Film
Western Unions: On Valeska Grisebach’s Western
By Sarah MankoffIt’s the poster image for Valeska Grisebach’s Western, and for good reason: German construction worker Meinhard (Meinhard Neumann) rides unbridled and bareback uphill on a long-maned white horse, looking back over his shoulder and down the hill behind him.
Vivisection of the Screen: Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s somniloquies and Caniba
By Zoe Meng JiangWhile there is an increasing tendency in contemporary moving-image arts to tackle the issue of how images mediate the world, the recent works of Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor invite viewers to pay attention to what cannot be mediated by images, for image-making is as much a physical encounter as it is a medium.
YEAR ZERO: 2017 Pingyao Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon International Film Festival
By Celluloid Liberation FrontUnlike consumer democracies, authoritarian states do not afford their citizens the illusion of freedom. Everything occurring under their tutelage reflect, to varying degrees, their political intentions, limitations and concessions.
Breathing New Light: Reexamining Grove Press's Cinematic Legacy
By Mitch AnzuoniOver a decade and a half in the making, From The Third Eye: The Evergreen Review Film Reader is the first comprehensive look at Barney Rosset and Grove Press’s contribution to film culture, collecting close to four dozen articles of the Evergreen Review’s film section, contextualized with an in-depth introduction by Ed Halter and brilliantly laid out in the distinguished style of the erstwhile magazine.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces: Rick Prelinger’s Lost Landscapes of New York
By Shelby ShawPulled from an estimated 110 archived sources of home movies, background process plates, and ephemeral novelty films, Lost Landscapes of New York is the latest in film historian and archivist Rick Prelinger’s ongoing series of city symphonies of urban life during the 20th century.
