December 2011

Please view our back issues page for more information about obtaining previous months issues, dating back to 1995.

Features

#Michael Shannon: trouble in mind

For years Michael Shannon has been building a reputation as an intense, risk-taking actor on stage and in supporting roles. But his compelling turn as the dream-haunted everyman in Take Shelter proves he can carry a movie. Nick Pinkerton talks to him

#Lost and found: Odds Against Tomorrow

Less interested in its heist than its characters’ psyches, Odds Against Tomorrow was a favourite of Jean-Pierre Melville – and Paul Tickell

#Faust and furious: Alexandr Sokurov

A surprise winner of the top prize at the recent Venice Film Festival, Aleksandr Sokurov’s Faust has divided critics, leaving some groping for superlatives. Here Ian Christie places the film in the context of European high culture’s previous tellings of the tale – and of the Russian director’s other, varied works, now showing in a BFI retrospective

Cover feature: Reckless moment

Adapted from Terence Rattigan’s 1952 play, The Deep Blue Sea represents a triumphant return to filmmaking for writer-director Terence Davies. He talks to Geoff Andrew

PLUS set report by Nick James

PLUS Rising star Tom Hiddleston tells Nick James what attracted him to working with Terence Davies

PLUS DP Florian Hoffmeister on the film’s distinctive look

Enter the void

Snowtown dramatises the real-life serial killings uncovered in the eponymous South Australian small town. But far from true-crime sensationalism, it’s a gruelling psychological study from first-time director Justin Kurzel. He talks to James Bell

Love will tear us apart

Leaving the council-estate setting of her earlier films for the moors of Wuthering Heights, Andrea Arnold has put her own stamp on Emily Brontë’s classic, says Amy Raphael

PLUS David Jenkins surveys other screen versions

Trouble in mind

For years Michael Shannon has been building a reputation as an intense, risk-taking actor on stage and in supporting roles. But his compelling turn as the dream-haunted everyman in Take Shelter proves he can carry a movie. Nick Pinkerton talks to him

Faust and furious

A surprise winner of the top prize at the recent Venice Film Festival, Aleksandr Sokurov’s Faust has divided critics, leaving some groping for superlatives. Ian Christie places the film in the context of European high culture’s previous tellings of the tale – and of the Russian director’s other, varied works, now showing in a BFI retrospective

Little voice

Restored scenes omitted from the original 1979 cut have added a new dimension to Volker Schlöndorff’s adaptation of Günter Grass’s The Tin Drum – as have revelations about the novelist’s wartime past. Geoffrey Macnab reports

Passing fancies

It was a one-off collision between George Gershwin’s music, Gene Kelly’s dancing, French art history, Red Shoes-inspired film ballet – and America’s enduring love affair with the French capital. David Thomson revisits An American in Paris

Selected reviews

#Film review: The Deep Blue Sea

A love-triangle drama set in a tattered post-war England, Terence Davies’ adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s play may still not be Sophocles, but does play like a cinematic opera, says Jonathan Romney

#Film of the month: This Our Still Life

Evoking his family’s life in their Pyrenean hideaway, This Our Still Life is a mesmerising blend of lyrical intensity and freewheeling impressions from unclassifiable British filmmaker Andrew Kötting. By Iain Sinclair

#Film review: Weekend

A one-night stand matures into a deeply romantic and revelatory weekend in Andrew Haigh’s wonderful second feature. Samuel Wigley is utterly convinced

#Film review: Wuthering Heights

Stripping away the literary, romantic and supernatural trappings of Emily Brontë’s famous novel, Andrea Arnold’s elemental new reading is powerful if lop-sided, says Kate Stables

#DVD: Touch of Evil

Touch of Evil has been described as the last film noir. More like the first last film noir, reckons Brad Stevens

Reviews in this issue:

  • 50/50
  • Abduction
  • The Adventures of Tintin The Secret of the Unicorn
  • An African Election
  • The Awakening
  • Battle of Warsaw 1920
  • The British Guide to Showing Off
  • Film review: The Deep Blue Sea
  • Demons Never Die
  • Dream House
  • Everything Must Go
  • First Night
  • Footloose
  • Force
  • Four
  • The Future
  • Jack Goes Boating
  • Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer
  • Junkhearts
  • Killer Elite
  • Moneyball
  • Oslo, August 31st
  • Real Steel
  • Resistance
  • Reuniting the Rubins
  • The Rum Diary
  • Shark Night 3D
  • The Silence/Das letzte Schweigen
  • Sket
  • Snowtown
  • Sound It Out
  • Straw Dogs
  • Tabloid
  • Take Shelter
  • This Our Still Life
  • Film of the month: This Our Still Life
  • The Three Musketeers
  • We Were Here
  • Film review: Weekend
  • What’s Your Number?
  • Film review: Wuthering Heights
  •  
  • DVD: Touch of Evil
  • DVD feature: Tim Lucas eyes a pre-Velvet Undeground Nico in Strip-Tease
  • DVD: Ashes & Diamonds
  • DVD: Blue Bloods – Season 1
  • DVD: The Cheerleaders/Revenge of the Cheerleaders
  • DVD: Max Davidson Comedies
  • DVD: Identification of a Woman
  • DVD: The Iron Horse
  • DVD: Ken Loach at the BBC
  • DVD: Films by Grigori Kozintsev
  • DVD: Landmarks of Early Soviet Film
  • DVD: Mimic – The Director’s Cut
  • DVD: The Modern City
  • DVD: Nightmare
  • DVD: Our Beloved Month of August
  • DVD: The Outsiders
  • DVD: The Phantom Carriage
  • DVD: Le quattro volte
  • DVD: Sounds and Silence: Travels with Manfred Eicher
  • DVD: The Suicide Room
  • DVD: This Boy’s Life
  • DVD: Voice Over
  • DVD: Films from Zoetrope Studios
  •  
  • Book: Sophie Mayer on a new study of Maya Deren’s avant-garde classic Meshes of the Afternoon
  • Book: John Wrathall welcomes The Whole Story of cinema in one volume
  • Book: David Jays applauds a light-footed new selection of 100 key musicals
  • Book: Chris Fujiwara finds a new collection of Clint Eastwood interviews from the late 1970s and early 80s to be a fascinatin
Last Updated: 20 Dec 2011