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
Last Updated: 20 Dec 2011