is the gay hotel in The Lobster? In this episode of The Film Comment Podcast, we discuss the reductive mainstream treatment of queer characters in Hollywood fare, how television affords more exploration of gay characters, the aesthetics of queer sex scenes, a...
Dec 20, 2016•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . 2016 may be ill-suited to fond recollections, but the annual Film Comment Top 20 list does have plenty of good cheer to go around. This year's poll was conducted a bit differently, with a sharpened focus on Film Comment's contributors in order to better capture the magazine's voice. Even though the results will inevitably be skewed by factors like regional specificity and the availability of advance screenings for late-season films under consideration, polls are...
Dec 13, 2016•36 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . The clickbait consensus may be that cinema is dead, but the fact of the matter is a bit more nuanced. In the November/December issue of Film Comment, New York Film Festival Director Kent Jones suggests that perhaps we are witnessing the marginalization of cinema—although cinema may no longer be the most significant popular art form, it will evolve into something new. In other words, its particular impact may change, but it is certainly not dead. Jones joins Film...
Dec 06, 2016•55 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . There’s more to tearjerkers than the deceptively simple term might suggest, and in this episode of the Film Comment podcast, we consider the nuanced workings of cinematic sorrow. Is a tearjerker expressly and solely designed to elicit collective weeping, or is the effect of the button-pushing more personalized than we might admit? Does it count if a film moves its viewers to a profound silence rather than outright sobs? And what exactly makes us cry? The release...
Nov 29, 2016•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . According to the experts, this wasn’t supposed to turn out this way… but it did. While the election of Donald Trump has prompted a great deal of speculation by pundits and citizens alike, we’ve asked some of our own experts to weigh in. In the first part of this episode, J. Hoberman, critic for The New York Times and a Film Comment contributing editor, and Tobi Haslett, contributor to Artforum, n+1, and The Village Voice, to discuss films that they understand di...
Nov 23, 2016•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . What are the uncanny forces at work behind Paul Verhoeven’s visceral and transgressive cinema? In anticipation of the Film Society’s complete retrospective of the Dutch master’s films and the U.S. release of Elle, this episode offers a comprehensive discussion of the director’s audacious and eclectic career encompassing art-house Dutch films (Turkish Delight [1971], Spetters [1980]) and big-budget Hollywood productions such as Basic Instinct (1992), Total Recall...
Nov 15, 2016•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . It's finally here: Election Day. After you've cast your vote, hopefully this new episode of the Film Comment podcast will help you relax as the results come in. This week, we spotlight two writers whose work has never shied away from the political: blacklisted screenwriter Walter Bernstein, whose numerous credits include The Front, Fail-Safe, and The House on Carroll Street; and Cuban novelist Edmundo Desnoes, whose seminal work Memories of Underdevelopment inve...
Nov 08, 2016•49 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . Although one-on-one interviews with filmmakers are often accessible (depending, of course, on the personality at hand), group roundtables with a variety of filmmaking talent can be more difficult to come by. To counter this void, Film Comment assembled such an event at the 54th New York Film Festival—and now, in this week's episode of the podcast, you can listen to the complete talk. This Film Comment panel brought together three NYFF filmmakers—Olivier Assayas ...
Nov 01, 2016•49 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . Kristen Stewart took a quick breather from promoting her triptych of new films at NYFF to reflect on collaborating with Olivier Assayas and Kelly Reichardt. She also shares her excitement about stepping behind the camera for the first time. And speaking of directorial debuts, Chloë Sevigny discusses making her first short film, Kitty, on the heels of its North American premiere at NYFF, as well as the pursuit of a unique, substantive acting career in a white mal...
Oct 26, 2016•43 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . Is it possible to pinpoint what is so scary about an unsettling moment of a well-made horror film? It could be the image itself, but it could also be an unexpected sonic flourish, or an abrupt cut, or a lingering long take. A truly frightening horror film often derives its power from the uncanny specificity of its techniques or mise en scène, instilling a fundamental sense of unease that can't easily be shaken. With Halloween on the horizon, Film Comment Digital...
Oct 25, 2016•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . Photography is by nature bittersweet: a warm moment with a loved one is captured forever, a reminder of an instant in time that can never be repeated. These conflicting feelings are deftly explored in Errol Morris’s latest documentary, The B-Side, which traces the career of Elsa Dorfman. Never seeking fame, Dorman forged lifelong friendships with counter-culture giants like Alan Ginsberg, and shot everyone from Bob Dylan to Jonathan Richman. A perfect expression...
Oct 19, 2016•27 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . The fanfare of the 54th New York Film Festival may have officially wrapped on Saturday, but the films themselves live on—so let's talk about them. As part of an aptly named "Festival Wrap" free talk, several of Film Comment's frequent contributors and editors recently came together before a live audience to reflect on the highlights of a robust NYFF slate. Listen below to the full conversation before these films make the rounds in the coming months. The panel in...
Oct 18, 2016•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . The September/October issue of Film Comment re-envisioned the magazine’s style and sharpened its focus, celebrating the vibrancy of cinema as well as delving into tough critical issues. As part of the 54th New York Film Festival’s free talks series sponsored by HBO, critics whose work appears in the current issue—Farihah Zaman, Nick Pinkerton, Imogen Sara Smith, and Shonni Enelow—joined Film Comment Editor Nicolas Rapold and Film Society Editorial Director Micha...
Oct 11, 2016•46 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . Aside from search engines, the most visited sites in the world are social media: the old mainstays Facebook and Twitter. Their impact on film culture and cinephilia has been profound, giving voice to people who were formerly outside of the established critical conversation, but also providing a new outlet for seasoned critics. However, not all of the changes fostered by social media have been positive: hasty and reductive festival “takes,” the performative natur...
Oct 04, 2016•51 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . Great works of art transcend the passage of time, but the cinema of years past has its own special qualities of transcendence and immersion. This episode of The Film Comment Podcast explores how we relate to older films in the modern era, and examines the culture that surrounds their appreciation in an era of revival runs, film festivals, and restoration efforts. The discussion, led by Film Comment Digital Editor Violet Lucca, touches on modern audiences' emotio...
Sep 27, 2016•53 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . How do you approach political filmmaking in a meaningful way? And, in this politically charged era, where are the dissenting voices in film? In this episode, two very different filmmakers—Charles Burnett, the director of Killer of Sheep and To Sleep with Anger, and Oliver Stone, the director of Born on the Fourth of July and Snowden—speak about their films and their thoughts on contemporary media and politics....
Sep 21, 2016•51 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . Hosting over 300 films, many of which are world or North American premieres, the Toronto International Film Festival is a frequently overwhelming experience even for veteran attendees. To help cut through—or at least acknowledge that there will be—hype, this episode features a roundtable of critical voices discussing (and debating) key films from the festival. Participants: Film Comment podcast regulars Nick Pinkerton and Eric Hynes; Toronto-based critic Adam Na...
Sep 16, 2016•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . This episode is the first of three to dive into features from our newly redesigned September-October issue, which asks "What Is Cinema Now?" Shonni Enelow, author of Method Acting and Its Discontents: On American Psycho-Drama and assistant professor of English at Fordham University, wrote a feature about an emerging trend in contemporary American acting, characterized by restraint and withholding emotion. Digital Editor Violet Lucca was joined by Enelow and regu...
Sep 07, 2016•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . Last month, the final VCR rolled off the line at the Funai plant in Japan, officially signaling the end of an era. Although there have been numerous sea-changes in media since the end of VHS’s supremacy, there's something special (and, in a way, lost to time) about the formative cinephilic experiences fostered by video store communities. In this episode of the podcast, FILM COMMENT Editor Nicolas Rapold, Digital Editor Violet Lucca, FSLC Editorial Director Micha...
Aug 30, 2016•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . Visions of class surround us each day, both overtly and subliminally, in advertisements, literature, and film. Which visual and narrative tools are specific to each medium? To what extent does authorial background matter? And how does criticism of aesthetics or content either elucidate or complicate matters? All of these topics are broached in this episode of the FILM COMMENT podcast, wherein Digital Editor Violet Lucca joins K. Austin Collins, a regular contrib...
Aug 23, 2016•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . While so many soundtracks seem to exist solely to underline the tone of a scene, unexpected musical cues can completely recontextualize and undermine its action. The idea of the soundtrack as counterpoint entered the mainstream with directors like Martin Scorsese and Stanley Kubrick, and, at a certain point, became a bad cliché itself. This episode of The Film Comment Podcast, scripted by Sean Doyle, traces the evolution of ironic music in film from its earliest...
Aug 16, 2016•18 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . This month, at Anthology Film Archives, FILM COMMENT contributor Nick Pinkerton has programmed a variety of shockumentary-style works ranging from the notorious Mondo Cane (an Academy Award nominee, for Original Song) to Thierry Zéno’s Des Morts. Many of these films aim to shock and titillate, sometimes purporting to document actual deaths, but they become politically and culturally revealing texts. None of this problematic entertainment holds a candle, however,...
Jul 26, 2016•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . Though associated with heritage films—lush period films typically set in Britain’s imperial past—producer Ismail Merchant, director James Ivory, and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala collaborated since the early 1960s on a variety of literary adaptations. Masterfully constructed, Merchant-Ivory films came to symbolize a certain type of prestige film—for better and worse. Perhaps the pinnacle of their collaboration was Howards End (92), based on the E. M. Forster...
Jul 19, 2016•51 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . Kristen Stewart takes the spotlight in the brand-new July/August issue of FILM COMMENT, in a nuanced and balanced appreciation of the star's performances by Nick Davis. In this edition of The Film Comment Podcast, Digital Editor Violet Lucca and Editor in Chief Nicolas Rapold explore the cover story and other articles with the help of three featured writers. Ashley Clark, film critic and author of Facing Blackness, discusses his essay on silent-era black perform...
Jul 05, 2016•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . In his recently published book The Rhapsodes, seminal critic and film historian David Bordwell pays tribute to four groundbreaking film critics who were writing in the 1940s: Otis Ferguson, James Agee, Manny Farber, and Parker Tyler. Through meticulous examinations of their rarely read, multidisciplinary writings and moving biographical accounts, Bordwell paints a vivid portrait of their cultural milieux and makes the case for the uniqueness and importance of th...
Jun 28, 2016•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . Today, the term “summer movie” is synonymous with big budgets, explosions, superhero franchises, family-friendly animated films, and sequels. Yet this wasn't always the case. In the summers of the 1960s, years before 1975’s Jaws began to redefine the blockbuster, successful new releases were held over in certain cities for months, and risqué international films were shown alongside schlocky American B movies. For this week’s episode, we flash back to the summer ...
Jun 22, 2016•55 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . Hong Sangsoo is a filmmaker who isn’t afraid to repeat himself. Fashioning narratives around lonesome or just pathetic male artists’ attempts at finding romantic connection, Hong’s films are characterized by their long takes and minute variations—a slightly off-center frame of two people talking, a digital zoom, a subtle readjustment of focus—that make us question what’s really going on in the scene. In honor of his soju-fueled comedy of manners, Digital Editor ...
Jun 14, 2016•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . In their intimate and insightful documentary De Palma, directors Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow sit down with the legendary filmmaker to discuss his audacious career. With no authorial voices included, the film takes the form of a two-hour introspective monologue, in which the maestro reflects on his directorial approach and why he loves filming beautiful women so much. Digital Editor Violet Lucca spoke with FILM COMMENT and Film Society Editorial Director Micha...
Jun 03, 2016•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 1
Subscribe to Film Comment today . Believe it or not, but occasionally the critics attending Cannes take umbrage with the jury’s choices for awards—so much so this year that the Grand Prix recipient, Xavier Dolan, was booed during the ceremony. But who really got it right this year, and which films will endure as highlights? Digital Editor Violet Lucca spoke with FILM COMMENT and Artforum contributing editor Amy Taubin; Brandon Harris, assistant professor at SUNY Purchase and Vice contributor; an...
May 27, 2016•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 1
