March 2011
Please view our back issues page for more information about obtaining previous months issues, dating back to 1995.
Features
Obituaries
Sight & Sound’s comprehensive annual survey of the notable film actors, directors and more who died during the course of 2010. Compiled by Bob Mastrangelo
PLUS James Bell on Takamine Hideko, John Gianvito on Werner Schroeter, Philip Kemp on Jean Simmons, Kieron Corless on William Lubtchansky, and Isabel Stevens on Robert F. Boyle
Lost and found: The Watcher in the Woods
What’s the missing link between Tron, The Legend of Hell House and a big blue alien? For Joseph Stannard, it’s Disney’s cult 1980 fantasy The Watcher in the Woods
Jafar Panahi: the green badge of courage
Following the Iranian government’s imprisonment of leading filmmakers Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof, their colleague and compatriot Rafi Pitts has responded with an open letter to President Ahmadinejad. Gabe Klinger talks to Pitts about the case
Cover feature: Truffaut: The British connection
François Truffaut famously commented on the incompatibility between the words ‘British’ and ‘cinema’. But how did that apply to his own brand of cinema in particular? Catherine Wheatley charts the director’s changing critical fortunes on these shores
PLUS David Thomson reassesses the most English of Truffaut’s films, 1971’s neglected Anne and Muriel
Blow by blow
Based on the true story of American welterweight ‘Irish’ Micky Ward, David O. Russell’s The Fighter drags the boxing movie out of the shadow of Raging Bull and into the age of HBO, says Kim Newman
PLUS Russell talks to James Bell about capturing the rawness of the ring
PLUS David Thomson reassesses the most English of Truffaut’s films, 1971’s neglected Anne and Muriel
Remaining days
In envisioning the alternate England of Never Let Me Go, American music-video veteran Mark Romanek finds his aesthetic match in Anglo-Japanese novelist Kazuo Ishiguro. By Henry K. Miller
PLUS Ishiguro talks to Nick James
The green badge of courage
Following the Iranian government’s imprisonment of leading filmmaker Jafar Panahi, his colleague and compatriot Rafi Pitts has responded with an open letter to President Ahmadinejad. Gabe Klinger talks to Pitts about the case, and about the struggle to make films in Iran
PLUS Ishiguro talks to Nick James
Roeg: the last British romantic
Emerging from an era of hedonistic experiment, no director better epitomised the risk-taking mood of 1970s British cinema than Nicolas Roeg. Nick James looks back at the impact of Roeg’s extraordinary run of early films
PLUS Ishiguro talks to Nick James
Selected reviews
Film review: Animal Kingdom
An exploration of Australia’s criminal underbelly, David Michôd’s debut is on the whole an ambitious and effective thriller, argues Wally Hammond
Film of the month: Archipelago
Following Unrelated with another tale of a tightly wound English family on holiday – this time in the Scilly Isles – Archipelago confirms Joanna Hogg as one of our subtlest and most probing filmmakers. By Jonathan Romney
DVD: Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment
Paul Tickell on a decade of counterculture and class change – and the Karel Reisz movie that defined it
Film review: Inside Job
Charles Ferguson’s slick, smug explication of the root causes of the current global recession offers a useful primer for the incredibly ill-informed, says Vadim Rizov
Reviews in this issue:
- Film review: Animal Kingdom
- Animals United
- Film of the month: Archipelago
- Civic Life
- Confessions
- Fair Game
- The Fighter
- The Green Hornet
- Gulliver’s Travels
- Henry’s Crime
- Honeymooner
- How Do You Know
- Howl
- Film review: Inside Job
- It’s Kind of a Funny Story
- Legend of the fist: The Return of Chen Zhen
- Lemmy
- Little Fockers
- Living on Love Alone
- The Mechanic
- Never Let Me Go
- Ride, Rise, Roar
- Season of the Witch
- Son of Babylon
- The Tempest
- The Insatiable Moon
- Two in the Wave
- Waste Land
- West Is West
- Yogi Bear
- DVD: Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment
- DVD: Michael Atkinson celebrates a box-set tribute to new-wave pioneers BBS
- DVD: Tim Lucas revels in the final feature by horror’s surrealist, Jean Rollin
- DVD: Black Orpheus
- DVD: Films by Luis Buñuel
- DVD: Decision Before Dawn
- DVD: Films by Alexander Dovzhenko
- DVD: Duffer / Moon over the Alley
- DVD: Edan’s ‘Echo Party’ Movie
- DVD: The Fish Child
- DVD: Flying Scotsman
- DVD: Freud
- DVD: films by Samuel Fuller
- DVD: Johnny Staccato
- DVD: Films by Grzegorz Królikiewicz
- DVD: Once upon a Time in America
- DVD: Private Road
- DVD: Walter
- Book: Lee Server enjoys a smart but slim addition to the growing pile of Humphrey Bogart biographies
- Book: Ian Christie applauds a comprehensive survey of the field of post-war British documentary
- Book: Bryony Dixon welcomes the rehabilitation of cinema pioneer Alice Guy Blaché