August 2011
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Features
The old soldier: Jean-Luc Godard’s Film Socialisme
More than half a century after Breathless first catapulted him on to the world stage, Jean-Luc Godard is still challenging cinematic norms with his politically charged, poetic essay Film Socialisme. Gabe Klinger jump-cuts through key moments in the director’s life
Listen to Britain: British folk cinema
A new DVD collection of films documenting British folk culture evokes a vanishing world for Philip Hoare
Lost and found: Across the Bridge
A model of adaptation, Across the Bridge cleverly expands Graham Greene’s original short story, says the screenwriter Paul Mayersberg
Vision quest: Robert Breer
Robert Breer’s lifelong experiments with film intrigue Ian Francis
Cover feature: All she desires
With Todd Haynes’s five-part miniseries of James M. Cain’s novel Mildred Pierce – already the inspiration for a 1945 film – HBO has produced a work of truly cinematic ambition, says Paul Julian Smith
PLUS Haynes tells Isabel Stevens how HBO gave him space to explore female experience in a way today’s Hollywood would never allow
Sculpting in time
Perhaps more than any other film, Alain Resnais’s Last Year in Marienbad lays itself open to esoteric interpretation. To celebrate its rerelease, Brian Dillon maps the film’s relationship to sculpture
PLUS Keith Reader uncovers the SM subtext beneath the elegance
Flesh, blood, passion
Director Bertrand Tavernier has a flair for turning historical research into vivid drama, as he shows once again with The Princess of Montpensier. He talks to Demetrios Matheou
Listen to Britain
A new DVD collection of films documenting British folk culture evokes a lost world for Philip Hoare
PLUS Folk singer Shirley Collins remembers the pioneering field work of Alan Lomax and Peter Kennedy
Between thought and expression
Poetry is the first of Lee Chang-Dong’s films to secure big-screen release in the UK. But since his debut 15 years ago, the writer-director has played a crucial role in South Korea’s cultural and political life, says Tony Rayns
Great wide open
Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’avventura is now more influential than ever, argues Robert Koehler in the latest of our series on ‘top ten’ contenders for next year’s Sight & Sound poll
Art for art’s sake
When the Japanese distributor Art Theatre Guild turned to production in the late 1960s, it unleashed a wave of extraordinary work from Japan’s boldest filmmakers – Oshima, Imamura, Terayama and many more. Alexander Jacoby surveys its legacy
Selected reviews
Film of the month: Treacle, Jr.
Only the third film Jamie Thraves has managed to get made in over a decade, Treacle, Jr. confirms him as a British filmmaker with a distinctive comic touch and a sympathy for oddball outsiders, says Trevor Johnston
Film review: The Tree of Life
Intimate childhood memoir? Absurd sacred bluster? Michael Atkinson parses Terrence Malick’s ambitious Rorschach blot
DVD: Szindbád
Michael Atkinson marvels at the swoonsome beauty of a revived gem of 1970s Hungarian cinema
Film review: Beginners
Sweet but terminally meandering, Mike Mills’ coming-to-terms-with-life story leans heavily on an ebullient sideshow from Christopher Plummer, says Kate Stables
Reviews in this issue:
- Bad Teacher
- Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo
- Film review: Beginners
- Bobby Fischer against the World
- Born to Be Wild 3D
- Break My Fall
- Breath Made Visible
- Cell 211
- Dancing Dreams
- Film Socialisme
- The Flaw
- Green Lantern
- Hobo with a Shotgun
- Holy Rollers
- Honey/Bal
- Huge
- Kung Fu Panda 2
- Larry Crowne
- Last Night
- The Light Thief
- Poetry
- Film review: Poetry
- The Princess of Montpensier
- The Round Up
- Sawako Decides
- Screwed
- Super
- Swinging with the Finkels
- Film of the month: Treacle, Jr.
- Film review: The Tree of Life
- Trust
- Viva Riva!
- X-Men First Class
- Zookeeper
- DVD: Szindbád
- DVD: Nick Pinkerton on Fassbinder’s flawed but fascinating Despair
- DVD: Tim Lucas revists Joseph Losey’s The Romantic Englishwoman
- DVD: L’Age d’or
- DVD: Beauty and the Beast – Season 1
- DVD: Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
- DVD: Cross of Iron
- DVD: Faccia a faccia
- DVD: The Halfway House
- DVD: A High Wind in Jamaica
- DVD: Java Head / Tiger Bay
- DVD: Jemima Shore Investigates
- DVD: The Kingdom I & II
- DVD: The Kremlin Letter
- DVD: Laila
- DVD: The Miners’ Hymns
- DVD: Night Flight
- DVD: People on Sunday
- DVD: Rififi
- DVD: Skidoo
- DVD: Stressed Eric
- DVD: Taking Off
- DVD: Who Can Kill a Child?
- Books: Kim Newman hails a definitive biography of Boris Karloff
- Books: Sophie Mayer welcomes the reappearance of Born in Flames as a hybrid graphic novel
- Books: Paolo Cherchi Usai samples a revealing selection of 100 Silent Films
- Books: Brad Stevens is surprised by a re-evaluation of the films of unsung 1970s/80s director James Bridges