Suspended Lives, Revenant Images. On Harun Farocki’s Film Respite by Sylvie Lindeperg

Note: Suspended Lives, Revenant Images. On Harun Farocki’s Film Respite was first published in Trafic, no. 70/2009 and is reprinted in Harun Farocki: Against What? Against Whom?, edited by Antje Ehmann and Kodwo Eshun. Harun Farocki’s Respite is something of a ghost film, revisiting his exposition on the intersection between productivity and violence (as captured […]

Split Screen: Belgian Cinema and Cultural Identity by Philip Mosley

In Split Screen: Belgian Cinema and Cultural Identity, author Philip Mosley makes a salient and illuminating re-evaluation of a bifurcated Belgian cinema, not only through the reality of a federal state characterized by a decentralized government and regional autonomy, but also irreparably marked by occupation and war, and divided by a cultural heterogeneity that has […]

Shohei Imamura (Cinematheque Ontario Monographs, No. 1), edited by James Quandt

I am interested in the relationship of the lower part of the human body and the lower part of the social structure. Shohei Imamura is a compilation of reflexive, analytical, and appreciative essays on Imamura’s idiosyncratic and critical, yet compassionate films that examine the dichotomy of human behavior in the structured, conformist, and highly ordered […]

Russian Critics on the Cinema of Glasnost, edited by Michael Brashinsky and Andrew Horton

Russian Critics on the Cinema of Glasnost, edited by Michael Brashinsky and Andrew Horton, is a book in two parts: the first, Films in a Shifting Landscape, is a series of essays analyzing the historical and cultural legacy that shaped three generations of Soviet film criticism; the second, Glasnost’s Top Ten, is a compilation of […]

Rows and Rows of Fences – Ritwik Ghatak on Cinema by Ritwik Ghatak

Published as an updated version of the compilation Cinema and I – a repository of essays, ancillary working notes, talking scripts, and interviews by Bengali filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak – Rows and Rows of Fences – Ritwik Ghatak on Cinema is an inspired, thoughtful, fascinating, articulate, and insightful collection of articles that at once, serve as […]

Reframing Japanese Cinema: Authorship, Genre, History, edited by Arthur Nolletti Jr. and David Desser

Reframing Japanese Cinema provides a comprehensive and varied perspective on Japanese cinema through a series of essays on a director’s signature style (authorship), culturally representative film genres, and historical evolution of the Japanese film industry. Of the three sections on Authorship, Genre, and History, the articles on Authorship provide the most revealing insight into the […]