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NEWS
- A remarkable artistic unison is upon us: Argentine auteur Lucrecia Martel (Zama) and musician Björk are set to team on a theatrical concert production, to be directed by Martel.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
- The International Film Festival Rotterdam has concluded, meanwhile they’ve thankfully shared a host of essential masterclasses, all of which are viewable from the festival's YouTube channel: Nicole Brenez, Claire Denis, Roberto Minervini, Carlos Reygadas, and Jia Zhangke.
- Almodóvar reunites with his beloved muses Penélope Cruz and Antonio Banderas—here’s the lovely, colorful trailer for Pain & Glory (sans English subtitles).
- We somehow missed this last week: Jia Zhangke teamed up with Apple on this cheerful short film-advertisement for their new iPhone XS.
- A gorgeous, grandiose trailer for the Janus Films restoration of the masterpiece Soviet production, Sergei Bondarchuk’s War & Peace.
RECOMMENDED READING
Jonas Mekas for the New York Times.
- We continue to mourn the passing of Jonas Mekas, whose presence is still greatly missed. At the New York Times, Manohla Dargis guides us through his decades-long fight for independent cinema, or as Nick Pinkerton of 4 Columns puts it, "a cinema as rich and disorienting and sad and ecstatic as lived life itself."
- A newly translated Cahiers du Cinema dialogue between Philippe Garrel and Leos Carax finds the pair musing on the value of money, working with multi-generational casts, and their shared cinematic lineage.
- Film Comment speaks with filmmaker Garrett Bradley, whose short film America examines "the history of Black cinema from [the once-lost film] Lime Kiln Club Field Day (1913) to the present."
Peter Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old
- Pamela Hutchinson's compelling review of Peter Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old takes the film's "digital dressing" to task for its evident contempt for archival footage.
- Continuing Talkhouse's Underrated/Overlooked column, director Stephen Cone praises the greatness of Kay Cannon's spiritually profound comedy Blockers.
- Toshio Matsumoto's Funeral Parade of Roses and Neil Jordan's The Crying Game, and their shared curious and knotty representation of transgender women, is the latest subject of the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Beyond the Canon series.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
- At the International Film Festival Rotterdam, filmmaker and visual artist Cauleen Smith joins critic Kiva Reardon to discuss her work's engagement with archives, questions of authority and authorship, structuralism and science fiction.
RECENTLY ON THE NOTEBOOK
- An ode to sitting: Thomas Quist traces the variations of the sensation—and contentment—of being seated in Roy Andersson’s Songs from the Second Floor and Jean Renoir's French Cancan.
- How should one consider the works of Jia Zhangke? Sean Gilman offers 14 vantage points, from the cinematic movements that inspired Jia, to Jia's life as a "guy from Fenyang" and now, a politician.
EXTRAS AND RE-DISCOVERIES
- A charming set of illustrations of Mr. Hitchcock by animator and artist Antony Harepi.