Based on feedback, I would guess that this article, which first appeared on June 25, 1998, is the most popular piece I ever published in the Chicago Reader. Although it’s been featured as a separate item for several years on their site, I noticed that, thanks to some of their recent user-unfriendly retoolings of that site — which makes it much harder to access anything and everything, including this article — my own list of my 100 favorite films at the end of this piece and the AFI’s list of the supposedly greatest 100 films somehow got scrambled together. [Update, 7/25/09: Checking back a day later, this now appears unscrambled.] This is mainly why I’ve decided to reprint the original piece here in Notes, with only a few minor modifications. I revised and expanded this piece still further in my book Movie Wars: How Hollywood and the Media Limit What Films We Can See, where it forms the sixth chapter. (I’m sorry that the English edition of this, which has a much better jacket, has become more scarce.) One of the main additions, on page 93, is a list of the 25 titles on the AFI list that I probably would have included on my own if I hadn’t wanted to create an all-new list for polemical purposes; six of these titles are illustrated at the tail-end of this piece. Read more
Reunion
From the Chicago Reader (April 12, 1991). — J.R.
It’s a pity that Jerry Schatzberg’s most recent picture — and one of his very best — has had to wait two years for its Chicago premiere. Adapted by Harold Pinter from a novel by Fred Uhlman, and shot in ‘Scope by Bruno De Keyzer, this French-English-West German production is a story about a Jewish lawyer in New York (Jason Robards) who’s returning to Stuttgart, Germany, after a 55-year absence to discover what happened during the early 30s to his best friend (Samuel West) — an ambassador’s son who didn’t share the racism of his aristocratic family. Most of the story is told in flashback (Christien Anholt plays the hero as a youth), and much of what’s impressive about its unfolding is the meticulous re-creation of Germany during the rise of Nazism (the superb production design is by the great Alexandre Trauner, who appears in a cameo in a warehouse office), as well as a sensitive (and perhaps timely) depiction of how the gradual changes in national thinking were reflected in everyday life. It’s a story that’s been told before, but seldom with such feeling for detail and nuance; one has to adjust to the curious mix between English dialogue and street signs in German, but the performances — including those by Francoise Fabian, Maureen Kerwin, Barbara Jefford, and Bert Parnaby in small parts — are impeccable (1989). Read more
…and what about FOXTROT?
I face the same dilemma every year: multiple requests for lists of my favorite films of the year, all of them due before I’ve had a chance to see all the contenders. And it looks like the biggest casualty of this process in this year’s roundup has to be Samuel Maoz’s provocative, original, and creatively vexing (at once hilarious and devastating) Israeli feature, FOXTROT, which for me very easily surpasses many of the more popular favorites such as THREE BILLBOARDS… and NORMAN, which I find quite dull, unchallenging, and conventional in comparison. [12/27/17]
Il Cinema Ritrovato DVD Awards 2017
Il Cinema Ritrovato DVD Awards 2017
Jurors: Lorenzo Codelli, Alexander Horwath, Lucien Logette, Mark McElhatten, Paolo Mereghetti, and Jonathan Rosenbaum. Chaired by Paolo Mereghetti.
PERSONAL CHOICES
Lorenzo Codelli: Norman Foster’s Woman on the Run (1950, Flicker Alley, Blu-ray). A lost gem rescued by detective Eddie Muller’s indefatigable Film Noir Foundation
Alexander Horwath: Déja s’envolé la fleur maigre (Paul Meyer, 1960, Cinematek/Bruxelles, DVD) and Il Cinema di Pietro Marcello: Memoria dell’immagine (2007-2015, Cinema Libero/Cineteca di Bologna, DVD). Regarding the latter: with this cinematheque-style DVD, subtitled in English and French, one of the greatest contemporary filmmakers, whose work is still under-appreciated outside Italy, receives his rightful chance for global recognition.
Lucien Logette:
Tonka Šibenice (Karel Anton, 1930, Czech Republic, Národní filmový archiv/Filmexport Home Video, DVD)
One of the first Czech sound films. Like many great films of that era, it reflects several influences: expressionism, social realism, Kammerspielfilm, the art of Soviet photography, all used remarkably, without imitation. It contains all the great themes of the end of the silent period: the opposition between the city and the countryside, the misdeeds of modern society, frustrated loves ending in drama, themes served by an astonishing visual beauty.
Mark McElhatten: Kafka Goes to the Cinema (Munich, 4 DVD box set, Edition Filmmuseum). Read more
My Best Blu-Rays List for DVD Beaver, 2017 (the long version)
A much shorter version of this was just posted by DVD Beaver:
Top Blu-ray Releases of 2017:
1. Othello (Orson Welles, 1952) Criterion Collection
2.Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project No. 2 (Limite — Mário Peixoto, Revenge — Ermek Shinarbaev, Insiang — Lino Brocka, Mysterious Object at Noon — Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Law of the Border — Lütfi Ö. Akad, Taipei Story — Edward Yang) — Criterion Collection
3. Vampir Cuadecuc (Pere Portabella, 1971) UK Second Run Features
4. The 4 Marx Brothers at Paramount (The Cocoanuts, Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup) (1929-1933) RB Arrow UK
5. Anatahan (Josef von Sternberg, 1953) Kino
6. A Brighter Summer Day (Edward Yang, 1991) RB Criterion UK
7. Moses and Aaron (Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub, 1973) Grasshopper Film
8. Letter from an Unknown Woman (Max Ophüls, 1948) Olive Signature
9. Lost in Paris (Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon, 2016) Oscilloscope Pictures
10. A New Leaf (Elaine May, 1971) Olive Signature
A major reason for listing Criterion’s Othello first is that it includes the digital premieres of not one and not two but three Orson Welles features: both of his edits of Othello available with his own soundtracks, heard for the first time in the U.S. Read more
Paranoia Rising: Origins and Legacy of the Conspiracy Thriller (2017 revision)
An updated revision of a 1999 essay, commissioned by and posted on Slate on May 24, 2017. — J.R.
One of the paradoxes of conspiracy thrillers is that seeing the world as if it were as orderly and coherent as a work of art is both satisfying and terrifying. If everything makes sense, then it’s hard to avoid the premise that someone somewhere is creating that coherence–either God or an equally unseen puppet master. And the fact that we don’t see the strings being pulled means that our imaginations are invited to sketch them in, making us co-conspirators in the process: And opting out of this creative participation means accepting chaos: “If there is something comforting—religious, if you want—about paranoia,” declares Thomas Pynchon in Gravity’s Rainbow, “there is still also anti-paranoia, where nothing is connected to anything, a condition not many of us can bear for long.”
It’s a tradition that harks back to Louis Feuillade’s silent serial of 1915-1916, Les vampires, about a gang of ingenious working-class criminals headed by a beautiful woman and preying on the rich—a crime thriller evoked in Olivier Assayas’ 1996 dark comedy about a contemporary remake, Irma Vep. Read more
My 20 Best List for Film Comment [2017]
Note: I saw Samuel Maoz’s Foxtrot too late for inclusion, but would have placed it in or near the top ten if I had seen it earlier.
1. 24 Frames (Kiarostami)
2. Twin Peaks: The Return (Lynch)
3. Let the Sun Shine In (Denis)
4. Downsizing (Payne)
5. Barbs, Wastelands (Marta Mateus)
6. Mudbound (Rees)
7. Phantom Thread (Anderson)
8. Faces Places (Varda & JR)
9. Lady Bird (Gerwig)
10. Marjorie Prime (Almereyda)
11. Ava (Foroughi)
12. The Shape of Water (del Toro)
13. The Meyerowitz Brothers (New & Selected) (Baumbach)
14. Paradise (Konchalovsky)
15. The Lost City of Z (Gray)
16. The Motive (Cuena)
17. Ex Libris: The New York Public Library (Wiseman)
18. Boom for Real (Driver)
19. Golden Years (Téchiné)
20. Professor Marsten and the Wonder Women (Robinson) Read more
Global Discoveries on DVD: Digital Releases I Don’t Want & A Few Others That I Do
From the Spring 2023 Cinema Scope.
Who could it be at Vinegar Syndrome Films in the U.S. and/or Powerhouse Films in the U.K. who decided I was an aficionado of Mexican and/or Canadian wrestling? I haven’t been able to discover if Vinegar Syndrome and Powerhouse are distantly or closely related to one another—or if, on the contrary, separate publicists at each company arrived independently at the notion that I was an actual or potential wrestling buff. But the fact remains that unrequested check discs of Santo vs. Evil Brain and Santo vs. Infernal Men (both 1961) along with two more unrequested check discs devoted to an Italian Western with an equally unidiomatic, pidgin-English title (The Big Gundown, 1966), all from Powerhouse, turned up in my mailbox early this year, and these were soon followed by a finished Blu-Ray wrapped in cellophane of the no less unrequested and undesired Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows, a 1998 Canadian documentary from Vinegar Syndrome.
Even if I accept the more probable and less paranoid explanation that much of our planet is currently undergoing a collective nervous breakdown over identity politics, leading to many mistaken surmises and false assumptions that each of us is making about the identities and interests of everyone else, I can’t fathom what might have inaugurated this trend in “restored” digital releases. Read more
DVD Beaver Poll (2020)
Top 4K UHD Releases of 2020
1. Sudden Fear Cohen Film Collection (my mistake–this was released in 2017)
2. Showboat Criterion
3. A Bread Factory Grasshopper Films (includes 1 DVD, 1 Blu-Ray)
Top Box sets of 2020
1. Ida Lupino: Filmmaker Kino Lorber
2. The Complete Films of Agnes Varda Criterion
3. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: The Complete Fourth Season (Warner Archive)
FAVORITE LABEL: Arrow Academy
FAVORITE Commentary of 2020 (or commentaries): Jeremy Arnold, Sudden Fear, Cohen Film Collectiomn
Best Cover Design Nominations: The Complete Films of Agnes Varda, Criterion
Favorite DVD of the Year: Beau travail, Criterion Read more
Fantasy Double Feature for MUBI (December 2020)
NEW: Her Socialist Smile (John Gianvito, USA)
OLD: Une Histoire de Vent/A Tale of the Wind (Joris Ivens & Marceline Loridan, 1988, France)
Two quixotic adventures in filming the unfilmable, both made by indefatigable masters of bearing witness. Read more
Farewell to Dennis Hopper (R.I.P., 1936-2010)–and Farewell to Linda Manz (R.I.P., 1961-2020)
This obviously wouldn’t be an appropriate time to revive my negative review of Hopper’s Colors in the Chicago Reader 22 years ago, which can easily be accessed by anyone who might be interested. But I’d like to reproduce a couple of short paragraphs from it about my favorite Hopper film, which I continue to cherish:
To make sure my memory wasn’t playing tricks on me, I recently took another look at Hopper’s previous film, Out of the Blue (1980). Here was proof, if any is needed, that a celebrated burnt-out case came back to establish himself as the legitimate American heir to the cinema of Nicholas Ray — a cinema of tortured lyricism and passionate rebellion that reached its fullest flower in the 50s, as if to match the action painting that was roughly contemporary with it. Hopper managed to remake Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause (the film in which Hopper made his acting debut) in terms of a working-class punk (Linda Manz), an androgynous heroine whose grim fate suggested an Americanized version of Robert Bresson’s Mouchette. Casting himself, moreover, as her dissolute father, Hopper gave himself a disturbing part that seemed to update his role as Billy in Easy Rider. Read more
Five Best Digital Releases, 2020 (for Sight and Sound)
Submitted on October 29, 2020. — J.R.
Five Best Digital Releases
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Rachel Bloom and Aline Brosh McKenna’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: The Complete Fourth Season (Warner Archive, four DVDs)
The Complete Films of Agnès Varda (Criterion, fifteen Blu-Rays).
Shivendra Singh Dungarpur’s CzechMate: In Search of Jiří Menzel (Second Run Features, two Blu-Rays)
Kira Muratova’s Second Class Citizens (one Russian DVD).
Patrick Wang’s A Bread Factory (Grasshopper Film, one Blu-Ray, one DVD)
I’ve ignored precise dates because Johnson-Trump have brought history to an impasse, and one country’s 2019 release might not even arrive in the mail before 2020. I’ve included A Bread Factory even though it includes my own public interview with its writer-director. Teaching a course in Varda made me appreciate that she knew how to generate her own best extras (none of which, alas, I could show on Zoom). The final season of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend deserves recognition for resurrecting the Hollywood musical to serve the specific needs of the present while triumphantly proving that sitcom characters can actually grow. English subtitled Muratova is most easily tracked on YouTube, and I can’t even identify the Russian label of this welcome DVD release.
The Best Video Essays of 2020 (for SIGHT AND SOUND)
Best Video Essays (alphabetical order):
- L’Année Dernière à Dachau (Mark Rappaport, France)
- Her Socialist Smile (John Gianvito, U.S.A.)
- A House is Not a Home: Wright or Wrong (Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa, U.S.A.)*
- The Social Dilemma (Jeff Orlowski, U.S.A.)
- Sportin’ Life (Abel Ferrara, Italy)
- Women According to Men (Saeed Nouri, Iran)
*I worked on this film in various capacities–as interview subject, consultant, and camera assistant. Read more
Culture in the Year of 2020
Written in response to the following invitation from Diego Moldes Gonzalez (whom I’ve never met) in Madrid: “What is the definition of ‘culture’ for you? How is the culture of the 21st century similar and different from the culture of the 20th century?” — J.R.
As a beneficiary of both Internet culture and the imperial culture of the United States (which becomes imperial whenever it vainly calls itself American culture, which is often, thus implicitly appearing to enfold much of North America and all of South and Central America as secondary satellites), I continue to be subject to the market-driven capitalist culture that strives to pick the pocket of my unconscious and thereby invisibly steer my purchases (or, more precisely, the events that constitute my being purchased), defined as my existential identity. Thus, because I’m defined as an anti-Trumpian, the media fills me with anti-Trump rather than the desired absence or disappearance of Trump. In other words, Trumpians and anti-Trumpians get served two alternate versions of the same exclusive diet of Trump and daily coronavirus casualty figures, popularly known as the daily news, and choosing between these two unvarying diets is being deceptively labeled a form of democratic choice and a representative form of “American culture”. Read more
My Ten-Best List for SIGHT AND SOUND (2020)
Submitted to Sight and Sound on October 26, 2020. — J.R.
Alphabetical order:
1. L’ANNÉE DERNIÈRE À DACHAU (Mark Rappaport)
2. BOTTLED SONGS: MY CRUSH WAS A SUPERSTAR (Chloé Galibert-Laîné)
3. CENOTE (Oda Kaori)
4. FIRST COW (Kelly Reichardt)
5. LA FRANCE CONTRE LES ROBOTS (Jean-Marie Straub)
6. HER SOCIALIST SMILE (John Gianvito)
7. MLK/FBI (Sam Pollard)
8. SCHOOLGIRLS (Pilar Palomero)
9. VITALINA VARELA (Pedro Costa)
10. WOMEN ACCORDING TO MEN (Saeed Nouri)
Comment: The meditative and solitary aspects of film watching have increased during the pandemic, when many of us are exiled to our laptops, but fortunately, online platforms for post-screening discussions have grown as well. Read more
Dassin as Fashion
Commissioned but not published by a Europeanfilm festival and collection in early 2026.
Jonathan Rosenbaum
There isn’t an entry for Jules Dassin in Richard Roud’s two-volume, 1121-page Cinema: A Critical Dictionary (1980), and criticism of his work in other Anglo-American publications has been sparse. That he was unfashionable in many cinephile circles for most of his career can be attributed to several factors, which this essay will attempt to explore. Foremost among them is his having been blacklisted in Hollywood and moving to Europe in the mid-1950s, thus splitting his filmography into two—a fate that made John Berry and Cy Endfield virtually invisible and Dassin—far more visible due to such European hits as Rififi and Never on Sunday—widely resented. Only Joseph Losey managed to attain over time both visibility and critical respect, thanks in part to the prestige of his frequent screenwriter Harold Pinter and many of his actors.
The question of what makes an artist fashionable or unfashionable—such as what led to Andy Warhol being praised for doing some of the same things that
Frank Tashlin was condemned for—is far from a simple matter, but it is always inflected by both ideological
climates and marketplace practices. And the Cold War’s impact on Dassin’s artistic profile can’t be
overestimated. Read more
Reading: The (Remote) Glass House That Jerry Built (1988)
An unpublished essay written in June 1988 for the Chicago Reader. One of my few regrets about my 20 years at the Reader, unlike the year and a half I spent (1979-1981) at New York’s Soho News, was that whereas the latter allowed me to review books and movies concurrently, the Reader was interested in me only as a film reviewer, so any attempt to write about books for them was discouraged. I did make a point of reviewing two of Thomas Pynchon’s late novels for them (Vineland and Against the Day) –- having previously reviewed Gravity’s Rainbow for the Village Voice and having much later reviewed Mason & Dixon for In These Times between the two Reader reviews (all four of these reviews, incidentally, plus my earlier review of The Crying of Lot 49 for a college newspaper, can be accessed on this site).
I wrote the piece below on spec when Michael Lenehan was the paper’s editor and he told me I’d have to do a lot of rewriting before it could be published, so I bowed out. Read more