Interview with Thelma Schoonmaker

On October 5, legendary film editor Thelma Schoonmaker came to Chicago to take part in a conversation after a screening of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s THE RED SHOES (1948) as part of the Gene Siskel Film Center’s 11-film Powell and Pressburger series. Schoonmaker, who has collaborated with Martin Scorsese since his debut feature WHO’S THAT KNOCKING AT MY DOOR (1967), was also married to Powell and has taken part in the restorations of multiple films he directed. Cine-File editors Ben and Kat Sachs got to sit down with Schoonmaker before she addressed the Film Center attendees; they discussed her marriage to Powell, her work with Scorsese, and the connections between these two major filmmakers.

Cine-File: When restoring a film, especially one as visually and sonically rich as Powell and Pressburger's, how do you approach the balance between preserving the original vision and adapting the film for modern viewing standards? Is there ever a conflict between maintaining authenticity and taking advantage of new technologies?

Thelma Schoonmaker: Well, we don't adapt it. We try to make it exactly as it was, and fortunately, Marty [Scorsese] sometimes has a personal print of it, or we get a print, the best print we can find, which unfortunately is hard… but our goal is not to adapt it at all. We want to make it absolutely like it was. Working with the Technicolor films—which, by the way, the young people are pouring into these retrospectives all around the world. I've never seen anything like it. Nobody has. For some reason, we've just hit a moment where they're loving these films and finding something in them. 

So um, wait. How did I get off on that? Oh, they come up to me afterwards and say the color, the color! They've never seen Technicolor. And, of course, Technicolor is gone now, unfortunately, but it was a magnificent format. And so we would take the three strips that were in the camera and make sure they were all aligning because they would shrink at different times. And we were able to pull it all in so it's perfectly looking, and then make the color the way it should be. And digitally, you can do amazing things now, so we couldn't have done it before just photochemically, but now in digital, we can do miracles. 

CF: So there was some digital involvement. Is it fair to say “enhancement” or “restoration” of the colors? 

TS: Yeah. Restoration is probably better. You know, trying to get back, which we can do digitally… we can manipulate the color now, to get it back to what it was. But we do watch the films to make sure we're doing the right thing. But it's a joy to do it because I love watching them. The thing about the Powell and Pressburger films is you don't get tired of them. It's so interesting, you know? I would say, oh, here comes this scene with that great line. I love that. And so I was never tired of looking at them, and that's very unique about their movies. They're so unusual, so fascinating, so they're encouraging you to engage, and it was always a joy.  Always. The last ones we did were I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING and THE SMALL BACK ROOM, and it was just heaven doing it. I love it. And we still have some to go, so I hope to be doing those, if I live long enough [laughs]. 

CF: Is there one film in particular that gives you the most joy that you've revisited? 

TS: Joy is interesting. I'm not sure it's joy, but THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP is my favorite. And the first time I saw it, accidentally… Marty was looking at Million Dollar Movie, I think, and I had just come back to the States. My father was in the oil business, and so I was born abroad, from American parents. We came back, and I was not allowed to watch television. My mother would choose what we were allowed to watch at night. Only one or two things, The Ed Sullivan Show and there was a comedy show, but that was it. But my mother worked, and so I would come home from school before and turn on the TV… I was not supposed to do that. She would put her hand on the TV when she came back, to see if it was warm. So I turned in and BLIMP was running. Now I had no idea about this movie. None. But it was so powerful, I wept all the way through it, and I just barely squeaked through, little knowing that I would then work for the director who resurrected the film and also marry the man who made it. That's the one that for me is just mind blowing. And Marty is saying now that… THE RED SHOES was always the one for him. He says it's in his DNA because of the incredible filmmaking. And he said now he's beginning to drift towards BLIMP as we're getting older, and it's not just getting older, I think there's something about that film that is so special. You never know what's going to happen next. In fact, when they made it, Michael wrote a letter to his mother saying this is going to be maybe one of the most unique films ever made in England. This is 1939. And he was right.

Michael's favorite film was A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH, because he could be a magician. He could create Heaven and Earth. He didn't have to worry about matching or any of the things you normally worry about. He could do anything he wanted. That was his favorite. And it's about love, and Michael knew a lot about love. And so that was his favorite. And Marty's is THE RED SHOWS drifting towards BLIMP. Roger Livesey, I think, is one of the most uncelebrated actors ever. He's one of the greatest actors on film. De Niro is up there in the sky for me, and Roger, too, because Roger is so… first of all, let me tell you that my husband asked that I put on his gravestone, Film Director and Optimist. And that's what he was. That's how he lived his life. And I think Roger had that bouncy kind of love of life, too. Physically even, you know, in the way he moved. What was I talking about? Oh, Roger. So Roger, in that film, BLIMP, changes the way he acts, the way his voice is, the way he moves through those three changes of age. And De Niro was fascinated with that, because when Marty finally found Michael and brought him to America, De Niro was training to be the fighter in RAGING BULL, and he was going to gain all that weight at the end. So he kept saying to Michael—and he loved Michael's films because Marty had addicted him to them as well—and he would say, how did Roger do that? How did he make that change? And finally, Michael just said, it was acting.

Because in fact, they didn't use much attempt to build up his… they would use doubles when they had to show his body from the back or something, in the swimming pool in the beginning. So you know, De Niro was fascinated by Livesey, and I am too. People didn't like his voice, which we love, his husky voice. And Michael did a test with him before, back when he was still doing quota quickies, he tried to get Michael Balcon to put him in a film. And Roger was actually sitting in the theater when Balcon screened it with Michael, and Balcon said, oh, no. No. That voice. That voice. And Roger just turned around and smiled. And Michael loved it, and I love his voice… If you listen, it's not a classic British actor voice. And that's what was so wonderful, Michael loved that, and he loved Roger's acting, just that he was so great. And his great niece lives in New York, so I've gotten to know her. 

CF: What did you and Scorsese learn from Powell, and what was that process of mentorship like? 

TS: Marty was learning from the films, not from Michael personally, but I think the fact that they both had the same attitude about life, that they're not interested in heroes and villains. They're interested in the person in the middle, and particularly people who are both inspiring, maybe, like Lermontov in THE RED SHOES, and also could be very cruel when their feelings were engaged. They like that kind of complicated character. For example, Jake LaMotta. I mean, [Scorsese] makes you care for Jake LaMotta in spite of his brutality and the violence. And that's something that Marty and Michael both had… different worlds, Marty's being more a Mafia world, and having known some Mafia leaders on the street he grew up on, and how sometimes they would take the children in a hot summer in New York to a lake in New Jersey so they would get some reprieve. And one of the Mafia leaders would stand on a corner once a week, and people could come and complain about their landlords or whatever. So he saw there were two sides, and they loved that complicated thing to explore. And that's, well, PEEPING TOM. I mean, there are just so many films in which Michael was also doing that. And the brilliant use of music, the brilliant… mesmerizing images… there's just so much. 

It's so hard to describe what's so great about these films. Marty just never, ever stops thinking about it. He says sometimes things about THE RED SHOES go through his head every day. The music from THE TALES OF HOFFMAN goes through his head every day. So it was just a lucky, lucky thing that the Brits could not sell their films to Americans, but they could sell them to TV. And the Americans wouldn't sell [films] to TV. So Marty ended up seeing Million Dollar Movie, and he would never have seen these films otherwise. And they were such a fantastic thing for him to learn from. 

CF: We love Powell's concept of the composed film. That must have been very inspiring, this idea that you could make a film based to music. That's something I see a lot in your work with Scorsese, you have these scenes that are composed. 

TS: Well, the composed film really struck Marty, and, actually, in GOODFELLAS, when De Niro is eliminating the people who were in the heist with him, one guy's in a garbage truck, you see the dead body, and one guy's frozen in a truck and all that. That was shot to Layla by Derek & the Dominoes. That was shot to Layla being played on the set. And so that each shot, certain bars were dedicated to that shot. So that was a direct influence of it. Now he never did that again, that specifically. However, Marty has one of the greatest abilities to put music to film, of anybody in film as far as I'm concerned, and I have lived with it for many years. And sometimes, for example, in RAGING BULLl, he was using music that he heard coming from his neighborhood through the windows, so the sound is kind of lower than the way we play sound now. 

But GOODFELLAS, now everybody has stereos, and so the music is up. But there were films, for example, like THE AVIATOR and THE COLOR OF MONEY where Marty had ideas of nine possible pieces for a scene, and we would actually run each of those suggestions against the scene, and then one of them would click. But the brilliant idea of using Mascagni music as the theme for RAGING BULL, which is a beautiful orchestral piece, that's what he kept hearing in his neighborhood. So he just has always had this spectacular idea about how to use music, and a great deal of that comes from Michael. I mean, HOFFMAN, in the documentary [MADE IN ENGLAND: THE FILMS OF POWELL AND PRESSBURGER], remember, [Scorsese] shows how the use of the music in the duel is so important, in the scene in Venice. That's the piece of music that goes through his head all the time, and that's what he learned. He learned from Michael how to really make music work against image. And I've been lucky enough to live through him finding that on every movie, which has been great. Even, you know, SHUTTER ISLAND is all classical music. And he was brilliant about choosing that, too.

CF: So we love this story… we don't remember when this was, but you were doing Q&A, and someone asked you how you felt about editing such violent movies. And the story goes, you said they're not violent until I edit them. 

TS: That's a dangerous thing to say, but true. Yeah. Because, you know, every film editor—every filmmaker—knows that you cannot have a fight sequence where they're actually hitting each other, or they'd all be dead. I mean, if you do 16 takes or something, no. 

In RAGING BULL, what I learned right away is that the one fighter has to throw the punch, and the other fighter has to move his head back as if he's just received it. So the person who's throwing the punch is missing the other guy by an inch or two, right? And he is snapping his head back in rhythm to make it believable. It's my job as an editor to find the best snapback. 

You know, was that the most believable? So that's what I meant by that, and I hope that's not being taken the wrong way. In all action scenes, I mean, you don't blow up Leo DiCaprio. You have a stuntman or whatever. So that's what I meant by that, and I hope it's not taken the wrong way. 

CF: It is a badass quote though. It's not a bad one to be taken literally. 

TS: Yeah. I mean, you can, and our job is to make it believable. So you would think it's happening, but those boxers would be on the floor. In the famous montage in the final fight in RAGING BULL, they had things that tied to the back of [De Niro’s] head, which were spurting what was supposed to be sweat or blood. And Marty would say, now you're gonna get hit on the right side, but there's no fist in the glove. So when the glove was hitting him, he would snap his head and the sweat and the blood would spurt… that was all about, well, did that work or was, you know, was the blood spurt better? And so I'm constantly trying to make sure that that's all working, and [De Niro] was wonderful about putting up with that. I mean, we shot those films for a very long time, and he you know, so then he would say, what's the next shot? Well, we're gonna do it on the left side now, or blood is gonna spurt out of your mouth or something. And he was wonderfully patient about that. We shot for six weeks, all the fights. 

CF: One thing we love about your work with Scorsese, one of your great contributions to cinema, is what we refer to as “Scorsese-isms.” Where you just have these quick inserts to details that a person is noticing or something that is just distracting your attention from the scene. It's the first thing we think about with your work. Where does this come from? 

TS: Marty is a great editor. He taught me everything I know. I knew nothing about editing when I met him. I really didn't. And I was still learning on RAGING BULL, which was a great learning experience, because that was such a phenomenal film with such amazing camerawork and use of music and use of sound effects. Our great sound effects guy said to us, silence is stronger than a cheering crowd. I was learning so much. But a lot of these ideas come in the editing, and Marty's always in the editing with me. I mean, I do the first cut while he's shooting. And then from that point on, we edit everything together. And as we're working, things come up, and sometimes he already knows he wants to shoot something a certain way that will work that way. But there's all kinds of things we're finding as we're editing, too. However, it's really great to have a director who's already thought out so thoroughly how he's going to shoot it, even though he's open to other ideas when we start to edit. Sometimes something might work a little different. For example, the montage in RAGING BULL, he had storyboarded 90 storyboards for that. And we didn't know that Cathy Moriarty, who plays his wife, Vicky, that her reaction to what she's seeing was so important, so we incorporated that as we edited that sequence for a long time, and we found that she was such a great contribution to it, that we put her in. She wasn't storyboarded, but there she was in beautiful footage and wonderful reaction. So a lot of it is just, not an accident, really. Sometimes we're putting things together, and, oh, something really magical happens that we didn't expect. And he loves accidents, too, when he's shooting. For example, “Are you talking to me” [in TAXI DRIVER] really was just an accident. I mean, Bob really asked him that, and then they developed it into that incredible sequence. I'm not sure which, if you could give me an example of something, I can see whether I remember if he knew that before or not. it doesn't matter. 

CF: You mentioned you were still learning even on RAGING BULL. Was there a moment when you felt you had found your voice as an editor? 

TS: It took a while actually. Frankly, I think it took about seven years before I really, really felt I knew as much about editing as Marty does. Having the chance to learn through editing these movies, and gradually getting more and more to the point where I felt it was a true collaboration, which it is now… but it's so wonderful that we're not fighting over a film because there are editor-director relationships where they fight, and that's the worst thing for the film. It's really bad. And I really encourage editors to please try and give the director first the way they intended the film, and then give them suggestions about it. But don't throw that at them right away. You know, let them see what they wanted to see. They’ve been dreaming of it, writing it, shooting it. Let them have a chance to see it the way they should. But that's not ever a problem with Marty, you know, because he's thought things out so well. And he loves if something accidental occurs in the editing room, which it does happen. It's great when it happens. And he'll say, oh, that's great. Let's use that. 

CF: When you're editing a film, do you have the finished length in mind when you start?

TS: No. A film, you know, lives. For example, GOODFELLAS was so beautifully written by Nick Nick Pileggi… by the way, Nick Pileggi became a writer because of THE RED SHOES. He saw the movie when he was about 20 or something, living in Brooklyn with his Italian family, and he decided he was gonna move to New York and become a writer. And there are many people who that has happened to, [like] painters… and they saw that movie and it gave them the courage. That film, I felt I was riding a horse. That film was so well written, and they had worked on it, you know, because they both had the Mafia experience. They were so in tune with each other and with the material. So we dropped one shot. Now often in a film, we have to drop whole scenes to make it work right, which is like cutting off your leg. It's my favorite scene, Marty's favorite scene. Not this movie. I was riding that movie like a horse. It knew where it was going, and it got there. But there are some films where they're bigger, and you need to shape them, and maybe move scenes up or delete scenes, which is always hard. But each film we screen 12 times, which is extraordinary. Most editors are not allowed that amount of time. And we talk to people that we've screened for, and you have to know what to accept and what not. And then gradually, we get it down, and suddenly, there'll be a moment where it clicks. And you say, okay, that's the right length. But it's hard because we sometimes have to drop things we really, really love. 

It's really hard.

Cine-File Contributors' 2023 Year-End Lists

📽️ Rob Christopher

What I Watched in 2023: My 11 Favorite Films
ANATOMY OF A FALL [2023, directed by Justine Triet]
A THOUSAND AND ONE [2023, Directed by A.V. Rockwell]
INSPECTOR IKE [2020, directed by Graham Mason]
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON [2023, directed by Martin Scorsese]
MONICA [2022, directed by Andrea Pallaoro]
NO BEARS [2022, directed by Jafar Panahi]
OPPENHEIMER [2023, directed by Christopher Nolan]
REPEAT PERFORMANCE [1947, directed by Alfred L. Werker]
SHOWING UP [2022, directed by Kelly Reichardt]
TÁR [2022, directed by Todd Field]
THREE MINUTES: A LENGTHENING [2021, directed by Bianca Stigter]

📽️ Maxwell Courtright

Favorite new films
1. DE HUMANI CORPORIS FABRICA (Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Verena Paravel)
2. MAY DECEMBER (Todd Haynes)
3. LAST THINGS (Deborah Stratman)
4. BIRTH/REBIRTH (Laura Moss)
5. I, II, III (Alexandre Larose)
6. PASSAGES (Ira Sachs)
7. QUIET AS IT’S KEPT (Ja’Tovia Gary) 
8. LIGHT’S RETURN (Kathleen Rugh)
9. I WOULD’VE BEEN HAPPY (Jordan Wong)
10. KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON (Martin Scorsese)
11. GEOGRAPHIES OF SOLITUDE (Jacquelyn Mills)
12. WHEN EVIL LURKS (Demian Rugna)
13. CASH COW (Matt Barats)
14. EARTH MAMA (Savannah Leaf)
15. EXPANSION PAK (they are gutting a body of water)

Favorite first watches
1. PIN (Sandor Stern, 1988)
2. MEASURES OF DISTANCE (Mona Hatoum, 1988)
3. CHILE: OBSTINATE MEMORY (Patricio Guzman, 1997)
4. ATTICA (Cinda Firestone, 1974) 
5. THIS IS A TELEVISION RECEIVER (David Hall, 1976)
6. A FIRE (Ebrahim Golestan, 1961)
7. BARN RUSHES (Larry Gottheim, 1971)
8. CARTAS DE MORAZAN (Guillermo Escalon, 1982) 
9. INTERPOLATIONS I-V (Stan Brakhage, 1992)
10. MANDABI (Ousman Sembene, 1968)
11. IF FOOTMEN TIRE YOU, WHAT WILL HORSES DO? (Ron Ormond, 1971)
12. TETHER (kelechi agwuncha, 2021)
13. DEAD OF NIGHT (Bob Clark, 1974)
14. A STRING OF PEARLS (James Hatch & Camille Billops, 2002)
15. STEPS (stanley brouwn, 1989)

📽️ Alex Ensign

Top five Hong Kong action films I watched for the first time in 2023, in order of camp (with #1 being the campiest).
1. THE EAGLE SHOOTING HEROES (Jeffrey Lau, 1993)
2. THE HEROIC TRIO (Johnny To, 1993)
3. SPIRITUAL KUNG FU (Lo Wei, 1978)
4. YES, MADAM! (Corey Yuen, 1985)
5. WING CHUN (Yuen Woo-Ping, 1994)

Honorable mention (because it was not at all camp):
THE STUNT WOMAN (Ann Hui, 1996)

📽️ Megan Fariello

10 Favorite First Viewings of 2023 (in the order in which I watched them)
DESERT FURY (Lewis Allen, 1947)
DREAM DEMON (Harley Cokeliss, 1988)
CUDDLY TOYS (Kansas Bowling, 2022)
SHIN GODZILLA (Hideaki Anno and Shingi Higuchi, 2016)
THE QUIET GIRL (Colm Bairéad, 2022)
CHOCOLATE BABIES (Stephen Winter, 1996)
PRISON ON FIRE (Ringo Lam, 1987)
EYES OF FIRE (Avery Crounse, 1983)
SORCERER (William Friedkin, 1977)
VAMPYROS LESBOS (Jess Franco, 1971)

📽️ Marilyn Ferdinand

FAVORITE NEW FILMS
1. BLUE JEAN (Georgia Oakley)
2. INSIDE THE IRANIAN UPRISING (Majed Neisi/doc)
3. THE ETERNAL MEMORY (Maite Alberdi/doc)
4. RISE (Cédric Klapisch)
5. THE WORST ONES (Lise Akoka, Romane Gueret)
6. THE CRIME IS MINE (François Ozon)
7. THE DISAPPEARANCE OF SHERE HITE (Nicole Newnham/doc)
8. SMOKE SAUNA SISTERHOOD (Anna Hints/doc)
9. ONE FINE MORNING (Mia Hansen-Løve)
10. GENTLE (László Csuja, Anna Nemes)
11. SUBTRACTION (Mani Haghighi)
12. MONICA (Andrea Pallaoro)
13. ANATOMY OF A FALL (Justine Triet)
14. FAMILY PORTRAIT (Lucy Kerr)
15. ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET (Kelly Fremon Craig)

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
AMERICAN FICTION (Cord Jefferson), LA CHIMERA (Alice Rohrwacher), GODZILLA MINUS ONE (Takashi Yamazaki), THE PASSENGERS OF THE NIGHT (Mikhaël Hers), THE TASTE OF THINGS (Anh Hung Tran), TOTÉM (Lila Avilés)

FAVORITE NEW-TO-ME FILMS (chronological)
THE DELICIOUS LITTLE DEVIL (Robert Z. Leonard, 1919)
TEN NIGHTS IN A BARROOM (Roy Calnek, 1926)
A DAUGHTER OF DESTINY (Henrik Galeen, 1928)
DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY (Mitchell Leisen, 1934)
CRY OF THE CITY (Robert Siodmak, 1948)
UNFAITHFULLY YOURS (Preston Sturges, 1948)
CHICAGO DEADLINE (Lewis Allen, 1949)
MOONRISE (Frank Borzage, 1948)
VICTIMS OF SIN (Emilio Fernández, 1951)
WAY OF A GAUCHO (Jacques Tourneur, 1952)
UGETSU (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953)
PURPLE NOON (René Clément, 1960)
HERE IS YOUR LIFE (Jan Troell, 1966)
OH HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE (Peter R. Hunt, 1969)
THE PLOT AGAINST HARRY (Michael Roemer, 1969/1989)
FOOTPRINTS ON THE MOON (Luigi Bazzoni, 1975)
LOTTE IN WEIMAR (Egon Günther, 1975)
SUZANNE, SUZANNE (short) (Camille Billops, James Hatch, 1982)
PRIVLEGE (Yvonne Rainer, 1990)
CHUNGKING EXPRESS (Wong Kar-Wai, 1994)
ALL I WANNA DO, AKA, STRIKE! (Sarah Kernochan, 1998)
GLOOMY SUNDAY (Rolf Schübel, 1999)
GO (Doug Limon, 1999)
FOOTNOTE (Joseph Cedar, 2011)
NIGHTMARE ALLEY (Guillermo del Toro, 2021) 
THE SILENCE OF THE MOLE (doc) (Anaïs Taracena, 2021)

📽️ Ben Kaye

Favorite new releases (ranked);
1. LA CHIMERA (Alice Rohrwacher)
2. PAST LIVES (Celine Song)
3. KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON (Martin Scorsese)
4. THE IRON CLAW (Sean Durkin)
5. ANATOMY OF A FALL (Justine Triet)
6. FALLEN LEAVES (Aki Kaurismäki)
7. PASSAGES (Ira Sachs)
8. HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE (Daniel Goldhaber)
9. JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4 (Chad Stahelski)
10. SHOWING UP (Kelly Reichardt)
11. BLACKBERRY (Matt Johnson)
12. MAY DECEMBER (Todd Haynes)
13. THE ZONE OF INTEREST (Jonathan Glazer)
14. KOKOMO CITY (D. Smith)
15. OPPENHEIMER (Christopher Nolan)
16. ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET. (Kelly Fremon Craig)
17. ASTEROID CITY (Wes Anderson)
18. THE BOY AND THE HERON (Hayao Miyazaki)
19. BARBIE (Greta Gerwig)
20. THE HOLDOVERS (Alexander Payne)

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
ORLANDO, MY POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY (Paul B. Preciado), THE KILLER (David Fincher), A THOUSAND AND ONE (A.V. Rockwell), GODZILLA MINUS ONE (Takashi Yamazaki), POOR THINGS (Yorgos Lanthimos)

ALSO OF NOTE:
T BLOCKERS (Alice Maio MacKay) and THE PEOPLE’S JOKER (Vera Drew), both of which were viewed at festivals in 2023, but will hopefully come to delight audiences the world over in 2024!

Favorite New-To-Me Films (in chronological viewing order):
1. NEWS FROM HOME (Chantal Akerman, 1976)
2. OUT 1 (Jacques Rivette, 1971)
3. SATANTANGO (Béla Tarr, 1994)
4. SHERLOCK, JR. (Buster Keaton, 1924)
5. THE VIRGIN SUICIDES (Sofia Coppola, 1999)
6. EDWARD II (Derek Jarman, 1991)
7. THE DOOM GENERATION (Gregg Araki, 1995)
8. THE STRAIGHT STORY (David Lynch, 1999)
9. INSPECTOR IKE (Graham Mason, 2020)
10. THE MOTHER AND THE WHORE (Jean Eustache, 1973)
11. HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR (Alain Resnais, 1959)
12. TOTAL RECALL (Paul Verhoeven, 1990)
13. SORCERER (William Friedkin, 1977)
14. THE AGE OF INNOCENCE (Martin Scorsese, 1993)
15. BLACK GIRL (Ousmane Sembene, 1966)
16. THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (Charles Laughton, 1955)
17. PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE (Brian De Palma, 1974)
18. THE GLEANERS AND I (Agnes Varda, 2000)
19. GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH (Joe Dante, 1990)
20. A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY (Edward Yang, 1991)

📽️ Jonathan Leithold-Patt

My Top 10 of 2023:
1. PAST LIVES (Celine Song)
2. DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD (Radu Jude)
3. MAY DECEMBER (Todd Haynes)
4. THE KILLER (David Fincher)
5. MENUS-PLAISIRS - LES TROISGROS (Frederick Wiseman)
6. SHOWING UP (Kelly Reichardt)
7. BARBIE (Greta Gerwig)
8. ALL OF US STRANGERS (Andrew Haigh)
9. PRISCILLA (Sofia Coppola)
10. EVIL DOES NOT EXIST (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)

Honorable mentions:
BEAU IS AFRAID (Ari Aster) and ROTTING IN THE SUN (Sebastián Silva)

📽️ Josh B. Mabe

Top ten not-new movies seen in the theater for the first time in Chicago. 
1. AERIAL 1975 & AMERICAN PIE & PERFORMER’S DRESSING ROOM & THE BUMP & TRIP OR I’M LATE I’M LATE (Zora Lathan, c.1976) 
2. MY NEIGHBORHOOD (Kurt Heyl, 1968)  
3. UTTER (1988, Henion Han) 
4. SPRING CYCLE (Stan Brakhage, 1995) 
5. THE GUEST (Pearl Bowser, 1977) 
6. STUDY IN LEADERS: TOWARD THE 1970s (Gerald Swatez & Kaye Miller, 1968) 
7. SKIPPY PEANUT BUTTER JARS (Copper Giloth, 1980) 
8. THE WATERSHOW EXTRAVAGANZE (Sophie Michael, 2016) 
9. SEARS SOX (Chick Strand, Pat O’Neill, and Neon Park, 1968)
10. THE STORY OF SREBRENICA (“Nanny" Lynn Ochberg, 1996) 

📽️ Ben Sachs

Favorite new releases of 2023:
1. YOUTH (SPRING) (Wang Bing)
2. THE DELINQUENTS (Rodrigo Moreno)
3. ANATOMY OF A FALL (Justine Triet)
4. Tie: ASTEROID CITY and THE WONDERFUL STORY OF HENRY SUGAR (Wes Anderson)
5. ROTTING IN THE SUN (Sebastian Silva)
6. THE HOLDOVERS (Alexander Payne)
7. TORI AND LOKITA (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)
8. Tie: MAY DECEMBER (Todd Haynes) and PRISCILLA (Sofia Coppola)
9. ABOUT DRY GRASSES (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
10. THE BOY AND THE HERON (Hayao Miyazaki)
11. KNOCK AT THE CABIN (M. Night Shyamalan)
12. TODAY (Su Friedrich)
13. MENUS-PLAISIRS LES TROISGROS (Frederick Wiseman)
14. FERRARI (Michael Mann)
15. SMOKING CAUSES COUGHING (Quentin Dupieux)

Honorable Mention:
Steven Soderbergh directed three highly entertaining works in 2023 that all but demanded not to be taken seriously: the stripper comedy sequel MAGIC MIKE'S LAST DANCE, the six-episode Max series Full Circle, and the web-only series-cum-public-service-announcement Command Z. For all their frivolousness, each of these delivered serious observations about how we live today and made daring risks in tone. Full Circle may be the most impressive, taking advantage of the longform nature of series television to alternate between suspense and absurd comedy in a manner that evoked the French New Wave.

📽️ Kat Sachs

Favorite new releases of 2023:
Wang Bing's YOUTH (SPRING)
Albert Serra’s PACIFICTION
Michael Mann's FERRARI
Justine Triet's ANATOMY OF A FALL
Christian Petzold's AFIRE
Kelly Reichardt's SHOWING UP
Elene Naveriani's BLACKBIRD BLACKBIRD BLACKBERRY
Jafar Panahi's NO BEARS
Ridley Scott's NAPOLEON
Ira Sachs' PASSAGES
M. Night Shyamalan's KNOCK AT THE CABIN
Gene Stupnitsky's NO HARD FEELINGS

📽️ Michael Glover Smith

The 10 Best New Features I Saw in 2023
10. ALL DIRT ROADS TASTE OF SALT (Jackson)
9. FALLEN LEAVES (Kaurismaki)
8. THE KILLER (Fincher)
7. WALK UP / IN WATER (Hong)
6. THE PLAINS (Easteal)
5. NO BEARS (Panahi)
4. ASTEROID CITY (Anderson)
3. PACIFICTION (Serra)
2. MAY DECEMBER (Haynes)
1. TRENQUE LAUQUEN (Citarella)

📽️ Drew Van Weelden

Top New Films of 2023:
ABOUT DRY GRASSES (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
AMERICAN FICTION ( Cord Jefferson)
BARBIE (Greta Gerwig)
BOTTOMS (Emma Seligman)
THE BOY AND THE HERON (Hayao Miyazaki)
GODZILLA MINUS ONE (Takashi Yamazaki)
THE HOLDOVERS (Alexander Payne)
INFINITY POOL (Brandon Cronenberg)
THE IRON CLAW (Sean Durkin)
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON (Martin Scorsese)
MONSTER (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
OPPENHEIMER (Christopher Nolan)
PARADISE IS BURNING (Mika Gustafson)
PRISCILLA (Sofia Coppola)
SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE (Joaquim Dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson, Kemp Powers)
THEATER CAMP (Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman)

Other Notable First Watches: 
THE 400 BLOWS (François Truffaut)
BROKER (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
BULLET BALLET (Shinya Tsukamoto)
CRASH (David Cronenberg)
EASTERN PROMISES (David Cronenberg)
FANTASTIC MR. FOX (Wes Anderson)
HAIL MARY (Jean-Luc Godard)
HEAT (Michael Mann)
A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (David Cronenberg)
IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES (Nagisa Ōshima)
LIGHT & MAGIC (Lawrence Kasdan)
MCCABE & MRS. MILLER (Robert Altman)
POLICE STORY (Jackie Chan)
RRR (S. S. Rajamouli)
THE SEVENTH CONTINENT (Michael Haneke)
VERTIGO (Alfred Hitchcock)
WEEKEND (Jean-Luc Godard)

Interview with Kansas Bowling

There’s an ineffable quality to Kansas Bowling and her films that I’m simply not smart nor talented enough to describe. At 26 she’s already directed two feature length films–the first, B.C. BUTCHER, she made as a teenager for the legendary Troma Films, and the second, CUDDLY TOYS, is a truly underground smash that took years to get distribution because people were afraid to release.

You know you’re doing something right when people are legitimately afraid to be associated with your art.

She’s made tons of music videos for such diverse acts as Papa M, The Death Valley Girls, Surfbort, and Chicago’s own James Marlon Magas. She’s acted in movies directed by Quentin Tarantino and Glenn Danzig. She starred in a couple music videos for The Killers. She got Iggy Pop to eat a cheeseburger on film as an homage to Andy Warhol. She did this interview in the parking lot of a casino on a short break between gambling sessions.

I’m in my 40s, so I know that I probably have no idea what is cool these days.

But I also know that Kansas Bowling is cool in a way that never goes out of style.

Her newest film, CUDDLY TOYS, is one of the most exciting movies I’ve seen in years. Shot over the course of years on 16mm it’s a docu-fiction exploration of the life of the American Teenage Girl. Particularly, the horrors of being a teenage girl. Framed as an educational film, Bowling walks us through some of the most uncomfortable realities of contemporary teenage sexuality. Even though the (in)famous mondo exploitation film FACES OF DEATH always seems to come up as a comparison I’ve also seen names like Todd Solondz, Harmony Korine, Chantal Akerman, and Robert Altman thrown about, too.

Like I said, it’s gonna take someone smarter and more talented than I to fully explain CUDDLY TOYS.

What I can tell you, though, is that despite it being one of the most intense, transgressive, and often shocking films I’ve seen in quite a while, it’s also one of the funniest. Flat out.

Which makes it all the more intense.

The vibes are all over the place and always off the chart. Bowling has figured out how to make you laugh at things that aren’t funny in the least. The pitch-black humor of CUDDLY TOYS serves as both respite from the film’s intensity and as punctuation to the overall message. It’s a film that is social commentary without political ideology.

There is absolutely nothing more boring than people who make transgressive art for its own sake. People who think trying to shock people should be a goal in and of itself usually have the most banal outlook on the world anyway. They’re insufferable. If all you want to do is get a rise out of people, just go punch a stranger in the middle of the street. Any idiot can do that.

And Kansas Bowling is the furthest thing from that.

I got the chance to speak with her in preparation for her visit to Chicago where she’s doing an old school roadshow engagement of CUDDLY TOYS, with three screenings at three different theaters over the course of three days, as well as an evening of her short films and music videos at a fourth venue. We spoke about her navigating between her bare-bones style as a filmmaker while acting in major Hollywood films, about the acceptable and unacceptable ways we talk about sexual assault, why F FOR FAKE is probably the greatest film ever made, and dreaming about growing up and running a b-movie film studio.

This is an educational interview.

Raphael Jose Martinez: I'm curious about the life of this movie, not necessarily the production of it, but after you finished it. Because I've been seeing it for a couple of years now kind of surreptitiously in these kind of like, I don't want to say illegal screenings, but a gray area where it's just kind of friends of friends with you there to screen it. Now CUDDLY TOYS is getting an official release with an actual distribution company into, you know, above-ground theaters. What was the holdup? And what was the process of getting it from these DIY microcinemas to, say, Lincoln Center?

Kansas Bowling: Well, there's been issues with getting the music rights, which has been part of it. And then the other giant issue has been... people not wanting to touch the movie...

Both: [laughter]

KB: ...which I don't... I don't understand. Why not? People are so stupid. I just eventually had to get enough people interested… find some people and producers and supporters who are crazy enough to help it along, I guess.

RJM:  I've seen this movie more times than I've seen a lot of movies just because…

KB: [laughs] That’s so funny!

RJM: ...because I work at a place that has screened it multiple times over the past couple years. And at least with the crowd that has been at Analog [a microcinema in Chicago] specifically, it's been like a word-of-mouth hit.

KB: That’s so cool.

RJM:  We know that we can screen CUDDLY TOYS and, without even having to really promote it, it'll at least fill the place half up. So it's really interesting to find out that people have been upset by it… I mean, it doesn’t surprise me that people are upset by it…

Both: [laughter]

KB: Well, that's the thing! Once it actually screens most of the people really love it. But it's just like... If a distributor watches it, by themselves, not in a theater... they're like, “Oh, I don't know what people are gonna think about this. I don't know if I want to be involved.” It's just been really hard. And even with festivals, too. There's been some big festivals that were going to play it, and then there's been some internal controversy, and then they didn’t play it. I feel like it's people anticipating backlash that doesn't actually happen once people actually see it. Occasionally there is… some people have been mad. But not really, you know?

RJM: Joe Swanberg here in Chicago has been a huge, huge proponent of the film. That's how I found out about it.

KB: Yeah.

RJM: At Analog he made it a point to not tell anybody about the movie.

KB: [laughs]

RJM: Nothing context wise. Just, here's this really cool movie by this really cool, young director and so on and so forth. As if it's any other movie... because it is. It's just a movie. So it's been really interesting. I don't think anybody's walked out. There's been people afterwards who have been like, “I fucking did not like that movie, but at least they sat around and talked about it, you know?

KB: Yeah.

RJM: Because it’s different in a crowd. I’ve only seen it one time not in a crowd, when I got a screener to give to the theater that I'm booking it at [Facets]. And yeah, watching it on a couch is a whole different experience than watching a roomful of people...

KB: [Laughs]

RJM: ...because I find it to be really funny...

KB: [laughs even harder]

RJM: It's a movie that, as fucked up as it is, it’s got some of the funniest jokes I've seen in a long time... and some of the most, like, really depraved scenes. [Laughs] Do you think it's a comedy? Are you kind of bummed out when people don’t find the humor in it?

KB: So this is a part that I don’t know if I want in print… [laughs] ...because a lot of the scenes I find hilarious... and I didn't expect you all to be so mad! I don't know. I guess I have a dark sense of humor. I don't know what to say without sounding like a freak. Because people can make you sound really crazy.

RJM: So I’ve seen CUDDLY TOYS literally like five times in the theater at this point... which is insane. I know the scenes by the audio. If I'm working in the video store I know, “Okay, this scene’s coming up. I gotta go step into the theater and watch this part.” And I’ve found that the people that seem to be, at least in my experience from these multiple screenings that I’ve been at, the most uncomfortable by it have been men, not women.

KB: Yeah.

RJM: And the one scene that I'm speaking of, that I think is really funny, but makes me uncomfortable because I find it so funny, is the rape/assault scene at the picnic. There's one point where he leans in and licks a sandwich off of the girl’s face…

KB: [laughs]

RJM: ...and it's like a setup then punchline almost. Like it's all like leading up to this!

Both: [laughter]

RJM:  And afterwards I've had conversations about that scene a couple of times, and everybody's like, “That is funny.” But at the same time it's really… real.

KB: I love her date small talk. It was really funny because she was me and my sister's roommate when we filmed that. And she was on a date with someone once and me and my sister crashed it. [laughs] And the small talk on her date was really similar to that. They were really silent, and then she's like, “So... what's your favorite Gatorade flavor?”

RJM: I mean, how can you take that scene too seriously when it starts with them pulling out champagne glasses and sharing a warm beer?

Both: [laughter]

RJM: I love the movie so much because it’s transgressive in a real way, in an honest way. It doesn't feel like it's shocking for the sake of being shocking, it feels like it is like trying to tell a story in kind of a really dark, humorous way. It really feels like you're leaning into the mondo exploitation… like the history of mondo exploitation movies. Because it does feel like MONDO NEW YORK, MONDO HOLLYWOOD, and FACES OF DEATH, which I know you've said was an influence on it.

KB: Yeah… thank you. I mean, I definitely was not trying to be shocking. I was just trying to make an honest movie and not censor myself or anything. I honestly never really even really thought about people reacting this way.

RJM: Have you had anybody not just dislike the movie, but be angry with you for making the movie?

KB: Yeah, a few times. Yeah.

RJM: That’s gotta be weird.

KB: It's always for really silly reasons. Like, they can't even really point out why they're upset. So it’s nothing to actually take seriously.

RJM: So in the past couple of days, I re-watched the movie a couple times and I reread the book that you wrote about the making of it. They both hold on their own, but obviously the book is a companion to the movie. But I really like how in the book you don't answer anybody’s critiques. You just kind of explain your thoughts on stuff. There's one thing that you say at the very end of the book, and I'm going to quote you to you, which I know is always like weird and embarrassing, but I’ve got to do it…

KB: [laughs]

RJM: You say, “It embarrasses me to have done it, even though I know it would have been impossible for me not to do. Just because I'm proud of something does not mean I ever have to watch it again.” I find that really fascinating because you're saying that you're not indebted to the past at all–you do stuff and you move forward–but so many of your influences, and your aesthetics are drawn from the past.

KB: Yeah…

RJM:  Like, the mondo genre is kind of a dead genre as a film.

KB: Uh huh…

RJM: So I'm curious… how you do you take from the past but then just move forward with it. How do you cultivate all these things?

KB: First thing is… it's really funny because, obviously, I've seen the movie a million times. I edited it and I do screenings and stuff. But whenever someone talks about the book... I wrote it [laughs] and I never read it again [laughs even harder]. I don’t even remember what I wrote in it.

RJM: That's the thing that you actually don't care about anymore?

Both: [laughter]

KB: I’m here like, “I said that?!” [laughs] But that definitely is true. That's part of it. Once I make something I feel like I've grown from it and I'm past it. I've been working on this new movie for a really long time. The movie I'm working on now I've even been working on since I was making CUDDLY TOYS - at least in the pre-production research phase and stuff. And I already feel done with it–and I'm not done filming. I just like to move on. It's the only way to, I guess, grow as a filmmaker or artist or whatever. I just feel like there's too much, there's too much to do. Just you just got to make it, stop thinking about it, and do the next thing.

RJM: I agree. It's interesting how different mediums allow that. With film once you make it it's done. Unless you're going to be George Lucas and continuously edit your movies for the rest of your life, you just kind of put it in the can and let it be. Whereas I went to go see the Cure the other day, they play a song and I think to myself, “Man, you're in your 60s and you're playing a song that you wrote when you were a teenager.” That's gotta be...

KB: No. That's like a nightmare. I hate it when people ask me about Troma stuff. I just want to kill myself. I just hate it.

RJM: I didn't want to ask specifically about that, but as a segue... I've always been impressed by the amount, and the breadth, of different people you've been able to work with as somebody who's only done two features–but also a shit ton of shorts and music videos. In your first feature [B.C. BUTCHER] you had some pretty weird names that are celebrities in some capacity. You've done a music video with Iggy Pop. How have you gotten these people to work with you? Or how have you been able to work with these people?

KB: You just have to ask [laughs]. I mean, I've asked lots of people to be my projects and a lot of people have said no–but some people have said yes. It's been cool. Like with Iggy... I was supposed to do a video for the Death Valley Girls and he has a radio show, and I knew he'd been playing their music a lot lately, so I was like, “Why don't we just ask Iggy if he'd be in a video? He loves you guys.” And I did. His assistant responded like an hour later. He was like, “He would love to!” [laughs] Of course he had his conditions. We had to go to him in Florida. The shoot obviously lasted 10 minutes because it's one shot, one take. And I've acted in a bunch of things for other people, so I've met people other ways. It's just working on things and meeting people.

RJM: I come out of a DIY punk background, that whole scene, and went film school for a while and just stopped making movies because I was just like, “I don't want to work with like 20 people on anything ever.”

KB: Oh yeah.

RJM: I can barely be in a room to rehearse with three of my close friends. I can't imagine working with 20 strangers on, like, “my vision.” It sounds like hell. But your film making style seems like very, very akin to that. I know that on CUDDLY TOYS it was, for the most part, just you, your sister and your boyfriend. Do you have a background in underground arts besides film at all? Because I'm familiar with some of your boyfriend's old bands from back in the day [e.g., crucial Philly vampire-core band Ink & Dagger]. So I just always assumed that you might have had some connection to that somehow.

KB: I mean, not really. I've just kind of been doing it the same way that I started doing it. Because I made the Troma movie when I was like 17. My crew was… I had a cinematographer that I hired off of Craigslist [laughs], and then I had all my friends from high school, my dad did sound...

RJM: Wow. That's awesome.

KB: [laughs] Yeah!

RJM: I’m assuming he has no experience doing sound for anything ever.

KB: No, I just rented a Zoom and a boom mic. So you know, he’s just holding it over people and pressing record. [laughter] I just haven't done it any other way. But every time I'm on a set, like acting or something, or working on something where there's a giant crew, I'm just like, “Oh my god, this is a nightmare. I could never do this. This is so horrible.” Because l really don’t need anyone else. It's crazy.

RJM: What blew my mind is that I discovered who you were through CUDDLY TOYS, but then when I was looking into the person who made this movie I found out that you acted in a Tarantino movie [ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD]...

KB: [laughs]

RJM: ...and these are just two opposite worlds. Big budget Hollywood with a notoriously meticulous filmmaker... and you're stealing shots in Vegas in front of casinos. Watching you navigate between the two worlds is very John Cassavetes...

KB: Thank you.

RJM: How do you do that? Like, does one fuel the other?

KB: Umm.. like financially, yeah [laughs]. People always like, “Oh, how have you done so many music videos, and blah, blah, blah.”  And I'm like, “Well, I’m poor! I have to!] How else do you think I can make my features?” Just a couple of weeks ago I was unit production manager on a short film that had like a 40-person crew…

RJM: For a short film? That’s crazy…

KB: I don't know. It's a crazy world, isn't it? A lot of it just seems unnecessary. I mean, I set up my own lighting usually. I'll have Don [Devore, Bowling’s boyfriend] or my effects girl, Lo, do the sound if she's not doing effects. Or if nobody's free to do the sound, I'll just like set it on the ground and press record.

Both: [laughter]

RJM: That's how I make my stuff. I also shoot on film, Super 8, so it's usually just me being like, “Go stand over there... Move that light before you hit your blocking...”

KB: It's just more that the looks I'm going after anyway are sort of from that style of filmmaking. Visually, I just would love if all my stuff just looked like Herschel Gordon Lewis movies. Not thematically but visually… which I think I got down pretty well with CUDDLY TOYS, because a lot of Herschel Gordon Lewis is sort of very small. A lot of it is indoor rooms with sort of spotlight lighting. My next movie I'm doing has a lot of outdoor scenery stuff. I'm really into a ‘70s trucker aesthetic too–just like, wide open roads. Trucker or weird road movies like BOBBY JO AND THE OUTLAW. Long zooms, things like that. All of that stuff that I'm into, you don't need like, three grips and three gaffers. For CUDDLY TOYS I shot half of it. Because I actually wasn't too confident as a cinematographer when I started CUDDLY TOYS I had a cinematographer. But pretty much halfway through I was just like, “Ehhh… give me the camera.”

Both: [laughter]

RJM: What weren’t you comfortable with? The technical aspect or the visual aspect of it?

KB: The technical aspect. I had never shot with that camera. I just got it. But eventually I just taught myself and I took over filming. And then anytime I'm on camera, Don shot it.

RJM: Those scenes are great. I’ve seen you talk about the movies, and it's obvious that you have a true passion for these really fringe exploitation sub genres. The white coat exploitation genre is something that is dead and gone and nobody really references it at all, and you have this perfect execution of it, where it seems industrial, and it seems medical, and it just also seems kind of... haphazard…

KB: [laughs]

RJM: ...not to say sloppy–because that'd be rude–but just a little bit like you can see the seams...

KB: Totally! I mean, it's like partially intentional [laughs]. Sometimes I’d be like, “Aww, fuck!  You can hear me stepping on the paper!” But then I'm like, “...ehhh, whatever.”

RJM: I mean, that's exactly how those movies were. They weren't made to be good. They were made to be made. They're like, “We're not here to create a picture. We're here to teach you about this thing.”

KB: Yeah, exactly.

RJM: Joe [Swanberg] showed me a short reel of the movie that you're working on now that’s similar to CUDDLY TOYS in the sense that it is kind of about Jane Doe victimization. What exactly is the theme with that one? Cause it looks good! It felt more like an overt horror movie as opposed to this existential, kind of thematic horror movie that CUDDLY TOYS is.

KB: I don't want to say too much about it because I haven’t announced the movie yet. But I will say I actually did start writing it as sort of a CUDDLY TOYS sequel, but then it turned into its own thing. I thought... what if I did a sequel where it's stories about real girls, just true stories. But then it turned into this whole thing we're I’m getting involved with, like, detectives all across the country...

Both: [laughter]

RJM: Whoa! So this has become like a legit true crime…

KB: [laughs] Yeah, like, trying to solve crimes. I've been like an amateur detective the last few years...

RJM: That's wild.

KB: [laughs] Yeah! Once you get into it you find out a lot of these unsolved cases are just unsolved because nobody's doing anything about it. They just kind of gave up like 40 years ago. There's all this new technology, and they're like, “Oh, yeah... that case. We haven't thought about that in a couple decades.” They just need someone to, like, poke around a little.

RJM: There's a line, I think now more than ever, where… exploitation fare used to be so looked down upon historically. Look at the ‘60s through the ‘80s. It was just “trash cinema” and “pulp” and stuff like that. True Crime obsession has gone mainstream–or if not mainstream, it's become acceptable.

KB: Mmhmm.

RJM: Do you see a kind cleansing with that? Because CUDDLY TOYS still has this kind of sordid feel to it. Like, there's still elements of that movie where it feels like you're watching something you're not supposed to be watching…

KB: [laughs]

RJM: Whereas people are trying to make careers out of true crime podcasts, where they're trying to appeal to the widest possible people while just exploiting, like, literally exploiting people's tragedy.

KB: Yeah… I don't know if I have anything to say about that…

RJM: [laughs] That’s fair.

KB: Well… a lot of people... I don't know... I don't want to get into this. I'm gonna say something that's gonna make me sound like a real asshole [laughs]...

RJM: That's fine. That's fine. [laughs] I just think it's like really silly. Growing up, where I did, when I did–I'm from Chicagoland–I remember when Gacy was executed. I remember where I was when Dahmer was killed in prison. As if it was like 9/11 or something. Like, I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news. And so I just find how all of these wine moms talk about this...

KB: Yeah...

RJM: ...like weird and sad, and kind of just … boring.

KB: There's like trends of acceptable ways to talk about things.

RJM: That's a great way to put it. Because I think that CUDDLY TOYS talks about stuff that people talk about all the time, and that people make millions of dollars talking about, but the way that you're doing it is not the “okay” way. It's not the approved way of doing it. Do you think that's kind of the issue?

KB: I guess, yeah. This could be a whole other conversation… but it's sort of like the conversation about like, rape culture, and how it's just been this huge conversation the last like six years, or however long it's been. And all you hear all day is “rape, rape, rape, rape, rape...” But then if you, god forbid, make something that's influenced by hearing that word 24/7 then, like, you’re a monster. I don’t know. [laughs] See, this is where I go and say silly things. No one's calling me a monster.

RJM: At a certain point when something becomes part of the cultural conversation why are people shocked when people talk about it in uncomfortable ways?

KB: Yeah.

RJM: Which is why I liked watching that movie. Every time I watch it, I get something more out of it. Because once the immediate discomfort of certain scenes in your film are gone, that immediate shock… I mean, every time I watch that movie I find it fucking funnier.

KB: [laughs]

RJM: Is it because I've been desensitized to it?

KB: [laughs harder]

RJM: Or is it because I'm able to get past looking around like, “Is it okay for me to laugh at this? Are people gonna fucking judge me for enjoying this? Am I supposed to enjoy this type of thing?”

KB: There are horrible things that happen in the world every day. So I feel like, you know, you don't have to be sad all the time. You're allowed to find the irony in something horrible and laugh about it.

RJM: That's absolutely true. People who don't want to have fun will make sure that nobody gets to have fun. That's just how it seems to be. Or they’ll make it their point to try to make sure that nobody gets to have fun.

KB: Yeah. Like when we did the double rape scene, we were all laughing, having fun, while we were filming it. And we're just like, “Oh my god, wouldn't it be so funny if like, right before this girl dies, she's just talking about, like, what she wants to be when she grows up and stuff?” [laughter] Like, it's just horrible, really awful stuff. And you know, when that happens in real life, it's god awful. But you know, I've been around things like that, too. And it's not fun. But then… I don't know... when you see it so in your face like this… you can't even really tell in the voiceover where she's walking over to the car hitchhiking, but we did this really funny voiceover where she's like, “Oh, I love Ted Bundy... his eyebrows remind me of my dad.” [laughs] “When I grow up, I want to have a clothing store in Haight-Ashbury...”

Both: [laughter]

KB: It’s stupid, but...

RJM: Going back to what you were saying before, I think that because of your purposeful blending of reality and complete fiction–ridiculous, over-the-top fiction–people just want to assume that everything is the most serious and the most real, and they can't like enjoy it. Like, it's a movie. It's just a movie, guys.

KB: Even in real life, though. There's some really, god awful things that have happened. And, you know, part of the way to deal with them is just to find the really ridiculous part in it and laugh about it.

RJM: In your book, you talk about how it was harder to find guys to do the rape scenes than to do murder scenes.

KB: [laughs] Yeah.

RJM: People were dropping out, people didn't want to do but then begrudgingly did it anyway, because they’re like, “I guess I committed to it. I have to do it.” You talked about how when you were actually doing it, you guys were cutting it up and having fun. How you actually got to where they feel like, “Oh, this isn't gonna be like a heavy thing.” How did you work as a director with the actors to be like, “Ok. Rape this teenage girl...”

KB: Well, I didn't do it in a way where…  [laughs] this might get me in trouble. I shouldn’t… I’m not one of those people who is like, [serious, concerned voice] “Are you going be okay?” Like, I feel like that just makes it more awkward, you know? I don't know. They agreed to do it. So okay, let's just go do it. That's fine. And then everyone laughs after. I don't know. I don't know what to say about that...

RJM: I just found it interesting that you made that a point to talk about in your book, that actors are more uncomfortable with doing anything that involves sexual assault than murder, or anything like that.

KB: Yeah. Someone actually, like specifically, said that. I don't remember which scene it was where I was going to shoot in somebody's car, I think it might have been for the double rape scene. I think it was gonna be in this dude's van at first, and he's like, “Oh, yeah... I mean... You can, like, kill the girls in the van, but you can't rape them in it.”

RJM: What?

KB: [laughs] “Okay, we just won't use it then.” It’s so stupid. I can't remember who it was.

RJM: ...but what a strange line to draw...

KB: [laughs] That's what I've actually heard about my next movie, that it's gonna be a lot easier to get distribution because the girls die.

RJM: Yeah, because as a society, we're more okay with killing women more than hurting women. Not that either one of them is good at all, or should happen at all, please let me be clear…

KB: [laughs]

RJM: ...but what a weird line to draw–especially when it comes to the arts. Like, why one and not the other

KB: I honestly don't understand at all. I don't I don't even know what to say about it. I just don't get it. It’s really stupid.

RJM: I'm curious about some of your influences as a filmmaker, not directly in regard to CUDDLY TOYS, or your new project or anything, but in general. I remember once when you came to Chicago for a screening you programmed THE SWIMMER at Analog, which I had never heard of. I just went in there and like 30 minutes into the movie I'm like, “Is this just about a dude swimming through people's fucking swimming pools? This is the wildest thing I’ve ever seen in my fucking life.”

KB: [laughs]

RJM: It's this weird  B-movie from the middle of an era that's like post-New Hollywood but pre-video. What other films from that era are influences on you? Because I know that you had said that was an influence in some capacity on your filmmaking.

KB: Yeah, that's definitely in my top 10. I think it's just an incredible movie. I think MIDNIGHT COWBOY is probably the greatest movie ever made.

RJM: Only X-rated movie to ever win an Oscar.

KB: Best Picture! Yeah, I think that's the greatest movie ever made. My favorite movie of all time probably is F FOR FAKE, the Orson Welles movie.

RJM: That is one of my favorite movies. Top five of all time. That is the magic of cinema, of what film can do.

KB: Every time I watch it, I feel like I'm just holding my breath the whole time. Like, oh my god. It’s so perfect and beautiful. Same with MIDNIGHT COWBOY, though. I'm just like, man… every single shot was so thought out about how the movie was going to be edited. Just everything. It's just… it's perfect. My favorite director probably, as his whole body of work, is Russ Meyer. I think SUPER VIXENS is one of the greatest movies ever made. Also, Robert Altman's POPEYE.

RJM: Really?

KB: Yeah. It's perfect. It's really perfect. And then I love, of course, all the Italian horror movies… DON’T TORTURE A DUCKLING, the Fulci movie, is also one of my favorites. There's a movie called THE WITCH WHO CAME FROM THE SEA–that's also one my favorite movies. Oh! SOMEWHERE IN TIME...

RJM: I don’t know that one.

KB: I think it's the most romantic movie ever made. It's Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. It's written by Richard Matheson. And it's directed by the guy who directed the majority of the Night Gallery episodes, which is one of the best shows ever. The Rod Serling show after The Twilight Zone. SOMEWHERE IN TIME is a little square compared the other ones but I think it's beautiful.

RJM: I have a question that kind of ties into all that, because all of these you’re naming are from a specific era, which overlaps with the first thing you see when CUDDLY TOYS comes on screen… the Crown International Pictures logo. How did you get that? They don't exist.

KB: Uhh… [laughs] I haven’t asked yet.

RJM: Awesome.

KB: When I was like a little girl, it was my dream to be the president of Crown International Pictures [laughs]. When I was like, either 17 or 18, or something like that, I worked like one day a week at Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills. I would take a bus, and I would get off at this bus stop that was right in front of the abandoned Crown International Building. I would look in the window every day and be like, “Someday! It’s all gonna be mine!” But now it's like a car dealership or something [laughs].

RJM: That's even better. A perfect metaphor.

KB: I wouldn't want a building in Beverly Hills anyways now. I'm a different person.

RJM: Charlie Chaplin lived in Chicago for like a hot minute making silent films before they moved out to L.A. There’s still the studio building where he created his Tramp character and stuff like that. They sold the building to a college. So I drive by it all the time like, “Oh, look, the history of cinema.”

KB: That's so cool. Now where I live is right where Mark Twain first started writing. So I’m always like, “Man, American humor was invented right here!” So that's even better.

RJM: That is actually much better than wanting to have an old warehouse in Beverly Hills, that's for sure.

KB: Yeah… I fucking hate L.A. now. So I'm never going back.

RJM: Maybe that's why Chicago loves CUDDLY TOYS so much...

KB: Because you guys hate L.A.?

Both: [laughter]

RJM: Exactly.

KB: It’s a truly awful place.

RJM:  I just got one last question for you. I ask this to everybody that I interview... What's one thing that you know to be 100% true, that somebody else would say is not a fact. Something that is a core belief to you but somebody else would debate you on.

KB: Reincarnation?

RJM: Yeah?

KB: [laughs]

RJM: Have you thought about what you have been before?

KB: Yeah. I think I was a trucker. Yeah... for sure, actually.

Interview with Alexandre O. Philippe

Megan Fariello: Amy Nicholson, in the first of the six chapters that make up the film, states that we’ve all been to Oz. It’s often a first favorite film—it was certainly mine. It seems to be wholly informative to an individual and group understanding of cinema. And so that said, what drew you to dive into such detail, into THE WIZARD OF OZ and into Lynch’s relationship and obsession with that film, and maybe a broader cultural impact that the film has.

Alexandre O. Philippe: Generally speaking… if I look at my general preoccupations, or my body of work, if you will, all the films that we’ve made at Exhibit A Pictures, I’m certainly very interested in the idea of the movies that have transcended their medium to become cultural events. Those are really the films that I’m specifically interested in, and there’s no question that THE WIZARD OF OZ is one of those films. A little bit unique, for me specifically, in this film, is that I grew up in Switzerland and so THE WIZARD OF OZ is not really very well known in Europe. So I didn’t grow up on THE WIZARD OF OZ, I grew up on Lynch. I was a Lynch fan long before I became a fan of THE WIZARD OF OZ…  I discovered THE WIZARD OF OZ in my twenties. 

MF: Oh wow, that’s such an interesting perspective.

AOP: Yeah, the moment that I did watch THE WIZARD OF OZ, I immediately became hooked. I’ve studied it and spent a lot of time trying to understand that film. But so for me, I think this film stems initially from the desire to make a film about David Lynch… I became just absolutely fascinated by the mysterious connections between America’s quintessential fairy tale and our foremost surrealist. What a mashup, right?

MF: That’s such an interesting, different perspective than I have, which is [that THE WIZARD OF OZ is a film] I watched a hundred times as a young kid. [AOP laughs.] I was really struck by the construction of this film, particularly the elongated six chapters. Can you speak a little bit about how you structured this film, how you came up with the form, and the process of finding the participants and those perspectives, and how it all came together?

AOP: There’s a lot of steps to that. The first step was COVID. [Laughs] We started working on this film in earnest in March 2020, just when things started to shut down. There wasn’t that possibility of actually filming interviews, but for something like this… which is again, it’s not a film that in any way, shape, or form attempts to solve the David Lynch riddle, because there’s nothing to solve… it’s a film that is about mysteries. It’s about the mysteries of the creative process, it’s about the mysteries of influence and inspiration, so it made a whole lot of sense for me to explore those mysteries through very specific lenses and to give each participant the room to develop a thesis. First and foremost, I had to find people who were completely willing to go there with me and just see how far we could go. It landed on those six people, or seven actually [directors Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson share a chapter]. It became this sort of organic thing. I went one by one, because I felt like each chapter informed other questions or triggered other questions or ways to look into this relationship between Lynch and OZ. I had to go one participant at a time… then  I crafted what I essentially thought was their chapter. When [myself and the participant] were both really happy with where it landed, I sent them to the recording studio to record their voiceover, and that’s what you have in the film. 

MEF: I really appreciated the amount of time that you allotted to each of these chapters. The participants, they really seem to dive into not only into analysis and theories, but also their own personal cinematic histories. Was there anything surprising that came out thematically or in individual chapters that you were not expecting to hear? 

AOP: It’s all unexpected. I’m glad you picked up on that, because to me, the real beauty of those chapters is how personal they get. Of course it’s a film about the relationship between Lynch and THE WIZARD OF OZ… but on a larger scale it’s about the mysteries of influence and inspiration on the creative process, which is why we have this epic montage at the end, which I’m not going to give away for people who haven’t watched the film. But it’s about larger ideas, about when we grow up watching movies and we love movies, and we get influenced by certain films, and then you grow up and you become a filmmaker, that in a way we’re all sort of trapped by those films whether we like to admit it or not. But that’s a really cool thing, it’s a really beautiful thing, this idea that there are certain ideas, themes, motifs, and totems that keep coming back again and again and again in our work… it’s not that we’re trapped in a negative sense, we’re not made prisoners by those films, but those films become a part of our filmmaking DNA. As David Lowery mentions in his chapter, he says you sort of have to lean in on that, you have to keep digging, and the more you dig, the more you find. And I think that’s such a beautiful idea. 

MF: In terms of putting the visual and the audio together, I think in the Benson and Moorhead chapter, they mention how unique Lynch’s approach is to sound and the combining of visuals and auditory elements. I found that through the film, through your combination of what the participants and the perspectives were saying, and the visuals that you were putting on screen… what is the process, how do you work through editing a visual essay in tandem with these very personal, in-depth perspectives?

AOP: That’s where the real work began. That particular work, it starts at the writing process, in the sense that as I started putting together their chapter, I had to think on a micro level about how I’m going to tell this story visually. That’s number one. But obviously I worked very, very closely with my wonderful editor, David Lawrence, who’s a wonderful filmmaker and editor in his own right; we literally pored over every single moment and every single clip and made sure not just that it landed, but that every single clip was really the best possible one, that it was really special, that it told a story on multiple levels. That’s very involved. We have well over a thousand clips in the film. It gets pretty wild. That was the real grind, in a way. It’s a fun grind, but it was a grind, you know, making this film. 

MF: Speaking to that, there’s a really interesting balance between these personal, very in-depth film analyses, as well as a broader cultural impact of THE WIZARD OF OZ and Lynch’s engagement with that film, thematically looking at American mythology, the American dream. Can you speak to that theme running through the six chapters?

AOP: The idea of the American dream is very important to me and very interesting to me because growing up in Europe, and growing up as a cinephile very specifically, not exclusively, but very specifically, of American films and Hollywood films, when I was growing up, I dreamed of the United States. I think without necessarily knowing it then, I longed for the day where I would get to go or maybe there was a seed there that I would get to one day move to America, which I did, I eventually became American as well. I mean, I’ve lived this idea of the American dream. I was the first of my family to come here, and I followed my dreams and I worked hard. I became very lucky to have the opportunity to do the things that I do. But, the American Dream, also… first of all, it’s an idea, and, as we all know, it’s an idea that, unfortunately, you need all the right circumstances and a lot of luck to get. And I’m very cognizant of that, that I was very fortunate to be able to have the life that I have, to do what I do. The darkness of it, this idea of chasing the dream, if you will, which in and of itself is also a bit of a myth… I think certainly David Lynch explores that really beautifully in his films, from the character of Diane in MULHOLLAND DRIVE to the Laura Dern character in INLAND EMPIRE. All these characters who envision themselves living the dream, getting over the rainbow and everything’s wonderful, but it’s not. It’s all in their heads. It’s complicated, it’s a very complicated idea, and it’s a very loaded idea. What’s interesting is that, as complicated as America is, socially, politically, on just about every level, it's a complicated country, especially now, I think that that idea of America, true or false, true for some and not for others, but true or false generally speaking, it’s still very potent. People still dream about America. For good or not good reasons. 

MF: In Lynch’s films, it’s so hard to parse through what he’s saying about the American dream and home and this return to something.

AOP: The one thing I would say about that, which is what I think makes his films so wonderful to me, certainly, is that even though a lot of his characters don’t get to go over the rainbow, truly, or they go over the rainbow but they can’t find a way back home, he still treats them with a great deal of empathy. Karyn [Kusama] in her chapter really talks about this particular idea so beautifully. This idea that Diane Selwyn [in MULHOLLAND DRIVE], in sort of creating the Betty character, who is innocent and optimistic and as she says a very golly-gee, gee-whiz kind of optimist, gets to project the best version of herself. That’s really a beautiful idea. I really responded to that idea when Karyn said. I think as dark as Lynch can get, he is very much the sort of innocent optimist, and I think that’s what makes him so relatable. 

MF: It was interesting that that got brought up, how optimistic he is despite that darkness that runs through his work. I have one final question: I found this film incredibly self-reflexive, in the perspectives but also in thinking about my own relationship to THE WIZARD OF OZ and the connection to Lynch, and maybe the reason I’m a Lynch fan is because I watched THE WIZARD OF OZ so much as a kid [laughs]... but what in terms of your own process through making this film, was there anything you reflected about your own relationship to cinema, to the kinds of films you appreciate? Was there something new about how you understand and relate to cinema through this entire project?

AOP: I think inevitably every time I have the opportunity to dive into this kind of project and especially with, again, people I have so much admiration for, who are such wonderful thinkers, people who think very actively about not just movies, but art and how movies relate to life and the language of cinema, and all of that stuff, I really can’t stress enough what an incredible privilege it is for me to be able to pick their brains and then follow their trains of thoughts and ask them questions and see where that leads me. Everytime I make a film like this, I feel like I come out of the process richer. And I don’t mean richer just because so-and-so made a connection between Lynch and OZ that I hadn’t thought of; that’s all great, that’s always fun, when you get to discover that, but that’s not what the film is about. It’s when David Lowery talks about the experience of watching THE WIZARD OF OZ in black and white when he was a kid and how that experience became transformed when he got to finally watch it in sepia and color the second time around and then watching it again as an adult, having a better understanding now of the quote-unquote American nightmare. That’s really cool. There’s [also] this great moment where I ask [John Waters] a question about his own work, and he says, “Yeah, I think I’ve made some references, but I can’t really think of one.” So then I had to go through his entire filmography again and find those moments, and there’s some incredible stuff! Those are the moments that are transformative for me as a filmmaker, as a cinephile, and as a human, period.

Interview with Lena Olin and Tora Hallström, stars of HILMA

By Raphael Jose Martinez

Films about artists are often hagiographies, a way to elevate someone into some sort of canon. The most interesting things about them are generally paved over in order to tell stories of overcoming struggle and making these people into messengers of hope. Swedish writer-director Lasse Hallström’s HILMA deftly avoids all the trappings of the banal, cliched bio-pic and gives us the story of a truly strange and powerful artist without any generic window dressing.

The film tells the story of Hilma af Klint, a queer Swedish artist who, despite predating popular abstract artists, was completely unknown until well after her death in 1944.

And by choice. An iconoclastic mystic, who used her powers as a spiritual medium to paint what she saw in the metaphysical world, Klint was unknown until her first gallery showing in 1986, 42 years after her death. In 2019 her show at the Guggenheim Museum drew over 600,000 visitors, making it the most attended exhibition in the museum’s history.

HILMA gives a beautiful overview of the often fraught and difficult life of Klint. Starring the mother-daughter duo of Tora Hallström and Lena Olin, both as Hilma at different points in the artist’s life, we get a powerful telling of woman who, to this day, seems to exist outside the bounds of conventional society.

I had the pleasure to sit down with both Tora and Lena for a conversation. What began as a simple question-and-answer session about the film eventually turned into a wonderfully weaving, meandering conversation about solace and comfort in a post-pandemic world, the power of manifesting, the need for witches in contemporary society, and the soul of art. I think Hilma would have enjoyed it very much.

Raphael Jose Martinez (RJM): So what drew the two of you into doing a film about Hilma af Klint?

Tora Hallström (TH): My dad [HILMA writer-director Lasse Hallström] started out by being really interested in UFOs and through that he met some guy who used to work at the Pentagon. There was this whole process of figuring out if there are extra-terrestrial beings, and there was some connection with that and mediums. Through that he became very interested in mediums, being able to talk to the other side, and at the same time Hilma was becoming really big in New York. And she was a medium, obviously, and Swedish, so he started doing a lot of research. I was working in investment banking at the time when this started becoming an actual topic of conversation, and I was on my only vacation, like, ever, and my dad was talking about this project saying, “I think I’m going to make a movie about Hilma af Klint and you should play Hilma.” I was like, “I’m… I’m a banker.” [Laughs] I can’t do this. But then during the pandemic I moved home and had this period of reflection…

RJM: I think a lot of us did.

Lena Olin (LO): Oh yeah.

TH: It was this awful time, but it was kind of a blessing to have all this time to be bored. I was also 25, so quarter-life crisis thoughts were coming to me, too. Do I actually like what I do? And I was tracing the common thread of, “I think I want to do acting, actually.” And at the same time there was a first draft of this script and ViaPlay wanted to buy it, so all these things just kind of intersected at the same time. I was ready to change my life and do this.

RJM: And what drew you to it?

LO: Well, it started with a fascination of Lasse. Because the first time I heard her name mentioned was when I watched a movie with Kristen Stewart on a plane called  PERSONAL SHOPPER, where she looks for her dead brother. And she says that there's a Swedish painter who has a connection with the other side and her name is Hilma af Klint. And I didn't know… I thought it was a fictional character because I hadn't heard of her. I was playing a painter, and I was shooting in the East Hamptons, Tom Dolby (THE ARTIST’S WIFE) was the director, and Lasse was staying with me because he was writing this film about UFOs. And Tom Dolby said, because I was playing a painter, he said, “I love Hilma af Klint, do you know her paintings?” And I was like, “She’s real?!” So then we started reading about her, and I could see that Lasse got obsessed with her and he said, “I have to make a movie about this woman.” Because she’s such a powerful, extraordinary, brilliant character. He started contacting the family and traveling to places she’s lived, places she’s worked, and became obsessed with it. And he said, “There’s one person that should play Hilma, and that’s Tora.” So it all came together in a magical way, actually. It was almost like everything was meant to happen.

RJM: Do you think the fact that it was a family of Swedish artists wanting to do this project allowed it to happen so quickly?

LO: I think so. Yeah. And we get the question, “Why is it in English?” Well, Lasse first went the whole bureaucratic way in Sweden where you need to wait until next year’s decision by the Swedish Film Institute… it’s very sort of Eastern European heavy in that regard. Then ViaPlay came in and said they wanted it to be specifically Nordic but reach internationally. They said, “We’ll take care of it. We can pay for the script.” They loved the script, they loved the idea, they love Lasse… and they had seen tapes of what Tora can do with the character. But we wanted to make it in English because we want to go international.

RJM: That makes sense. And I love that you two are speaking specifically about the draw of the aspect that she was a medium, because that makes it far more unique than most biographical dramas about artists. I’m particularly intrigued by how the film does focus on the mysticism, with the constant refrain of her being a “witch.” You can’t really speak of her life story without having the mysticism in there, it’s inextricable, but this also seems to follow this uptick in films about female mysticism–for lack of better terms “witchcraft”–that seems to be happening. What do you think the pull is to stories like these nowadays, that more people are wanting to see these representations–or at least these tales, stories–of women who are doing, not anti-scientific stuff, but para-scientific stuff?

TH: I think it’s because a lot of people have these sides to themselves and believe in a lot of it, but it hasn't been acceptable for a long time. And so they see it and are like, “I recognize that. I haven't seen that someone else has seen what I’ve seen and believe.” And people have it to varying degrees. Like people like to go to yoga. That’s like one degree. Then some people actually have medium capabilities. Through this whole process I’m very open about the fact that I believe in this type of stuff now, and people have come to us and been like, “Yeah, I talk to the other side, too.” It’s become a hope in being able to talk about it openly. I actually believe in it, and it lightens everything. I felt a lot of fear of death in my life and the hope of thinking that if you lose a loved one you’ll be able to speak to them and they’ll always be with you. I think there’s something really beautiful and comforting in that for people. And especially seeing a woman doing this type of work in that time and being so brave to be able to do it when it was kind of dangerous, I think is really powerful.

RJM: The film makes it very, very clear that she was going to do what she wanted to do regardless of even her closest loved ones.

LO: Right. I think that's what’s so moving about her. The fact that she was so incredibly brave to just keep going. She followed what she saw, the stories she had to tell. And I think that, speaking of witches and mysticism, I think we need it now. I think in those days when they burned them maybe they didn’t need them. I don't know. Cause they were more in touch with the earth. People were more spiritual. Today we understand the power of it, that we need it … I think Hilma is brilliant example of science and creativity going together. It’s the same thing with medicine. I wouldn’t go to only holistic medicine and be like, “Yeah!” But I trust what they say–and the combination is amazing. I think where we are, as human beings on this planet today, we need it! What did those witches say that was so powerful they needed to burn them?!

TH: Yeah!

LO: Let’s listen up. Like everything, like old people who understood the earth. I just came from Arizona, and you see that we are now coming back to what they tried to show us. There’s a power in the earth. You just have to respect it. All of those things, we need them now. And I think therefore people are waking up. I think a lot of people have carried this, “I think it’s a little embarrassing, but I think I feel my dad’s presence when I…” You know? And now the more we speak about it the more everyone is like, “Yeah! Maybe we’re not alone. Maybe we are all one. Maybe there is something bigger. Maybe there is hope in that.” [Deep breath] Yeah!

RJM: Absolutely! Because there’s nothing specifically about this film that makes it overtly a post-pandemic type of film, but I felt it really was. It offers that hope. Because as a world we’re processing this mass amount of death…

LO: Yes, yes.

RJM: …that we’ve all seen, if it hasn’t affected us directly. All those images we were just bombarded with when we had nothing to do but watch them.

TH: Right…

LO: You’re right!

RJM: And now this film kind of offers a soft way of helping deal with that, which I really enjoyed.

LO: Totally. That’s a really good point.

RJM: The other thing about the bravery of Hilma that I thought was quite specifically in the narrative here is the focus on her queer relationships, which is not a thing that you really hear about even now when they speak of her. If anything they only focus on the mysticism. Or a strong woman in a time, and a culture, that didn’t allow her to do what she did. A lot of artists kind of get desexualized, because “nobody wants the tawdry details,” when I think that everyone actually wants the tawdry details! What was that like in the making of this, and in focusing on this aspect of Hilma? Why did you feel the need to do it? And how did you go about navigating that?

TH: I think it’s because that was the truth–or at least as we understand it. It’s pretty much confirmed. We’ve spoken to her family… I haven’t spoken to them directly, but my dad spoke a lot with her family. We read the correspondence with Anna, who was her love in the movie. I feel like it needed a love story. But what I love about how it’s handled in the film is that it’s just a beautiful love story, it’s not necessarily about trying to sexualize the fact that it’s a queer relationship or anything like that. Like, “Ooh!” We’re not going to make it a big deal. It’s just so natural that she loves Anna, and Anna loves Hilma.

RJM: It’s a relationship between artists.

TH: We’re just celebrating their love, I think, which is even more impactful for the LGBTQ community. They just naturally have a love story.

RJM: It didn’t have to be all neat and cute.

LO: And it’s complicated, the way love stories are. Anna has the money, Hilma does not, and it became this sort of inflamed thing for them. And that’s something that the family may not speak of now, but she didn’t get any financial help from the family because she was an outsider. She was not accepted. And the way the relatives talk about her is like [puts on a cartoonishly snooty accent] “Well… she preferred to eat vegetables. Hmmmm. She was very odd.” When they speak about her they sort of walk around it, but I think in those days it was so not acceptable. I mean, she loved women. So she created her own little world of women who understood her and respected her, that she understood and respected. And it was complicated, the way love and relationships are! It was like because they were women and they loved each other it’s all flowery. It was awfully complicated.

RJM: It seems like a relationship that 50 years ago would have been relegated to, “They were… friends.”

TH: A couple of spinsters living together!

LO: And I think that Lasse has such a good take on that. I really love how he portrays them. It’s exactly as you said, they were “friends.” We all have uncles that everyone is like, “No… he lived with his best friend.”

RJM: “It was just easier for them that way!” But with an eyebrow raised… With this being a film that was also made by a family there must have been a connection that you all had in the process that would be more akin to a spiritual connection than, say, working for a hired job. How was that, versus some of the other stuff you have done?

LO: Well, I think that Tora and Lasse had a very… Lasse would say, “She freaking reads my mind! If I walk up because I wanted her to do something, Tora would be like, ‘I know.’” And then she would do exactly what I thought I wanted her to do!” Which is very cool! But Lasse knew that even though it’s family, I think that it was important to him to get the best out of people–that everyone is going to feel like family. That everyone is going to feel respected and included. But I think that the two of them had a very, “I know what you’re thinking..” [dynamic].

RJM: Was there ever a moment where you thought to–or did you–attempt to contact the spirit of Hilma?

LO: Tora did.

TH: Mmhmm. We met with a really talented medium in Sweden. Actually all the five women and I had a session with him together. I had a session with him alone where we talked about my personal life and talked to Hilma, and then we all did one together, which was really beautiful. And he only speaks Swedish. The rest of the actresses were English, so I actually translated as he was speaking. So I kind of had to take the role of Hilma…

RJM: So you became a medium for the medium?

TH: A medium for the medium! Which was very funny! So I got the experience of listening to him and communicating to them what he was saying. But it was so interesting. We spoke to Hilma directly. She had such a great sense of humor, which was very surprising. You feel like she would take her work very seriously–which she did–but she was so fun to talk to. Like she was someone I’d be friends with today! We had a great time together! Of course she had this darkness that she was dealing with, too, but there was this lightness. It was really beautiful getting to experience that together.

LO: All the girls were on fire! I remember after that, after one of the sessions you had with that medium, somebody had seen Tora and the other actors and was like, “I didn't dare walk to that table because they were such a lit group.” It was amazing.

TH: We got all these interesting anecdotes from her personal life. I mean, we can’t confirm that they’re true, but I believe that they’re true. Where she said that she didn't feel like a man or a woman, there wasn’t a word for that at the time. And I was like, “This is so exciting.” I got to bring this masculine energy to a role of woman wearing a corset in a period piece and make it so modern and fresh. Amazing little details that she threw in there that we got to hear directly from Hilma.

RJM: That’s so interesting that you say that because I thought there were moments in the movie, and from her life, that seemed kind of prescient and speak to things now. One of the particular moments is the scene where she has Rudolph Steiner come to her studio and look at her stuff and he comments that art that doesn't originate in the soul of the artist can’t really be called art.

TH: Mmhmm.

RJM: And she has a moment where she asks herself, “What am I doing?” And I think now we’re dealing with that on a technological level with A.I. art and stuff like that.

LO: Yeah! You're right!

RJM: Is that art? Is that not art? It translates into visual art, and now with acting even you can replicate people’s voices. Because Hilma said it was a tool. She sees what she does, that’s out of her control, as a way to get to the reality of it, whereas Steiner thought that was not it at all. How do you two feel about this weird in between of what you’re actually doing, or what this machine, this technological ghost is doing for you?

TH: Wow. Yeah, that’s really…

LO: I feel like what she was describing… that artificial thing is super creepy actually. And people have relationships with it, like, “I love you so much! Don’t leave me.” But it’s… artificial! But I do believe that in any creative job there is that divine intervention. If you’re on stage and you suddenly go and grab somebody’s arm and were thrown against the wall… then afterwards you ask, “Where did that come from?!” Or you're suddenly in a scene, and you do something, and you've prepared and prepared, and once you start shooting you let go of everything and let it happen. Then the things that happen, it’s like a summer wind that blows through a room. You have the windows open, and the curtains move. Something happened. And I think that is creativity. When we’re open. We can prepare, but we have to let it come to us. And I think that's what Hilma was describing. Then they put names to it, like the High Masters. But I think that anyone… we think that something is there. We’re listening to our gut, to our spirit. We are being lead by something.

RJM: Do you think that there will ever be an artist,  50 or 60 years down the road, that people will say that they were feeling the spirit of artificial intelligence? In this weird way that they felt they were being guided it? Personally, I don't.

LO: Does it scare you though? The artificial intelligence thing?

RJM: I am absolutely of two minds, because I think there is a definite use for it.

LO: Of course.

RJM: But for labor reasons.

LO: Yeah, yeah, yeah!

RJM: When you're making certain types of art there are certain things that aren't that important. “I wish that background just existed. I wish we didn't have to focus on that because it’s just not very important.” Which in that case, this is great. But then you have the idea of, “Oh I want it to help me write this script or this dialogue.” It can’t appreciate the world on a physical or sensuous level. It can’t describe the feel of your summer breeze, it can only describe the idea of the feel of a summer breeze. And there I find it scary. Because the moment when you conflate those two everything disappears and falls apart.

TH: But it’s all derived from human art, too. Are you talking about the A.I. app that creates art? Like, “Give me pigs in a cathedral drinking wine.” And then there's just a painting of that. Have you seen that?

LO: No! Oh my god!

RJM: And you can do “pigs in a cathedral drinking wine in the style of Picasso.”

LO: [Laughs] Oh no!

RJM: And it looks like a Picasso!

TH: But you have to say “in the style of a Picasso,” right? There had to be a Picasso to make it happen.

LO: Oh, that's true!

TH: Nothing original is going to happen without humans, who have the ability to imagine things that don't exist. Artificial intelligence just draws from that. At least I hope there's not a future where artificial intelligence can imagine things that don't exist or create things out of nothing!

LO: But you pray that there is something… in love, in art, that can only be made by humans. I was thinking, the thing that makes us human… I was sitting at the opening [of the film], which I haven't done in a long time, and I was sitting there with other people, and it was sensational. Like, god, we need other people when we watch something, when we experience something. And that's not artificial, that's human! But it can be helpful. Someone was telling me about how with some medical things they can do it faster than any doctor could put two and two together. If you have this x-ray of a lung and then you also have the blood work, boom, they do it in two seconds. But when it comes to art… that's so scary. But you're right. There needed to be a Picasso to make it in the style of Picasso.

RJM: So I have one final question, and it’s completely unrelated to the film, just a final question that I ask at every interview. Kind of an artistic outlook question. And it is… what is one thing that you as a person believe to be 100% true, a fact in your mind, that someone else would disagree with you about?

LO: God, that’s so interesting…

TH: I think a lot of things. I can’t choose one!

LO: I think that I’m very… I love to watch sport coaches, what they say, and how they coach people. I grew up with actors, I went through drama school, but I think I’m being so much more helped when I listen to sport coaches. And one of the ones who was training horseback riding, he was saying, “When a kid comes up to me with realistic dreams, I’m not interested. I want the ones with unrealistic dreams.” And I think I’m unrealistic in my dreams and what I believe to be a fact. This is what I’m going to do. This is the house I’m going to build. And I’m talking about the guest house I’m going to build, and I look at our house, and I look at my husband, and everyone is like, “It’s never going to happen.” But I know it will happen. It’s a very small thing, but I think that’s the one thing. And I can apply that to a lot of things that I truly believe. I’ve been right so far, but I'm not so sure that one’s going to happen. But I have a lot of those, where I have such strong beliefs. But I think that all of my dreams have been so sure. They're dreams, and I take that very seriously.

TH: I like that. Manifesting works.

RJM: That’s perfect. I kind of sums up the whole film as well. What a great way to end this.

Cine-File Contributors' 2022 Year-End Lists

📽️ Rob Christopher

ANIARA (Pella Kågerman & Hugo Lilja, 2018)
CONFESS, FLETCH (Greg Mottola, 2022)
CRIMES OF THE FUTURE [David Cronenberg, 2022)
DRIVE MY CAR (Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 2021)
EO (Jerzy Skolimowski, 2022)
GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY (Rian Johnson, 2022)
GOOD LUCK TO YOU, LEO GRANDE (Sophie Hyde, 2022)
THE LOST DAUGHTER (Maggie Gyllenhaal, 2021)
PETIT MAMAN (Céline Sciamma, 2021)
PROGNOSIS: NOTES ON LIVING (Debra Chasnoff, 2021)
RELATIVE (Michael Glover Smith, 2022)
WOMEN TALKING (Sarah Polley, 2022

📽️ Maxwell Courtright

1. CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (David Cronenberg)
2. LAKE FOREST PARK (Kersti Jan Werdal)
3. REWIND & PLAY (Alain Gomis)
4. AFTERSUN (Charlotte Wells)
5. THE EXHAUSTED (Justin Jinsoo Kim)
6. THE AFRICAN DESPERATE (Martine Syms)
7. DECISION TO LEAVE (Park Chan-Wook)
8. BENEDICTION (Terence Davies)
9. RIOTSVILLE, USA (Sierra Pettengill)
10. TRUE PLACES (Gloria Chung)
11. FIRE OF LOVE (Sara Dosa)
12. LIFE ON THE CAPS (Meriem Bennani)
13. NOPE (Jordan Peele)
14. CONSTANT (Sasha Litvintseva, Beny Wagner)
15. HERON 1954-2002 (Alexis McCrimmon)
16. THE VIOLET PROMO (William Strobek)
17. THE CATHEDRAL (Ricky D’Ambrose)
18. WHITE WALL (Jim Greco)
19. CHELSEA 5124 (Kevin Jerome Everson)
20. MURINA (Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic)

📽️ John Dickson

1. THE FABELMANS (Steven Spielberg)
2. PACIFICTION (Albert Serra)
3. STARS AT NOON (Claire Denis)
4. CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (David Cronenberg)
5. AMBULANCE (Michael Bay)
6. DEAD FOR A DOLLAR (Walter Hill)
7. EO (Jerzy Skolimowski)
8. DE HUMANI CORPORIS FABRICA (Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Verena Paravel)
9. THE REHEARSAL (Nathan Fielder)
10. DETECTIVE VS SLEUTHS (Wai Ka-fai)

📽️ Steve Erickson

New Releases:
ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED (Laura Poitras)
THE CATHEDRAL (Ricky D’Ambrose)
THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER (Joanna Hogg)
FEAST (Tim Leyendekker)
JACKASS FOREVER (Jeff Termaine)
NEPTUNE FROST (Anisia Uzeyman & Saul Williams)
RESURRECTION (Andrew Semans)
SAINT OMER (Alice Diop)
SOMETHING IN THE DIRT (Justin Benson & Aaron Moorehead)
WE’RE ALL GOING TO THE WORLD’S FAIR (Jane Schoenbrun)

Best First Viewings:
THE BEDROOM (Hisayasu Sato)
BLUE (Derek Jarman)
BOUND FOR THE FIELDS, THE MOUNTAINS AND THE SEACOAST (Nobuhiko Obayashi)
BRAIN DAMAGE (Frank Henenlotter)
A CAMEL (Ibrahim Shaddad)
THE CARPATHIAN MUSHROOM (Jean-Claude Biette)
COMMUNION (Philippe Mora)
DEEP COVER (Bill Duke)
THE END (Christopher Maclaine)
FREAK ORLANDO (Ulrike Ottinger)
LIBERA ME (Alain Cavalier)
THE LONG GRAY LINE (John Ford)
MELODY FOR A STREET ORGAN (Kira Muratova)
MORNING PATROL (Nikos Nikolaidis)
NEIGE (Juliet Berto & Jean-Henri Roger)
ORDER (Sohrab Shahid Saless)
RAPE (Yoko Ono & John Lennon)
SADA (Nobuhiko Obayashi)
TRAPS (Vera Chytilova)
WEST INDIES (Med Hondo)

📽️ Marilyn Ferdinand

Favorite new releases:
1. SKIES OF LEBANON (Chloé Mazlo)
2. RRR (S.S. Rajamouli)
3. KING OF KINGS: CHASING EDWARD JONES (Harriet Marin Jones/doc/film festival)
4. THE CONDUCTOR (Bernadette Wegenstein/doc)
5. ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED (Laura Poitras/doc)
6. MATEÍNA (Pablo Abdala, Joaquin Peñagaricano/film festival)
7. HIDDEN LETTERS (Violet Du Feng, Qing Zhao/doc)
8. HOLD ME TIGHT (Mathieu Amalric, 2021)
9. MONA LISA AND THE BLOOD MOON (Ana Lily Amirpour)
10. BACK OF THE MOON: SOPHIATOWN 1958 (Angus Gibson)

Honorable mentions (alphabetical): THE BATMAN (Matt Reeves), BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER (Ryan Coogler), GARDENIA PERFUME (Macha Cólon/film festival), THE HATER (Joey Ally), THE JANES (Tia Lessin, Emma Pildes/doc), JOSEP (Aurel/film festival/animated), RICKSHAW GIRL (Amitabh Reza Chowdhury), SIDNEY (Reginald Hudlin/doc)

Favorite films new to me in 2022 (chronological):
THE OTHER WOMAN’S STORY (B. F. Stanley, 1925)
THE STREET OF FORGOTTEN MEN (Herbert Brenon, 1925)
PREM SANYAS (Franz Osten, Himansu Rai, 1926)
A SISTER OF SIX (Ragnar Hyltén-Cavallius, 1926)
DANS LA NUIT (Charles Vanel, 1930)
RAW DEAL (Anthony Mann, 1948)
NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES (John Farrow, 1948)
STELLA (Michael Cacoyannis, 1955)
BLAST OF SILENCE (Allen Baron, 1961)
THE OLIVE TREES OF JUSTICE (James Blue, 1962)\
THE GREEN YEARS (Paulo Rocha, 1963)
LA NOVIA DE CUBA (Kazuo Kuroki, 1969)
SHEBA, BABY (William Girdler, 1975)
TWIN PEAKS (Al Wong, 1977)
GARLIC IS AS GOOD AS TEN MOTHERS (Les Blank, 1980)
THE WILLMAR 8 (Lee Grant, 1981)
THIEF (Michael Mann 1981)
CENTER STAGE (Stanley Kwan, 1991)
ALMA’S RAINBOW (Ayoka Chenzira, 1994)
THE SILENCES OF THE PALACE (Moufida Tlatli, 1994)
PUBLIC HOUSING (Frederick Wiseman, 1997)
THE BIRD PEOPLE IN CHINA (Takashi Miike, 1998)
IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (Wong Kar-Wai, 2000)
BLACK DYNAMITE (Scott Sanders, 2009)
DHOBI GHAT (Kiran Rao, 2010)
EVERYBODY IN OUR FAMILY (Radu Jude, 2012)
REASON (Anand Patwardhan, 2018)

Hall of Fame
The San Francisco Silent Film Festival for a uniformly stellar line-up in 2022 at what may have been their last festival at the Castro Theatre

📽️ Jonathan Leithold-Patt

01. NOPE (Jordan Peele)
02. ARMAGEDDON TIME (James Gray)
03. CLOSE (Lukas Dhont)
04. EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (Daniels)
05. ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED (Laura Poitras)06. EO (Jerzy Skolimowski)
07. SAINT OMER (Alice Diop)
08. CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (David Cronenberg)
09. BABYLON (Damien Chazelle)
10. THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN (Martin McDonagh)

Runners-up:  MOONAGE DAYDREAM (Brett Morgen); APOLLO 10 1/2: A SPACE AGE CHILDHOOD (Richard Linklater); DECISION TO LEAVE (Park Chan-wook)

Performances of the year: The cast of ARMAGEDDON TIME; Danielle Deadwyler, TILL

Opening shot of the year: The astonishing 11-minute sequence shot that begins ATHENA, a virtuosic feat of choreography and physics-defying movement (marvel as the camera soars through the doors of a speeding van)!

Closing shot of the year: A tie between THE FABELMANS and BENEDICTION. About as diametrically opposed in tone as possible—one jubilant and the other devastating—they succinctly encapsulate the attitudes of their respective auteurs via surrogate protagonists.

📽️ Josh B. Mabe

1. 3 MINUTE HELLS (Amy Halpern, 2012), 16mm at Filmmaker's Co-op, New York

2. INERTIA (Tony Phillips, 1974) & LAST SUPPER/SECOND COMING (Tony Phillips, 1976) & THRESHOLD OF DOUBT (Tony Phillips, 1976) & HEAD FOR SHELTER (Tony Phillips, 1978), 16mm at 2311 N Keystone, Chicago 

3. DR. BROADWAY (Anthony Mann, 1942), 35mm at Noir City/Music Box, Chicago

4. CARICATURANA (Radu Jude, 2021), digital at Film Studies Center, Chicago

5. HOW A SPRIG OF FIR WOULD REPLACE A FEATHER (Anna Kipervaser, 2019), 16mm at Chicago Film Society/Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago

6. NEVER REST/UNREST (Tiffany Sia, 2020), digital at Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago

7. LONESOME COWBOY (Toney Merritt, 1979) & THREE MASKED PIECES (Toney Merritt, 1979) & EF (Toney Merritt, 1979), digital at Film Studies Center, Chicago

8. SPAWN OF THE NORTH (Henry Hathaway, 1938), 35mm at Chicago Film Society/Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago

9. YOU BE MOTHER (Sarah Pucill, 1990), digital at Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation/Block Museum, Evanston

10. BLACK STAR: AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A CLOSE FRIEND (Tom Joslin, 1976), digital at Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago 

📽️ Scott Pfeiffer

The 22 most memorable pictures I watched for the first time in 2022:
THE PALM BEACH STORY (Preston Sturges, 1944)
TOBY DAMMIT (Federico Fellini, 1968)
THE ICEMAN COMETH (John Frankenheimer, 1973) 
RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY (Sam Peckinpah, 1962)
RELATIVE (Michael Glover Smith, 2022)
PROVIDENCE (Alain Resnais, 1977)
STORY OF A LOVE AFFAIR aka CRONACA DI UN AMORE (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1950)
THE LADY WITHOUT CAMELIAS aka LA SIGNORA SENZA CAMELIE (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1953)
THE PASSENGER (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1975)
DINNER AT EIGHT (George Cukor, 1933)
SPRING IN A SMALL TOWN (Fei Mu, 1948)
THE DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID (Jean Renoir, 1946)
THE FABELMANS (Steven Spielberg, 2022)
L’AMOUR FOU (Jacques Rivette, 1969)
DECISION TO LEAVE (Park Chan-wook, 2022)
A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell, 1946)
THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER (Joanna Hogg, 2022)
UNRELATED (Joanna Hogg, 2007)
CARMEN JONES (Otto Preminger, 1954)
MAUVAIS SANG (Léos Carax, 1986)
BEAU TRAVAIL (Claire Denis, 1999)
NOUVELLE VAGUE (Jean-Luc Godard, 1990)

📽️ Ben Sachs

Favorite New Films of 2022 (in order of preference)
Note: All films originally released in 2022 except where noted

1. THE FABELMANS (Steven Spielberg)

2. Tie: CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (David Cronenberg), DECEPTION (Arnaud Desplechin, 2021), FRANCE (Bruno Dumont, 2021), ONE FINE MORNING (Mia Hansen-Løve), and THE STORY OF MY WIFE (Ildikó Enyedi, 2021)
Note: One of the most satisfying cinematic trends of recent years has been Léa Seydoux's development into one of the best actors in the world. I may prefer some of these films more than others, but I can't imagine any of them without Seydoux. Taken together, they comprise a rich collection of films on the subjects of womanhood, performance, and fidelity.

3. VENGEANCE IS MINE (Michael Roemer, 1984)
Note: My profound gratitude to The Film Desk for striking a new print of this forgotten masterpiece and to the Chicago Film Society for showing it. I've never seen another psychological drama quite like this, which marries Cassavetes' understanding of complex, even contradictory emotions with the formal rigor of someone like Dreyer.

4. STARS AT NOON (Claire Denis)

5. BENEDICTION (Terence Davies, 2021)

6. RRR (S.S. Rajamouli)

7. SUGAR CANE MALICE (Juan A. Zapata, 2021)
Note: This is one of the rare political documentaries that develops a sophisticated cinematographic language worthy of the subject matter. A shocking and eye-opening film about modern-day slavery in the Dominican Republic, it develops over the course of its short runtime to an expansive (and damning) social portrait.

8. EARTHEARTHEARTH (Daïchi Saïto, 2021)

9. THE SILENT TWINS (Agnieszka Smoczynska)

10. HOLD ME TIGHT (Mathieu Amalric, 2021)

Runners-up (in alphabetical order)
AMBULANCE (Michael Bay), APOLLO 10 1/2: A SPACE AGE CHILDHOOD (Richard Linklater), BROKER (Hirokazu Kore-eda), A COUPLE (Frederick Wiseman), EO (Jerzy Skolimowski), INCREDIBLE BUT TRUE (Quentin Dupieux), PACIFICTION (Albert Serra), SAINT OMER (Alice Diop), SATURDAY FICTION (Lou Ye, 2019), THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING (George Miller)

📽️ Dmitry Samarov

For many of us who watch too many movies the challenge of a best-of list is just to remember what we saw and when we saw it. My only criterion for this year is recent movies that keep coming to mind. These are the ones that I’m still thinking about

STARS AT NOON (Claire Denis): Margaret Qualley’s Trish is bad decisions personified; a woman in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong dreams. The creeping dread Denis imbues every scene with is not unlike the stifling humidity of her present-day-but-out-of-time Nicaraguan setting. In this environment everyone is a liar and no good outcome is possible and yet, as hopeless as it all is, I couldn’t look away. I will always remember this star-crossed movie because I had to bike 22 miles from home to see it in a movie theater. It’s as if the studio that released it wanted to replicate the fate of the characters for the movie itself. Seeing it also prompted me to reread a bunch of Denis Johnson, for which I’ll always be grateful.

PLAYGROUND (Laura Wandel): The camera never strays far from Nora as she goes through her first days of school. No film in recent memory has brought me back to the horror and helplessness of childhood like this one did. The schoolyard is a battleground as the other kids are enemies and allies who switch sides day to day. Navigating this minefield we watch Nora grow before our eyes, changing from guileless to cunning and cynical. It’s heartbreaking and 100% true to life.

PETITE MAMAN (Céline Sciamma): I’m not usually one for magic realism but the simple fairytale premise of a little girl making friends with her mother in the woods as a girl her own age has stayed with me ever since I saw it early in the year. What could have been a maudlin exploration of intergenerational family trauma remains buoyant by sticking to a child’s perceptions. The enchanted tone makes the real-life revelations land that much harder.

VORTEX (Gaspar Noé): Known for pushing boundaries with extreme violence and sensory overload in his previous films, Noé has finally landed on a subject that can be neither cheated nor outraged and the result is perhaps his most restrained but deepest effort to date. I’m not generally a fan of split-screen but Noé makes it a vital part of showing the diverging perceptions of two minds that once functioned in synchrony. Dario Argento and Francoise LeBrun seemto bring all their decades of lived experience to bear as a couple forced to part before they’re ready to.

IRMA VEP (Olivier Assayas): Is it a movie? Who knows or cares. It’s certainly not a TV show in any traditional sense and it addresses the past, present, and future of filmed media with more humor and intelligence than anything else I’ve seen or read on the subject recently. With clips of Feuillade’s Les Vampires and his own 1996 film functioning like flashbacks, Assayas is thinking out loud about where the art he’s dedicated his life to might go next. It’s somehow nostalgic, worried, and hopeful in equal proportion.

📽️ Michael Glover Smith

My 20 Favorite Films of 2022
1. IRMA VEP (Assayas)
2. EO (Skolimowski)
3. A COUPLE (Wiseman)
4. DECISION TO LEAVE (Park)
5. (tie) BOTH SIDES OF THE BLADE / STARS AT NOON
6. CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (Cronenberg)
7. SAINT OMER (Diop)
8. THE GIRL AND THE SPIDER (Zürcher/Zürcher)
9. APOLLO 10 1/2: A SPACE AGE CHILDHOOD (Linklater)
10. BENEDICTION (Davies)
11. RELATIVE (Smith)
12. (tie) THE NOVELIST'S FILM / INTRODUCTION (Hong)
13. THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER (Hogg)
14. PEARL (West)
15. THE CATHEDRAL (D’Ambrose)
16. RRR (Rajamouli)
17. KIMI (Soderbergh)
18. ARMAGEDDON TIME (Gray)
19. HOLD ME TIGHT (Amalric)
20. NEPTUNE FROST (Williams/Uzeyman)

📽️ Drew Van Weelden

AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER (James Cameron)
THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN (Martin McDonagh)
THE BATMAN (Matt Reeves)
CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (David Cronenberg)
EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (Daniel Scheinert, Daniel Kwan)
THE FABELMANS (Steven Spielberg)
GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY (Rian Johnson)
GODLAND (Hlynur Pálmason)
HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE (Daniel Goldhaber)
INU-OH (Masaaki Yuasa)
POMPO THE CINEPHILE (Takayuki Hirao)

Other Notable New Watches: 
A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (Steven Spielberg, 2001)
DAY FOR NIGHT (François Truffaut, 1973)
DICK JOHNSON IS DEAD (Kirsten Johnson, 2020)
EVIL DEAD II (Sam Raimi, 1987)
MARIGHELLA (Wagner Moura, 2019)
MATEWAN (John Sayles, 1987)
PIERROT LE FOU (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965)
THE FORBIDDEN ROOM (Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, 2015)
THE PIANO TEACHER (Michael Haneke, 2001)
THE TASK (Leigh Ledare, 2017)

Other mentions: Opening montage in BANDE À PART, IMAX Dolby 3D, midnight movies, and film festivals

Cine-File Contributors' 2021 Year-End Lists

Per tradition, we at Cine-File conclude each year by sharing lists of our favorite movies we’ve seen in the past year. Like most film writers, we tend to focus on new releases, but we also discuss favorite older films we’ve either discovered or rediscovered. When you expand your search to encompass past and present (in addition to narrative, documentary, and experimental) cinema, you find there’s really no such thing as a bad year for movies. Our contributors’ lists can be found below.

📽 Rob Christopher

11 FAVORITES FROM 2021

More than most years, in 2021 I found myself quoting Laurie Anderson an awful lot. Probably that was because of the six lectures she presented virtually over the course of the year, courtesy Harvard's Mahindra Humanities Center; they're all available via YouTube now, and I can't recommend them highly enough. If I never needed them before, her words of insight and Zen wisdom were sorely needed this year. For example, paraphrasing Sol LeWitt: "If you're feeling stuck, do your worst work." I'm afraid this little note must fall into that classification. I think I wrote a total of one entry for Cine-File this year. Beyond that I was content to let films just wash over me, saving up any kind of focused analysis for ... what or when, I don't know. Maybe I'm waiting till it feels easier to have conversations about film again; maybe I'm weary, for the moment, of trading monologues via social media. Though I watched some truly wonderful films this year, both "brand new" and "old," I really miss going to movies with people and talking about them afterwards. I'm certainly at peace with solo movie-viewing—I just haven't felt the need as much to set down my thoughts when the movie's over. I'm counting on 2022 to be different. Until then, as Laurie might say, this is the Time and this is the Record of the Time:

ABOUT ENDLESSNESS (2019, Roy Andersson)
C'MON C'MON (2021, Mike Mills)
MINARI (2020, Lee Isaac Chung)
THE PINE BARRENS (2018, David Scott Kessler)
THE POWER OF THE DOG (2021, Jane Campion)
PREPARATIONS TO BE TOGETHER FOR AN UNKNOWN PERIOD OF TIME (2020, Lili Horvát)
QUO VADIS, AIDA? (2020, Jasmila Žbanić)
SHAME (1968, Ingmar Bergman)
SON OF THE WHITE MARE (1981, Marcell Jankovics)
TIME (2020, Garrett Bradley)
WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY (2021, Ryusuke Hamaguchi)

Honorable mentions:

COLLECTIVE (2019, Alexander Nanau)
GRASSHOPPERS (2021, Brad Bischoff)
SYMBIOPSYCHOTAXIPLASM: TAKE ONE (1968, William Greaves)
THE WHELMING SEA (2020, Sean Hanley)

📽 Cody Corrall
Top of 2021 … no rankings, just vibes 😎

ANNETTE (Leos Carax)
BENEDETTA (Paul Verhoeven)
BILLIE EILISH: THE WORLD’S A LITTLE BLURRY (R.J. Cutler)
THE CARD COUNTER (Paul Schrader)
DRIVE MY CAR (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)
DUNE (Denis Villeneuve)
THE FRENCH DISPATCH (Wes Anderson)
THE GREEN KNIGHT (David Lowery)
I’M YOUR MAN (Maria Schrader)
THE MATRIX: RESURRECTIONS (Lana Wachowski)
MY DARLING SUPERMARKET (Tali Yankelevich) 
NORTH BY CURRENT (Angelo Madsen Minax)
OLD (M. Night Shyamalan)
PIG (Michael Sarnoski)
TEST PATTERN (Shatara Michelle Ford)
TITANE (Julia Ducournau)
TOGETHER TOGETHER (Nikole Beckwith)
SPENCER and EMA (Pablo Larraín)
VIOLATION (Dusty Mancinelli, Madeline Sims-Fewer)
ZOLA (Janicza Bravo)

📽 John Dickson
2021
MEMORIA
WIFE OF A SPY
BENEDETTA
ZEROES AND ONES
ANNETTE
WEST SIDE STORY
IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE
LICORICE PIZZA
CRY MACHO
NAOMI OSAKA

📽 Steve Erickson
My favorite dozen new releases in the U.S. during 2021 (as time and "release qualification" continue to mutate):

THE DISCIPLE (Chaitayna Tamhane)
DRIVE MY CAR & WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)
THE EMPTY MAN (David Prior)
FRANCE (Bruno Dumont)
HER SOCIALIST SMILE (John Gianvito)
LABYRINTH OF CINEMA (Nobuhiko Obayashi)
THE POWER OF THE DOG (Jane Campion)
SIBERIA and ZEROS AND ONES (Abel Ferrara)
THIS IS NOT A BURIAL, IT'S A RESURRECTION (Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese)
WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED: A HISTORY OF FOLK-HORROR (Kier-la Janisse)

📽  Megan Fariello
Top Ten Favorite New Films

1)    ZOLA (Janicza Bravo, 2020)
2)    THE POWER OF THE DOG (Jane Campion, 2021)
3)    TEST PATTERN (Shatara Michelle Ford, 2019)
4)    DUNE (Denis Villeneuve, 2021)
5)    PIG (Michael Sarnoski, 2021)
6)    TITANE (Julia Ducournau, 2021)
7)    THE INHERITANCE (Ephraim Asili, 2020)
8)    SPENCER (Pablo Larraín, 2021)
9)    ANNETTE (Leos Carax, 2021)
10)  FEAR STREET PART ONE 1994 (Leigh Janiak, 2021)

📽  Marilyn Ferdinand
Favorite New Features

1.     IT MUST BE HEAVEN (Elia Suleiman)
2.     HOPE (Maria Sødahl)
3.     WEST SIDE STORY (Steven Spielberg)
4.     BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN (Radu Jude)
5.     THE BETA TEST (Jim Cummings and PJ McCabe)
6.     PASSING (Rebecca Hall)
7.     DRIVE MY CAR (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi)
8.     FABIAN: GOING TO THE DOGS (Dominik Graf)
9.     THE POWER OF THE DOG (Jane Campion)
10.  SLALOM (Charlène Favier)
11.  LANGUAGE LESSONS (Natalie Morales)
12.  THE SOUVENIR: PART II (Joanna Hogg)
13.  THE RED POST BOX ON ESCHER STREET (Sion Sono)
14.  THE PERFECT CANDIDATE (Haifaa Al-Mansour)
15.  THE SUMMIT OF THE GODS (Patrick Imbert)

Favorite New Documentaries

1. WRITING WITH FIRE (Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh)
2. AILEY (Jamila Wignot)
3. SUMMER OF SOUL (Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson)
4. THE VELVET QUEEN (Marie Amiguet and Vincent Munier)
5. KNOTS: A FORCED MARRIAGE STORY (Kate Ryan Brewer)
6. THE NEUTRAL GROUND (CJ Hunt)
7. CAN YOU BRING IT: BILL T. JONES AND D-MAN IN THE WATERS (Tom Hurwitz, Rosalynde LeBlanc)
8. VAL (Ting Poo & Leo Scott)
9. ROY’S WORLD: BARRY GIFFORDS’ CHICAGO (Rob Christopher)
10. PARIS CALLIGRAMMES (Ulrike Ottinger)

Favorite Older Films First Seen in 2021 (chronological)

THE FIRST DEGREE (Edward Sedgwick, 1923)
CHESS FEVER (Vsevolod Pudovkin and Nikolai Shpikovsky, 1925)
PAVEMENT BUTTERFLY (Richard Eichberg, 1929)
SHE HAD TO SAY YES (George Amy and Busby Berkeley, 1933)
TO NEW SHORES (Douglas Sirk, 1937)
GUILTY BYSTANDER (Joseph Lerner, 1950)
EARLY SUMMER (Yasujirô Ozu, 1951)
THE BEAST MUST DIE (Román Viñoly Barreto, 1952)
THE WHITE SHEIK (Federico Fellini, 1952)
THE PASSIONATE THIEF (Mario Monicelli, 1960)
I KNEW HER WELL (Antonio Pietrangeli, 1965)
THE CONFESSION (Costa-Gavras, 1970)
FAT CITY (John Huston, 1972)
THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE (Victor Erice, 1973)
A SPECIAL DAY (Ettore Scola, 1977)
UNRELATED (Joanna Hogg, 2008)
THE SAPPHIRES (Wayne Blair, 2012)
MUSEUM HOURS (Jem Cohen, 2012)
THE ASSISTANT (Kitty Green, 2019)

Hall of Fame

Patrick Friel, for his many years of service to the film community and especially as managing editor of Cine-File.

Dr. Allison Arwady, for appearing at the Gene Siskel Film Center for her screening choice, CONTAGION, and for autographing my mask.

📽  Jonathan Leithold-Patt
My Top 10 of 2021:

1. MEMORIA (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
2. BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN (Radu Jude)
3. TICK, TICK... BOOM! (Lin-Manuel Miranda)
4. LICORICE PIZZA (Paul Thomas Anderson)
5. C'MON C'MON (Mike Mills)
6. A HERO (Asghar Farhadi)
7. DUNE: PART ONE (Denis Villeneuve)
8. RED ROCKET (Sean Baker)
9. LUCA (Enrico Casarosa)
10. THE LOST DAUGHTER (Maggie Gyllenhaal)

📽 Ben Sachs
Favorite new releases of 2021:

1. MEMORIA (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
2. BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN (Radu Jude)
3. ANNETTE (Leos Carax)
4. THE SOUVENIR: PART II (Joanna Hogg)
5. A COP MOVIE (Alonso Ruizpalacios)
6. BABI YAR. CONTEXT (Sergei Loznitsa)
7. FAYA DAYI (Jessica Beshir)
8. NO SUDDEN MOVE (Steven Soderbergh)
9. LICORICE PIZZA (Paul Thomas Anderson)
10. THE POWER OF THE DOG (Jane Campion)

Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order):
AZOR (Andreas Fontana), BENEDETTA (Paul Verhoeven), CRY MACHO (Eastwood), THE DISCIPLE (Chaitanya Tamhane), DRIVE MY CAR (Ryusuke Hamaguchi), FABIAN: GOING TO THE DOGS (Dominik Graf), LINGUI: THE SACRED BONDS (Mahamat-Saleh Haroun), OLD (M. Night Shyamalan), RED POST ON ESCHER STREET (Sion Sono), THE UNITED STATES VS BILLIE HOLIDAY (Lee Daniels)

I also want to give special mention to Adam Curtis’ six-part, eight-hour essay series CAN’T GET YOU OUT OF MY HEAD, which premiered on the BBC in February and quickly got disseminated online. Intellectually provocative, exhaustive, and (deliberately) exhausting, this “emotional history of the modern world” spurred some of the most stimulating conversations I had all year.

📽 Kat Sachs
Here’s a list of my favorite films released in 2021:

1. THE POWER OF THE DOG (Jane Campion)
2. THE SOUVENIR: PART II (Joanna Hogg)
3. ANNETTE (Leos Carax and Sparks)
4. WEST SIDE STORY (Steven Spielberg)
5. THE LOST DAUGHTER (Maggie Gyllenhaal)
6. GREAT FREEDOM (Sebastian Meise)
7. NORTH BY CURRENT (Angelo Madsen Minax)
8. ZOLA (Janicza Bravo)
9. SPENCER (Pablo Larraín)
10. MEMORIA (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)

📽Michael Smith
My 10 Favorite Films of 2021:

10. FAYA DAYI (Jessica Beshir)
9. IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE (Hong Sang-soo)
8. THE SOUVENIR PART II (Joanna Hogg)
7. BENEDETTA (Paul Verhoeven)
6. CRY MACHO (Clint Eastwood)
5. ANNETTE (Leos Carax)
4. THE POWER OF THE DOG (Jane Campion)
3. SHADOW KINGDOM (Alma Har'el)
2. DRIVE MY CAR (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)
1. WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)

For a list of Smith’s ten runners-up and commentary and links to capsule reviews, visit his blog.

📽 Drew Van Weelden
Here are my favorite new releases:

THE CARD COUNTER (Paul Schrader)
C'MON C'MON (Mike Mills)
DRIVE MY CAR (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)
DUNE (Denis Villeneuve)
FABIAN: GOING TO THE DOGS (Dominik Graf)
FAYA DAYI (Jessica Beshir)
THE FRENCH DISPATCH (Wes Anderson)
THE HUMANS (Stephen Karam)
MAD GOD (Phil Tippett)
PIG (Michael Sarnoski)
SPENCER (Pablo Larraín)
SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME (Jon Watts)
TITANE (Julia Docournau)
WEST SIDE STORY (Steven Spielberg)
WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)

Also, if I can shout out some shows I am gonna list a few noteworthy things from this year!

Arcane (Christian Linke and Alex Yee)
The Beatles: Get Back (Peter Jackson)
Midnight Mass (Mike Flanagan)
Succession - Season 3 (Jesse Armstrong)

Interview with Beth B. and Lydia Lunch

By Raphael Jose Martinez

It’s impossible to describe Lydia Lunch. Calling her a musician, or an artist, or a writer, is like calling the January 6th storming of the U.S. Capitol an airing of social grievances. You wouldn’t be wrong, but you also wouldn’t be painting the whole picture.

A gadfly of virulent proportions, Lunch has been a creative force since the 1970s when she moved to New York City and became a fixture of what eventually became known as the No Wave and Cinema of Transgression movements.

Alongside her in those times was Beth B., a filmmaker just as intertwined with those movements as Lunch. Together they made such underground classic films as BLACK BOX and VORTEX.

Now, some 40 years on, they’ve collaborated again with the documentary LYDIA LUNCH: THE WAR IS NEVER OVER, which was completed in 2019 and is finally being released post-pandemic via Kino Lorber. Less a biography and more an exploration of the motivations and politics of Lunch’s art, THE WAR IS NEVER OVER doesn’t just give a retrospective-style look-back, it provides a modern contextualization. It’s not just about what Lunch did—it’s about why she did it. And more importantly, why she’s still doing it; why her words and art are just as relevant now than ever.

If not more so.

Never answering to anyone but herself, you might not agree with everything Lydia Lunch has to say—and there’s never a doubt that she’ll say something you won’t. But at the same time there’s no denying that she’s got a razor sharp mind behind it and even sharper tongue saying it.

I had the opportunity to speak with both Lydia Lunch and Beth B., not only about the new documentary, but about their decades of collaboration, the fluidity of art, the strange and often ugly economics of independent cinema, and why Barack Obama was a cocksucker.

To say I was a bit intimidated would be an understatement. 

Raphael Jose Martinez (RJM): So I watched the film, and I really, really loved it. As I was saying to you, Beth, before Lydia joined us, I’ve been a fan of both of you and your work since I was teenager getting into more, for lack of better terms, alternative or non-mainstream art. You two have known each other quite awhile at this point and have been collaborating…

Lydia Lunch (LL): Longer than you’ve been alive, my friend.

RJM: [Laughs] Yes. That is actually true.

Beth B. (BB): Frightening facts, that’s right.

RJM: So what drew you together to do this project now?

BB: For me it had to with a full circle. When I first came to New York, Lydia was one of the people who inspired me greatly and in some ways I felt like it was important for younger people to understand the history of what Lydia was about, what that scene—the No Wave scene—was about. And to really use that as a pivotal point to explore a lot of the themes that Lydia has worked on and the themes that I have been involved with [through] my films as well, and the way that they have kind of coincided with each other.

LL: I think it’s interesting to do it recently, when we did it and it’s released now, considering what we just came out from under in the last five years of bullshit—with both the idiocy of Diaper Donnie Trump, his malignant sexism, anti-everything except for rich, dumb cunts, and also between the snowflaking of the new puritanical-ism, and the Cardi Bs, something has got to be making sense. I wouldn’t say in the middle of this, but outside those both extremes.

BB: I think it’s also that so many of the issues that were brought up in the late 70s, especially the ones that Lydia has talked about on and on—patriarchy, power, control, abuse of power—those things are 100% relevant today. It’s not like those things have gone away. And some people just don’t really know the history. So they think these are things that have manifested just recently, but in fact it is the history of centuries…

LL: The world.

BB: The world. Absolutely. Internationally. Not just this country.

LL: Forever. And this is one of the issues that really perturbs me greatly—and which is why I will still continue to be the woman on a hill with a bullhorn—is the political nonsense. Not just in America but in so many other countries. ‘Cause I think these are, and they always were, feudal times. There are always people who think they're kings, more so even now—fewer, with more money—having so much money that ten men have more money than most countries. The non-abolition of slavery, having left the plantation and now turning most people into slave-wage laborers—fuck you Jeff Bezos. There are just so many issues to me—which is why I could open my mouth to talk about my own issues—that these are historical, and hysterical, and ever non-ending problems.

RJM: That makes sense to me because I grew up… well, I didn't grow up…

LL: Neither did I!

CF: My twenties were the Obama era, and I had so many friends and so many people who were older than me being like, “Everything’s changed! It’s so much better than it was!” And at the time I was living in a small, rural town in southern Illinois with the last name Martinez—and I knew that it wasn’t different for me. That if cops pulled me over I’m fucked.

LL: Not even how you look, but your last name. Not even if you did look more like a Martinez.

RJM: I had circumstances where they felt tricked; “How do you look like this and have that name?!” The politics actually haven't changed.

LL: Well, I call Barack Obama “The Beige Puppet.” Because we had hope, but it was false hope. Or as Kafka said, “There is hope, but not for us.” First of all, I think he was kind of almost a plant in the sense that, well, he was discovered out of Harvard like so many of these other people that go on to exploit other countries. And he might have been used as a kind of place holder while America was actually becoming more fascist and authoritarian. But here we had a little, as we often do, ebb and flow. We thought Bill Clinton was good at first. Then we realized his “three strikes, you're out.” Barack Obama, I don't think he’s evil—I think his wife is much better—but I think it was allowing us a little false hope while they were doubling down on the dirty deeds done behind our backs.

RJM: Yeah. He’s to the right of Nixon, policy wise. And I was trying to explain this to my immigrant parents who are saying, “Finally, there's not a white person in the office!”

LL: It’d be great if there was actually a black man, not a beige puppet, in the White House.

BB: Part of the problem is that it’s all corporatized. Everything is corporatized. So you can’t even see beyond the politics of the corporations that control everything.

LL: Look, he was another cocksucker of the bankers.

BB: Yeah, all of them.

LL: And we knew that right away. He proved that right away. I think we need to abolish anyone who makes over $150,000—they should not be in fucking office. Because they don't know how the rest of us live. They're still complaining about $15 an hour wages?! How fucking dare you. How dare you.

RJM: That just happened last week here in Chicago, where the city raised it to $15 an hour…

LL: Oh! How generous! How about firefighters on the west coast? They only make $15. Firefighters?!

RJM: Or when they don’t want to pay them they just get prisoners to do it. That is literal slave labor.

BB: There you go. Slave labor.

LL: Our gulags. Anyway… back to the doc.

RJM: [Laughs] Well I wanted to speak on, not necessarily the doc itself, but the corporatization of film and music. Because in the doc, Lydia, you talk about the idea of taking the reigns of producing everything yourself, how that was the ethos you lived by. I know you, Beth, have done the same thing…

LL: Well, we also didn't have much of a choice. And we continue to do it. But carry on with the question…

RJM: Is it even possible to do that in the same manner anymore? Because nowadays I think the internet has democratized the availability of art, and the access to art, but at the same time you’ve got to upload your movie to Google’s YouTube. Or you’re using Facebook, or Facebook’s Instagram. So you have more independent control, but it’s still on somebody else’s leash.

LL: Well, I’m glad whoever owns or runs YouTube exists because I’m happy that people in Taiwan, or Romania, can see some of what I’ve done. I never got into doing what I do thinking that there was going to be a big fucking paycheck. And the people that complain about that are always the richest motherfuckers. Now, I don’t like Spotify because I think they’re a total ripoff—and I don’t know what of my material is on there, but it’s gotta come off. But I think with YouTube, it just seems more like a weekend teenage party to go look at some stuff. But neither of us have had much help. Beth may have gotten more grants because she’s applied for them. I’ve never applied for a grant, and it’s maybe to my detriment, but look, I’m trying to sell my intellectual property rights out of a cultural guilt trip to the people who are paying $150 million for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Hi. Really?!

BB: I mean, it’s interesting for me in terms of cinema. It’s really been kind of a roller coaster ride in terms of cinema. Because we know that in the 80s [and] 90s there was some support for independent filmmaking. But a lot of it was coming from Europe. That was where the support was because they were much more open minded, and they see cinema as being an art form. They do not see that here in the United States. There has always been that battle, and I finally got fed up with that fucking battle in the 90s when I finally finished a feature film, TWO SMALL BODIES, and there really was nothing. All the funding in Europe had dried up for American filmmakers, and there was nothing here, and the studios started saying, “Oh! We have an ‘indie’ studio now.” So they, in a sense, usurped the arena that the indie filmmakers had occupied. At that point I was like, “Ok, how do I survive?” I ended up going into television. I produced and directed documentaries in television.

LL: Crime TV!

BB: [Laughs] Yes! Crime TV! It was great!

LL: I live and sleep by crime TV!

BB: It was amazing. Court TV. So I ended up working for about eight years in network television, and I was choosing my own subjects, etc. And in the beginning, which was around the year 2000. But over the course of that, then what happened? The corporatization of everything. And suddenly I had these committees that I had to appeal to started censoring… “Cut this. Cut that.” So I was back in that loop, and I had to get out of there. So I got back into the underground. I said, “Ok. I’m doing it again. My way. That is it.” So in a way I stopped battling. It’s not like I’m making any money, but at least I have the satisfaction of making the films the way I want them, choosing my subjects. I mean, I still choose subjects that are still very underground, edgy—I mean you can’t get edgier than Lydia…

LL: I’m soft around the edges!

BB: [Laughs] You are! And that’s what I wanted to show in the film, a much more comprehensive and complex [laughs] portrait of Lydia. It wasn’t about making a “biography” of her..

LL: A biopsy.

BB: They can go on the internet and see it all. But it was a forensic biopsy, yes. [Laughs]

LL: But as Beth was saying earlier, if it wasn't for Europe I don't know what I would have done for the past 35 years of my career. Because I can bring anything that I do there, and most of it can’t do here. Hence in the documentary quite a few things are from European performances. And also going back to the corporate nonsense… that’s why Beth—I don't know how she managed to do it, but did—managed to raise a lot of the money for this movie on Kickstarter. Which is a democratic format. I’ve never gone and done that. I’m not against doing that. I just think that whoever has the money should give the money. But that's just because I’m what? A communist?

RJM: It’s just so strange that we’ve literally gone back to patronage.

LL: I’m not against it.

CF: Neither am I.

BB: It also reminds me of the reason why I got into making film instead of art. I was like, “Ok. This incorporates all the arts within it.” And I was so sick of specialization. It made me want to vomit. And the preciousness of art. And I thought, “You can get someone on the street to pay $3 to see a movie.” That was in the 70s, 80s. In a way Kickstarter is very similar. People are putting in small amounts of money to be able to have something that is not readily available to them. And in some ways I hate doing the Kickstarters, cause they knock the shit out of you. You have to be doing it 24 hours a day for 30 days, and be completely dedicated to raising that money. But it’s satisfying in that you then have these odd kinds of partnerships with people you do not know, yet they become part of your network.

LL: And they're the ones who really want it. Whether it’s $5, or $50, or $500, it’s amazing. They give to what they feel is a worthy cause.

RJM: I agree. I’ve had some long conversations with people about that when Kickstarter and Indie-A-Go-Go kind of first started appearing on the scene. I used to be the editor for the magazine Maximum Rocknroll years and years ago.

LL: Oh yeah. [Laughs]

RJM: And that magazine was a very puritanical punk rock thing of, “This is. This is not.” Drawing lines. And there were genuine questions as to whether or not it was appropriate to do that. And I was like, “What’s the difference between getting the money from the people that are going to be buying the album directly, or the movie directly, or getting it from a record label?”

LL: I’ll tell you what the difference is. The difference is that you’re not going to owe those people anything more than the products are already going to make anyway.

RJM: That’s a very good point.

LL: With a record company you might owe them five more years of your life, after they rip you off with ridiculous amounts of expenses. I wouldn’t know, I’ve never had a record deal like that. I don’t deal with those kind of criminals.

RJM: Tying this with the kind of corporate stuff as well… you two are very associated with the Cinema of Transgression and No Wave, obviously, and it’s one of those movements where you get the statement, “It could never happen again.” And that happens with every art movement, where afterwards everyone says, “You couldn’t do that again.”

LL: Ok. Ok. Look. It’s only a movement in retrospect.

BB: Exactly.

LL: And also, there have been movements. The Viennese Actionists, the Surrealists, the Dadaists. That’s what I most closely related to. So to think that it can’t come again? I don’t know. I mean, what exactly is it that can’t come again? Extremity? Weirdness? D.I.M.—do it myself, or D.I.Y.—do it yourself? What is it that can’t come again? I don’t believe that. I believe everything is cyclical. We’ve just been in a really bad phase of music for a while but we’ve been in a great phase for television, because that’s where it seems so much art with music, with lighting, with directing, with dialogue, is right now—as opposed to major motion pictures. When I speak to people in their 20s sometimes they’re like, “Ughh, there’re no visionaries of my generation.” Well, look behind you, kid! And also look to architecture, look to science, look to other things. It’s not always going to be music. It’s not always going to be movies. It’s not always going to be books. Sometimes it’s going to be something else, and you’ve got to expand what might be intriguing and educational to you and what might speak to you.

RJM: How strange is it to you—because I’m sure the questions of No Wave and Cinema of Transgression come to the two of you all the time during interviews—how strange is it to have to constantly reflect on art that you made when you were in your teens or early 20s?

BB: We’re still making it.

LL: Listen, darling, what I made was more than 30 years ahead then. Now they’re catching up. It’s very, very normal to me.

BB: It’s also that, in my mind, It’s still going on. It’s not like I’ve stopped. The forms sometimes change. I work with film, I work with video installations, sculpture installations, all different forms—just as Lydia does. When I talk about my work, even of the 70s or the 80s, it’s not like I’m going back. It’s an ongoing dialogue. And what I find fascinating is looking back at some of the other films and understanding in a way how sometimes they’re very autobiographical, they’re very much of that time. But like we were talking about earlier, they’re not just of that time because these issues do not go away. We have to keep looking at them from different perspectives, put a different lens on—of 2021—in terms of where we are heading, but also being able to reflect back on the history to understand where we have come from.

LL: I also think that when you mention both No Wave and Cinema of Transgression, both of them relating very heavily to New York at a certain period, now I feel that there are people that are scattered around that are still quite No Wave, or are still quite extreme artists, [such as] Slava Mogutin, Weasel Walter, Tim Dahl… there's a variety of people both in music and in literature that are still extreme. It’s just that they're not all gathered in one place. And because even the nature of journalism is very different, it seems like there are a lot more online magazines. But if we even go back to Maximum Rocknroll time, or my teenagehood when there was Creem magazine, Rock Scene, Circus, Rolling Stone—occasionally—Playboy magazine for great interviews even, or Spin—originally—there were at least these kind of publications that we could kind of trust to focus and tell us a few things. Now there are so many culture, fashion, art, music, film, diversified multi-art medium magazines online, but it’s not like when we would actually go out and buy a magazine, hoping to find that one nugget that really spoke to us. I think there are people out there—and this is why I do my own podcast, The Lydian Spin. This week is the two year anniversary, 104 episodes. It’s bringing in people that are doing stuff now, filmmakers, writers, musicians—and who have been doing things—and just trying to continue what I have always done, which is trying to collaborate with people, expose people to other people, and just carrying on with that. So to me it just makes a lot of sense. And Beth was saying originally that this was feeling like it’s full circle? Well, it’s full circle to me, ‘cause this feels like a continuation of this, our documentary, is like the podcast and the documentary I’m working on now which is ARTISTS — DEPRESSION, ANXIETY & RAGE. Which I’m only doing the interviews. And it’s kind of why I started doing and saying what I said in the beginning. It’s ‘cause it isn’t only about me. I was dealing with bigger, universal issues and now I’m turning the microphone on, so far, 35 other musicians and artists so suffer from… fortunately things I do not suffer from, I don’t have depression or anxiety, but most musicians and creatives do for numerous reasons. So again, this all makes sense to me of where Beth and I are right now—and Beth has been on my podcast as well—it just makes sense that this is what’s happening right now in our sphere. It’s important to our times, but then again I’ve always felt important at any time – especially in my own time and my own mind.

RJM: How has the pause in the past year that COVID created affected all the stuff that both of you have been doing?

LL: To me? Nothing. ‘Cause I wasn’t planning on touring. I was planning on going out with this film. So I had one show that was canceled because I had just toured with Retrovirus to the west coast, Australia, and did the last show in New York. And now I just did one of the first shows in New York last Friday. I was working on promoting THE WAR IS NEVER OVER, working on my podcast, working on my documentary, and teaching workshops. So it was very psychically creative. I still did two albums in the meantime—no reason to release them yet. So it was fine timing for me. Beth was a bit disappointed, but now whatever slack we faced, it’s racing forward.

BB: What I find fascinating is that I felt that year was an extraordinary time for me to be able to reflect on what I have been doing, what I want to be doing. So I think that things like that, at least for me, I could take it and actually use that time to be productive in other ways. So in some ways it relieved that pressure of, “We’ve got to get the film out now!” So I actually was able to mentor my daughter, who at that time was 17 [and] was writing a feature length script. I think that in the same way that Lydia was looking outside of herself at other people, and what they were experiencing, I felt that I was, in a way, doing the same thing with my daughter. What her story is is very different than my story. Where she’s coming from, very different. And it’s a story that really needed to be told, and she felt like she wanted to do that. So the idea of being able to mentor somebody who was very young, to be able to bring out… again, it’s what’s not seen and not heard. And that’s always been what my work has been about, bringing voice that are on the outside into a form that can be communicated to others. So it was extremely gratifying to be able to do that, and also prepare everything for the movie. In some ways we were so prepared for this moment, I mean, I was getting really impatient, but again, the situation ended up coming full circle because Kino Lorber, during this time, actually asked me if they could start to restore and distribute my catalog of films. And as they started to do that they said, “Oh! And of course we want to distribute your new film.” So they took it upon themselves to restore everything that I’ve done and using Lydia’s movie as the catapult to start a movement towards re-examining the early films and my entire oeuvre. So that opportunity would not have been here without the pandemic. How odd.

LL: I’m never impatient by the way. Like one of my philosophical heroes, the Marquis de Sade. 300 years later people still don’t get what the fuck he was talking about. And it wasn’t only the sex, let me tell ya. So I’m not impatient at all.

BB: I’m glad you weren’t, Lydia. [Laughs]

LL: “Calm down.” The thing I don’t want anybody to tell me. “Calm down.”

RJM: I had one last question. In THE WAR IS NEVER OVER you had a quote that stuck out to me where you said, “Trauma is greedy.” And I remember reading in an interview years ago a similar quote that said “pain attracts pain.” Talking about this year where basically the world paused because of mass trauma and mass death, what do you think is going to be the response to that if trauma attracts trauma, pain attracts pain? Collectively as a world there’s no denying that we’ve been watching people drop dead in numbers we can’t even imagine.

LL: Well, I mean, in a horrible way I have to say…. not that I wanted 600,000 people to die ‘cause Trump’s a fucking idiot, not that I don’t think the whole world should have shut down for a month instead of a year and a half because he couldn’t get it together. I think that when people are finally coming of the horror—’cause a lot of people were suffering, obviously, either with COVID, the fear of COVID, people dying, being locked down— and I hope that as they start coming out, and things start opening up, that we’re still extremely fucking careful, that they’re going to have a better appreciation of what really matters. And how important it is to have joy, beauty, humor, fun, laughter, friends, community, art—sex. I hope it just makes people appreciate more, because I feel that not only is trauma and pain greedy, but this fucking country is greedy. And we need to roll back some of what we expect to just land on our doorstep. And that’s really important—it’s a lesson that I had to teach myself. When you are such a glutton for whatever it is, food, sex, drugs, all the above, alcohol, or in my case adrenaline, you have to reel it back at one point and go, “To fill the void within only the self will suffice.” So learn to love yourself peeps, like I love myself, and then you’ll all be a little more like me, Lydia Lunch. And the war, it never fucking ends.

Cine-File Contributors' Best of 2020 Lists

Rob Christopher
Years aren't relevant any more, if they ever were. Truth is truth. My top ten first views of 2020:

CAMERAPERSON (2016, Kirsten Johnson)
DON'T THINK I'VE FORGOTTEN: CAMBODIA'S LOST ROCK'N'ROLL (2014, John Pirozzi)
FIRST COW (2019, Kelly Reichardt)
I'M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS (2020, Charlie Kaufman)
JASPER MALL (2020, Brett Whitcomb & Bradford Thomason)
THE LONG WALK (2019, Mattie Do)
PARASITE (2019, Bong Joon-ho)
QUEEN & SLIM (2019, Melina Matsoukas)
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (2019, Matthew Rankin)
THE WIND: A DOCUMENTARY THRILLER (2019, Michał Bielawski)

Cody Corrall
Features
1. EMA* (Pablo Larraín)
2. BEANPOLE (Kantemir Balagov)
3. DOGS DON'T WEAR PANTS (Jukka-Pekka Valkeapää)
4. FIRST COW (Kelly Reichardt)
5. SHIRLEY (Josephine Decker)
6. WE ARE LITTLE ZOMBIES (Makoto Nagahisa)
7. SOUND OF METAL (Darius Marder)
8. NOMADLAND (Chloe Zhao)
9. NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS (Eliza Hittman)
10. THE ASSISTANT (Kitty Green)

Docs
1. DICK JOHNSON IS DEAD (Kirsten Johnson)
2. BORN TO BE (Tania Cypriano)
3. TIME (Garrett Bradley)
4. CIRCUS OF BOOKS (Rachel Mason)
5. QUEER JAPAN (Graham Kolbeins)
6. FEELS GOOD MAN (Arthur Jones)
7. BOYS STATE (Jesse Moss, Amanda McBaine)
8. BLOODY NOSE, EMPTY POCKETS (Turner Ross, Bill Ross IV)
9. THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE WATER (Elliot Page, Ian Daniel)
10. CRIP CAMP: A DISABILITY REVOLUTION (Nicole Newnham, James Lebrecht)

*While EMA had festival and digital circulation this year, Music Box Films is planning on a wide theatrical release for 2021

John Dickson
2020 MOVIES
DAU (Ilya Khrzhanovsky)
ZOMBI CHILD (Bertrand Bonnello)
TOMMASSO (Abel Ferrara)
THE WOMAN WHO RAN (Hong Sang-soo)
MALMKROG (Cristi Puiu)
TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
SIBERIA (Abel Ferrara)
BACURAU (Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles)
LIBERTE (Albert Serra)
DAYS (Tsai Ming-liang)

Dark Horse
WASP NETWORK (Olivier Assayas)

Megan Fariello
Top Ten Favorite New Films:

1)    BLOW THE MAN DOWN (Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy, 2019)
2)    VAST OF NIGHT (Andrew Patterson, 2019)
3)    FIRST COW (Kelly Reichardt, 2019)
4)    AMERICAN UTOPIA (Spike Lee, 2020)
5)    PARASITE (Bong Joon-ho, 2019)
6)    PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE (Céline Sciamma, 2019)
7)    THROUGH THE NIGHT (Loira Limbal, 2020)
8)    HIS HOUSE (Remi Weekes, 2020)
9)    TIME (Garrett Bradley, 2020)
10)  EMMA (Autumn de Wilde, 2020)

Favorite New Short: LEAVE US HERE (Tari Wariebi, 2020)
Favorite Feature New-to-Me: SMOOTH TALK (Joyce Chopra, 1985)

Marilyn Ferdinand
Favorite New Features
1. ALL ABOUT ME (Caroline Link, 2018)
2. NOMADLAND (Chloé Zhao, 2020)
3. SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE (Cédric Klapisch, 2019)
4. HOUSE OF HUMMINGBIRD (Bora Kim, 2018)
5. THE 40-YEAR-OLD VERSION (Radha Blank, 2020)
6. MY MEXICAN BRETZEL (Nuria Giménez, 2019)
7. INVISIBLE LIFE (Karim Aïnouz, 2019)
8. THE NAMES OF THE FLOWERS (Bahman Tavoosi, 2019)
9. BOOKSMART (Olivia Wilde, 2019)
10. THE WHISTLERS (Corneliu Porumboiu, 2019)
11. THREE SUMMERS (Sandra Kogut, 2019)

 
Favorite Documentaries
1. FIDDLER: A MIRACLE OF MIRACLES (Max Lewkowicz, 2019)
2. JAZZ ON A SUMMER’S DAY (restoration/rerelease) (Bert Stern, Aram Avakian, 1960)
3. ISADORA’S CHILDREN (Damien Manivel, 2019)
4. 76 Days (Hao Wu, Weixi Chen, Anonymous, 2020)
5. MR. SOUL! (Melissa Haizlit and Sam Pollard, 2018)
6. MAYOR (David Osit, 2020)
7. WOMEN ACCORDING TO MEN (Saeed Nouri, 2019)
8. CIRCUS OF BOOKS (Rachel Mason, 2019)

Favorite Older Films (chronological)
THE FLAPPER (Alan Crosland, 1920)
CORSAIR (Roland West, 1931)
BLESSED EVENT (Roy Del Ruth, 1932)
D-DAY TO GERMANY, 1944 (Jack Lieb 1944)
UNA FAMILIA DE TANTAS (Alejandro Galindo, 1949)
NEVER FEAR (Ida Lupino, 1950)
THE LONG GRAY LINE (John Ford, 1955)
I FIDANZATI (Ermanno Olmi, 1963)
OIL LAMPS (Juraj Herz, 1971)
BADNAM BASTI (Prem Kapoor, 1971)
THE CLOCKMAKER OF ST. PAUL (Bertrand Tavernier, 1974)
THE LATE SHOW (Robert Benton, 1977)
PEPPERMINT SODA (Diane Kurys, 1977)
SAINT JACK (Peter Bogdanovich, 1979)
ZIGEUNERWEISEN (Seijun Suzuki, 1980)
SON OF THE WHITE MARE (Marcell Jankovics, 1981)
ANGELO MY LOVE (Robert Duvall, 1983)
DANZÓN (María Novaro, 1991)
DO NOT LEAN OUT THE WINDOW (Nae Caranfil, 1993)
CARO DIARIO (Nanni Moretti, 1993)
NAINSUKH (Amit Dutta, 2010)
AURORA (Cristi Puiu, 2010)
HOTEL SALVATION (Shubhashish Bhutiani, 2016)
THE INVISIBLE HAND (David Macián, 2016)

Hall of Fame

The film venues, distributors, archives, organizations, festivals, filmmakers, and especially the readers of Cine-File for continuing to make our work relevant and enjoyable in a time of grief, fear, and physical isolation.

These are the sources that made my personal viewing year possible:

Block Cinema, Chicago Film Archives, Chicago Film Society, Chicago Latino Film Festival, Cine-File, Cinema/Chicago, Cinephobe, Facets, Gene Siskel Film Center, Henri: Cinémathèque française, Internet Archive, JCC Chicago Jewish Film Festival, Kanopy, Library of Congress, Logan Center for the Arts, Making Waves Romanian Film Festival, MUBI, Music Box Theatre, National Film Board of Canada, National Film Preservation Foundation, Netflix, New York Film Festival, Noir City International, PBS Passport, San Francisco Silent Film Festival, Short of the Week, TCM, Tubi, Vimeo, Wilmette Theatre, YouTube

Michael Frank

My top 15 of 2020:
MINARI (Lee Isaac Chung)
FIRST COW (Kelly Reichardt)
NOMADLAND (Chloe Zhao)
DICK JOHNSON IS DEAD (Kirsten Johnson)
DA 5 BLOODS (Spike Lee) 
BEGINNING (Dea Kulumbegashvili)
NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS (Eliza Hittman)
ANOTHER ROUND (Thomas Vinterberg)
I'M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS (Charlie Kaufman)
SHITHOUSE (Cooper Raiff)
SHE DIES TOMORROW (Amy Seimetz)
MANGROVE (Steve McQueen)
SOUND OF METAL (Darius Marder)
BACURAU (Kleber Mendonça Filho, Juliano Dornelles)
BOYS STATE (Amanda McBaine, Jesse Moss)

Patrick Friel

Top Films of 2020

 This list consists of “new” films that I saw for the first time in 2020. I count 2019 and 2020 films as new. I also have two older films that became available in new restorations. As usual, my viewing remains eclectic, erratic, and incomplete (there are a LOT of new features I haven’t seen), and I continue to gravitate to old films and shorts. If I were to make a list of the films that sustained me the most in 2020, it would consist of hundreds of short silent (mostly early cinema) films.

These, then, are the “new” films that amazed, surprised, excited, and confounded (in a good way) me the most.

1. VITALINA VARELA (2019, Pedro Costa)
2. LA FRANCE CONTRE LES ROBOTS (2020, Jean-Marie Straub; short)

The rest alphabetical:
ALL, OR NOTHING AT ALL (2019, Persijn Broersen and Margit Lukács; short)
ANNIVERSARY OF THE REVOLUTION (1918, Dziga Vertov; new restoration/reconstruction)
ANOTHER HORIZON (2020, Stephanie Barber; short)
CATS (2019, Tom Hooper)
THE BROKEN BUTTERFLY (1919, Maurice Tourneur; new restoration)
CHASING DREAM (2019, Johnnie To)
CIRCUMSTANTIAL PLEASURES (2016-19, Lewis Klahr)
IN MY ROOM (2020, Mati Diop; short)
THE TANGO OF THE WIDOWER AND ITS DISTORTING MIRROR (1967/2020, Raúl Ruiz and Valeria Sarmiento)
UNUSUAL SUMMER (2020, Kamal Aljafari)
WORLD OF TOMORROW EPISODE THREE: THE ABSENT DESTINATIONS OF DAVID PRIME (2020, Don Hertzfeldt; short)

JB Mabe
First, two cheats.

The best thing I saw all year was Hakob Hovnatanyan (Sergei Parajanov, 1967) which I have seen dozens of times on VHS, but the gorgeous Kino Klassika restoration is like seeing it for the first time. I hope to see it on film someday.

I was also very lucky to present "…whatever Norm Bruns decides to bring (Norm Bruns, 1980s)" at the Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival. The festival was planned for March, so I had to shift the screening to the digital realm very quickly, but the Super 8 prints are lovely and I hope to be able to present them as soon as things like that happen again.

And a list of a dozen more, new and old, that I saw for the first time this year.

1. COME COYOTE (Dani & Sheilah ReStack, 2019)
2. WATER MOTOR (Babette Mangolte, 1978)
3. FANNIE'S FILM (Fronza Woods, 1981)
4. CUTE HOUSE (Robb Boardman, 2020)
5. IN/DIVIDU (Nicole Hewitt, 1999)
6. THE RUNAWAY (Ritwik Ghatak, 1958)
7. MUSIC FROM THE EDGE OF THE ALLEGHENY PLATEAU (Kevin Jerome Everson, 2018)
8. MY BROTHER, THE PUNK SINGER (Caitlin Ryan, 2014)
9. SOMETHING TO TOUCH THAT IS NOT CORRUPTION OR ASHES OR DUST (Mike Stoltz, 2020)
10. STANDING FORWARD FULL (Alee Peoples, 2020)
11. I AM SOMEBODY (Madeline Anderson, 1970)
12. VYV AND BEAT (Audrey Lam, 2018)

Douglas McLaren
Like everyone else, my media consumption shot through the roof in 2020. Here are the ~40 titles that stuck out to me this year. Included in the list is every feature film I saw on 35mm (Only six! A new record low!), which have stuck out to me by dint of their proper exhibition.

Were I to pick a top film of the year, it would be THE MOUTH AGAPE. Throughout this pandemic, as friends/acquaintances died and family members were sent to the hospital, Maurice Pialat’s unsentimental tale of palliative care was always at the top of my mind. It was a powerful film when I saw it at the beginning of the year, but it only grew more so as 2020 dragged on. My absolute highest recommendation!

ABOVE SUSPICION (Richard Thorpe, 1943)
ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK (Sergio Martino, 1972)
AMATEUR (Hal Hartley, 1994, 35mm)
AMERICAN REVOLUTION 2 (Howard Alk & Mike Gray, 1969)
AMSTERDAMNED (Dick Maas, 1988)
APOCALYPTO (Mel Gibson, 2006)
THE BIG KNIFE (Robert Aldrich, 1955)
CONVERSATION PIECE (Luchino Visconti, 1974)
THE EX-MRS. BRADFORD (Stephen Roberts, 1936)
FADE TO BLACK (Vernon Zimmerman, 1980)
FIRST COW (Kelly Reichardt, 2020)
LA FLOR (Mariano Llinás, 2018)
FREE VOICE OF LABOR: THE JEWISH ANARCHISTS (Steven Fischer & Joel Sucher, 1980)
GUNS OF THE TREES (Jonas Mekas, 1961, 35mm)
IF YOU COULD ONLY COOK (William A. Seiter, 1935)
THE INVINCIBLES (Dominik Graf, 1994)
LAWYER MAN (William Dieterle, 1932)
LISA (Gary Sherman, 1989)
LOVERS ROCK (Steve McQueen, 2020)
MAX, MON AMOUR (Nagisa Ôshima, 1986)
THE MONOPOLY OF VIOLENCE (David Dufresne, 2020)
THE MOUTH AGAPE (Maurice Pialat, 1974)
NATIONTIME (William Greaves, 1972/2020)
THE NIGHTCOMERS (Michael Winner, 1971)
NIGHT OF THE KINGS (Philippe Lacôte, 2020)
NO SUCH THING (Hal Hartley, 2001, 35mm)
ORLANDO (Sally Potter, 1992, 35mm)
LA PELLE (Liliana Cavani, 1981)
PHAROS OF CHAOS (Manfred Blank & Wolf-Eckart Bühler, 1983)
SHIRLEY (Josephine Decker, 2020)
A SNAKE OF JUNE (Shinya Tsukamoto, 2002)
STAGE FRIGHT (Michele Soavi, 1987)
STARSTRUCK (Gillian Armstrong, 1982)
TICKET OF NO RETURN (Ulrike Ottinger, 1979)
TRUST (Hal Hartley, 1990, 35mm)
UNCUT GEMS (Josh & Benny Safdie, 2019, 35mm)
UNDER THE SUN OF SATAN (Maurice Pialat, 1987)
WOMAN IN CHAINS (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1968)
THE YEAR OF THE DISCOVERY (Luis López Carrasco, 2020)

Michael Metzger
Best Features of 2020
1. maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore (Sky Hopinka)
2. THE VIEWING BOOTH (Ra'anan Alexandrowicz)
3. TIME (Garrett Bradley)
4. LOVERS ROCK (Steve McQueen)
5. S01E03 (Kurt Walker)
6. THE TWO SIGHTS (Joshua Bonnetta)
7. MON AMOUR (David Teboul)
8. THE GIVERNY DOCUMENT (Single Channel) (Ja’Tovia Gary)
9. THE ASSISTANT (Kitty Green)
10. THINGS WE DARE NOT DO (Bruno Santamaria)
11. CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY (Jonathan Perel)
12. OUVERTURES (The Living and the Dead Ensemble)
13. COLLECTIVE (Alexander Nanau)
14. ACCESSION (Tamer Hassan, Armand Yervant Tufenkian)
15. FIRST COW (Kelly Reichardt)

Best British TV Horror Plays Watched in 2020
1. PENDA’S FEN (Alan Clarke, writer David Rudkin, 1974)
2. ROBIN REDBREAST (James MacTaggart, writer John Bowen, 1970)
3. WHISTLE AND I’LL COME TO YOU (Jonathan Miller, 1968)
4. DEAD OF NIGHT: THE EXORCISM (Don Taylor, 1972)
5. THE STONE TAPE (Peter Sasdy, writer Nigel Kneale 1972)
6. CHILDREN OF THE STONES (Peter Graham Scott, writers Jeremy Burnham and Trevor Ray, 1977)
7. THE SIGNALMAN (Lawrence Gordon Clark, writer Andrew Davies, 1976)
8. THE PLEDGE (Digby Rumsey, 1981)
9. STIGMA (Lawrence Gordon Clark, writer Clive Exton, 1977)
10. THE SPIRIT OF DARK AND LONELY WATER (Jeff Grant, 1973)

Scott Pfeiffer
The 16 Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2020
1. BARAKA (Ron Fricke, 1992) 
2. CITY HALL (Frederick Wiseman, 2020)
3. COLLECTIVE (Alexander Nanau, 2019)
4. DICK JOHSON IS DEAD (Kirsten Johnson, 2020)
5. HONEYLAND (Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov, 2019)
6. I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS (Charlie Kaufman, 2020)
7. LEON MORIN, PRIEST (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1961) 
8. LOVE STREAMS (John Cassavetes, 1984)
9. LOVERS ROCK (Steve McQueen, 2020)
10. THE ONLY SON (Yasujiro Ozu, 1936) 
11. PUTNEY SWOPE (Robert Downey, Sr, 1969)
12. SHOAH (Claude Lanzmann, 1985)
13. SPIRITED AWAY (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)  
14. TESLA (Michael Almereyda, 2020)  
15. TIME (Garrett Bradley, 2020) 
16. THE UPRISING (Peter Snowdon, 2013)

Ben Sachs
The Ten Best New Films I Saw in 2020:
1. CARELESS CRIME (Shahram Mokri)
2. CITY HALL (Frederick Wiseman)
3. MALMKROG (Cristi Puiu)
4. THE WOMAN WHO RAN (Hong Sang-soo)
5. EMA (Pablo Larraín)
6. LOVERS ROCK (Steve McQueen)
7. TOMMASO (Abel Ferrara)
8. DAYS (Tsai Ming-liang)
9. TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
10. JUANITA (Leticia Tonos Paniagua)

Runners-up: YOUNG AHMED (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne), THE WOLF HOUSE (Joaquín Cociña and Cristóbal León), FIRST COW (Kelly Reichardt), THE TRAITOR (Marco Bellocchio), FOURTEEN (Dan Sallitt)

Kathleen Sachs
Favorite New(-ish) Releases I Saw for the First Time in 2020
1. CITY HALL (Frederick Wiseman)
2. DAYS (Tsai Ming-liang)
3. BEANPOLE (Kantemir Balagov)
4. THE WOMAN WHO RAN (Hong Sang-soo)
5. EMA (Pablo Larraín)
6. (Tie) MAAT MEANS LAND/SAN DIEGO (Fox Maxy)
7. JUANITA (Leticia Tonos Paniagua)
8. (Tie) FILM ABOUT A FATHER WHO (Lynne Sachs)/A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME: WRIGHT OR WRONG (Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa)
9. ON A MAGICAL NIGHT (Christophe Honoré)
10. FIRST COW (Kelly Reichardt)

Best Films I Saw for the First Time in 2020
1. (Tie) PASSING STRANGERS/FORBIDDEN LETTERS (Arthur J. Bressan, Jr., 1974 and 1979)
2. (Tie) YOURSELF AND YOURS/HILL OF FREEDOM (Hong Sang-soo, 2016 and 2014)
3. THE SPOOK WHO SAT BY THE DOOR (Ivan Dixon, 1973)
4. WORKING GIRLS (Lizzie Borden, 1986)
5. SIMONE BARBES OR VIRTUE (Marie-Claude Treilhou, 1980)
6. THE STUDENT PRINCE IN OLD HEIDELBERG (Ernst Lubitsch, 1927)
7. THE LITTLE STORY OF GWEN FROM FRENCH BRITTANY (Agnès Varda, 2008)
8. DAY OF THE DEAD (George Romero, 1985)
9. SMOOTH TALK (Joyce Chopra, 1985)
10. MON ONCLE D'AMÉRIQUE (Alain Resnais, 1980)

Michael Glover Smith
The 10 Best New Films I Saw in 2020
10. TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH (K. Kurosawa)
9. ZOMBI CHILD (Bonello)
8. CITY HALL (Wiseman)
7. NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS (Hittman)
6. DAYS (Tsai)
5. BACURAU (Dornelles/Mendonca)
4. TOMMASO (Ferrara)
3. CITY SO REAL (James)
2. THE WOMAN WHO RAN (Hong)
1. TIME (Bradley)

(Extended top 30 with links to reviews at my blog)

K.A. Westphal
Best Films of 2020
THE AMUSEMENT PARK (George Romero - 1973/2020)
ANOTHER ROUND (Thomas Vinterberg)
APPLES (Christos Nikou)
CITY HALL (Frederick Wiseman)
COLLECTIV (Alexander Nanau)
DEAR COMRADES! (Andrei Konchalovsky)
FIRST COW (Kelly Reichardt)
HOPPER/WELLES (Orson Welles/Bob Muwraski, 1970/2020)
LAST AND FIRST MEN (Jóhann Jóhannsson)
THE MOLE AGENT (Maite Alberdi)
SUMMER OF 85 (François Ozon) ^
THIS IS NOT A BURIAL, IT'S A RESURRECTION (Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese)

^ Disclosure: Distributed by my employer, Music Box Films

Best Films I Saw for the First Time in 2020
AFERIM! (Radu Jude, 2015)
DIE BERGKATZE (Ernst Lubitsch, 1921)
A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY (Edward Yang, 1991)
CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 (Agnes Varda, 1962)
COMRADES: A LANTERIST'S ACCOUNT OF THE TOLPUDDLE MARTYRS AND WHAT BECAME OF THEM (Bill Douglas, 1986)
INDIA SONG (Marguerite Duras, 1975)
JUSTIN DE MARSEILLE (Maurice Tourneur, 1935)
MARIE ANTOINETTE (Sofia Coppola, 2006)
THE QUEEN (Frank Simon, 1968)
THIEVES' HIGHWAY (Jules Dassin, 1949)
TWO FOR THE ROAD (Stanley Donen, 1967)
UNASHAMED: A ROMANCE (Allen Stuart, 1937)
UZI'S PARTY (Lyra Hill, 2015)
VARIETY (Bette Gordon, 1983)
YOU NEVER KNOW WOMEN (Willam A. Wellman, 1926)

Worst Cinema Trend of 2020
Zoom. This video teleconferencing service, unknown to most of its victims twelve months ago, is stealthily defining the moving image downwards. Its square, straight-on framing and relentless emphasis on the human face recalls an ABC Movie of the Week, circa 1973. It is slowly pushing its users towards a more conventional and utilitarian sense of mise en scene. May Cinemascope teach us how to see again in 2021.

Most Disappointing Cinema Event of 2020
Festivals adapted this year with a combination of virtual screenings and outdoor events, but the pipeline of exciting new films was very much constricted. We were supposed to get new films from Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Leos Carax, Paul Verhoeven, Wes Anderson, and many others this year (plus a new entry in the only modern blockbuster franchise that matters, THE PURGE series), but many top filmmakers struggled to finish post-production amid the pandemic or simply opted to skip 'virtual' premieres. So Cannes was a festival in name only, a year after launching PARASITE, PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE, PAIN AND GLORY, BEANPOLE, and many other notable films. There were 'official selections' for Cannes 2020, but they didn't screen for the public or for critics, leaving programmers and buyers to sift through a grab bag of random screener links without the benefit of buzz, gossip, or conversation. Some films in the shadow Cannes 2020 class--e.g., ANOTHER ROUND, SUMMER OF '85--found critical backing later at the virtual edition of TIFF, but other 'official selections' vanished without a trace. If Jonathan Nossiter's Cannes-laureled LAST WORDS had screened for critics, it probably would have been slaughtered as thoroughly (and as memorably) as recent Croisette punching bags like THE BROWN BUNNY, MEKTOUB MY LOV

Interview with TIME director Garrett Bradley

By Michael Glover Smith 

My favorite film of 2020 is Garrett Bradley’s TIME, a documentary about Fox Richardson, a remarkable woman who spends 21 years fighting for the release of her husband, Rob, from Louisiana State Penitentiary after he receives an unjustly harsh 60-year-sentence for a first-offense robbery. I’ve heard it said often this year that there are two justice systems in America, one for white people and another for everyone else, and Bradley illustrates this tragic maxim in the most human terms possible – by intimately focusing her film on the love story between Fox and Rob. Bradley incorporates Fox’s own video diaries over the years with newer HD footage of the Richardson family in the months leading up to Rob’s release, a decades-spanning accumulation of scenes that lead to a moment of reunion so intimate and emotionally powerful that it is worthy of comparison to Mizoguchi’s SANSHO THE BAILIFF. Adding to the film’s spellbinding effect is evocative black-and-white cinematography and a soundtrack comprised of unusual gospel-blues piano songs by Ethiopian composer Emahoy Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou. I recently interviewed Bradley via Zoom about TIME, which opens today at the Landmark Century Centre Cinema and Emagine Frankfort.

Michael Glover Smith (MGS): I’d like to start by asking you about the title of the film. Several of the subjects talk about the concept of time – sometimes in a philosophical way. Did you know you wanted to call it that from the beginning or was that something you discovered during the process of making it?

Garrett Bradley (GB): I have a really hard time naming things in general. I think all of my films are one word! It’s funny because I remember Fox asked me a lot, in the process of being in the film, “What do you feel like the title is going to be?” She talked a lot about how, with all her sons, she would name them before they were born. And I was like, “I’m so the opposite. I need the film to be finished in order for me to name it.” I think, ultimately, I settled on that because “Time” is, oddly, very abstract. There’s no image that the word time elicits for me and yet it has a lot of different connotations. I mean, it’s been used as a form of oppression – you know, thinking about the clock as a symbol of the colonization of cultures through time, through “being on time,” through “being late…” And then it can also address these less concrete and more ephemeral and emotional ways that we move through the world. So I decided on the title of the film once it was finished and I was thinking about it in those ways.

MGS: I love how you chose not to include the logistics of how and why Rob was released from prison. I thought that was very daring on a narrative level – similar to how you didn’t focus on the robbery. I found myself Googling about it afterwards in order to find out the full story. But I’m glad you chose not to focus on those things because it was like you were saying, “That’s not what this is about. That’s not the film I’m interested in making.” Did you ever feel any pressure from anyone who was involved in producing or financing the film to make it more informational?

GB: Certainly. I think that was a huge part of the conversation while we were editing. I think a lot of it, for me, boiled down to audience and who I was speaking to. In the context of America, it’s very difficult to prove racism. It’s very difficult to prove what that looks like and how it’s articulated on a systematic level. And, in order to do that, I would’ve started to entangle myself into things that I felt the audience I was speaking to already knew. And I think the other part of it is when we really start to investigate this question of universality or accessibility or everybody understanding something, when we want to take that into account in the context of incarceration – if there’s 2.3 million people that are incarcerated there’s double or triple that number that are also affected by this issue – so when we talk about it being universally understood, who are we really talking about? And what is the true percentage of people that wouldn’t understand that? That, to me, is why I decided to go in the direction that I did.

MGS: It’s a beautiful movie to look at. Can you talk about your motivation to shoot in black-and-white and also, since so many of the images came from footage that Fox shot, was it difficult to color grade to get the black-and-white to match across multiple formats?

GB: I had always thought about TIME as being a sister film to ALONE (Bradley's 2017 documentary short). And ALONE was in black-and-white because I was making another film called AMERICA, which was also in black-and-white (laughs). In my mind, I was only seeing in black-and-white. I wish I could take credit for this but Lon, who is the main woman we see in ALONE, when I showed the film to her and her sons before it premiered – her son, Jay, is the one that made this metaphorical connection of what it means for the subject matter to be in black-and-white, that it creates a sort of timelessness and that it also speaks to the black and white issue in our country. I wish I could take credit for that but I can’t. In my mind, it was really, “If I’m thinking about these as sister films, I always want them to exist together, adopting the same aesthetic and formal choices.” I went back and forth a little bit once (Fox’s) archive became available to me and I was aware of it – myself and Gabe Rhodes who cut the film – because the archive was in color and I did want to see what that would look like. There are so many spectrums with color. You are telling stories by the type of color you’re working with. I really was invested in trying to create – because I wanted this to feel like the story was moving forward but it was also moving backwards at the same time and it was constantly sort of oscillating between the two – and in order to do that there needed to be some visual uniformity. There needed to be an aesthetic linearity, a cohesiveness, and so the black-and-white really was the only thing that was going to let us do that. The color ended up feeling more like a collage and you really could feel kind of the tug and pull of time.

MGS: The music is something else that binds the footage together. I was blown away by this piano score, which I read later was composed by an Ethiopian nun. At what point did that come into play? Was that during the editing and how did you decide it was appropriate for this story?

GB: Yeah! She’s a 96-year-old Ethiopian nun. She’s still alive. I came across the music actually just through YouTube. It popped up in my algorithm. First, I just loved the music. It immediately spoke to me. And then when I laid it with picture, it was like magic. It just worked. And then there were these two other signs: Some of the names of the tracks were “A Mother’s Love,” or “A Young Girl’s Complaint,” or “Homesickness.” There were these themes that were running throughout the music itself that just felt like it spiritually wanted to be connected with those images. And then when I was reading more about Emahoy’s life – as somebody who came from a wealthy family in Ethiopia, became a prisoner of war, was classically trained in music (in Egypt) then returned back to Ethiopia, and essentially created her own genre of music and then recorded this one album in 1963 for the purpose of raising money for an orphanage – I felt like the lives of these two women were beautifully connected and how amazing it would be to bring them together. So it was both a political and musical choice all in one.

MGS: In addition to cinema, tennis is one of my passions so I wanted to ask where you were with your forthcoming Naomi Osaka project.

GB: We’ve been shooting for a little over a year and it’s been really great to work with her. Especially at this point in her life where, in many ways, a lot of the questions that she’s asking herself are the same questions the world is asking itself. She’s an incredibly mentally brilliant and strong young woman. It’s been really great to be able to work with Fox to make TIME and then also to be able to work with someone much younger but who I think has the same leadership skills as somebody like the entire Richardson family.

CINE-FILE SELECTS: SON OF THE WHITE MARE

In partnership with film distributor Arbelos, Cine-File is presenting the exclusive Chicago virtual screening of Marcell Jankovics’ 1981 animated Hungarian feature SON OF THE WHITE MARE, in a stunning new digital restoration. The film is available here for two weeks; rental is $10, with half the proceeds going to Cine-File (funds will be used for general expenses, future programming, and to provide honoraria to our contributors).

Cine-File may be presenting additional virtual screenings (primarily new restorations of retrospective titles) if this first one proves successful.
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Read a recent interview with Jankovics on the film, its restoration, and reception here.
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Marcell Jankovics' SON OF THE WHITE MARE (Hungary/Animation)
SON OF THE WHITE MARE, the landmark 1981 feature by Hungarian animation prodigy Marcell Jankovics, belongs to an elite echelon of films that includes Lotte Reiniger’s THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED, Walt Disney’s FANTASIA, and Hayao Miyazaki’s SPIRITED AWAY: personal, utterly singular works by visionary artists, which nonetheless tap into something axiomatic about the life-bestowing art of film animation. Though Jankovics is venerated in Hungary with the same intensity as Disney and Miyazaki, SON OF THE WHITE MARE has never been distributed in the United States, until the Los Angeles-based distributor Arbelos Films partnered this year with the Hungarian National Film Institute to present this 4k restoration from the original camera negative. It’s a cause for celebration and an invitation to awestruck contemplation.

SON OF THE WHITE MARE is a Modernist fairy tale, a horny Hungarian creation myth, but first and foremost, it is high-calorie eye candy, a showcase for sublime orchestrations of sound, color, and movement. So great are the film’s sensory rewards that, in the first ten minutes, I found myself completely absorbed in the abstract drama of light and shadow, scarcely conscious of the mythological groundwork being laid. (I’d probably love the movie just as much if I watched it upside down by mistake.) A supreme colorist, Jankovics sends pools of bold monochrome around the frame with unlikely elegance, favoring symmetrical compositions that sometimes resemble pop-art altarpieces. His figures are big, flat masses of blue, yellow, red, and green whose contours throb with activity even while at rest. Shading and texture are reserved mostly for the backgrounds, built up with layers of supple watercolors, washes, and aerosols; pause on almost any frame, and you’ll encounter an image whose beauty, ingenuity, and material economy are harmoniously unified.

Jankovics claims to have animated a third of the film himself, and his wit and sensibility are stamped unmistakably throughout. But the distinctive aesthetics of SON OF THE WHITE MARE are not quite sui generis: beyond the immediate influences from the world of animation (Disney, the Hubleys, and, yes, THE YELLOW SUBMARINE), Jankovics draws deeply on decorative and folk-art traditions, as well as on the 20th-century geometric and chromatic innovations of the Bauhaus. This lively tug-of-war between folk and modernist styles extends to the brilliant soundtrack, where dialogues drawn from 19th-century narrative poems of László Arany are treated electronically, accompanied by sound design and a score composed entirely with synthesized sound by István Vajda. While other animated films with electronic soundtracks (like René Laloux’s FANTASTIC PLANET and Piotr Kamler’s CHRONOPOLIS) can feel dated today, there’s something incredibly fresh about the juxtaposition of traditional fairy-tale forms and abstract sound here.

Less contemporary-feeling is the narrative itself—a masculinist fable about three dragon-slaying human sons of a divine horse, bound together in a quest to liberate a captive princess and restore order to the world. Jankovics’ treatment of the material distills the cosmological essence of the source material, but regular flashes of phallic symbolism prove that his interest isn’t strictly spiritual per se. Playing on the proximity of the sacred and profane, SON OF THE WHITE MARE reaches back to Hungary’s pagan roots, pointedly braiding its narrative around symbols and totems such as animals, trees, and personifications of natural phenomena. While outwardly nationalistic, this animist appeal also unites Jankovics with Disney and Miyazaki, natural philosophers whose gift for bringing still frames to life has the aura of magic. Sergei Eisenstein observed, in regards to the work of Disney, “the very idea, if you will, of the animated cartoon is like a direct embodiment of the method of animism.” (More colorfully, art critic Dave Hickey called Disney “a freaking pagan cult...promoting a primitive, animist religion dedicated to investing everything with life, to animating everything from teacups to trees, from carpets to houses, from ducks to mice, with the pulse of human aspiration.”) If Jankovics is a great animator, it is not only because he is a peerless stylist and technician; it is because his gift brings him, and us, closer to this Promethean essence of the animated form.

Hungary’s pagan history seems like an unlikely subject for a state-sponsored film from a Soviet Bloc country. SON OF THE WHITE MARE was produced under the auspices of the Pannonia Film Studio, the state-run animation studio where Jankovics began working as a teenager in the early 1960s. (Pannonia produced Jankovics’ debut feature, 1973’s delightful JÁNOS VITÉSZ, which was the first feature-length Hungarian animated film, and which is also newly available from Arbelos). Like Poland and the Czech Republic, Hungary was a major exporter of prize-winning animated films to festivals around the world at this time. These works offered an appealing image of state socialism’s creative fertility, suggesting possibilities of form freed from the commercial demands that hindered many artists in the West; they also frequently belied the repressive conditions faced by artists working under Communism.

Such is the case with SON OF THE WHITE MARE. As the director explained, his original concept for the film “explored the concept of the recurring nature of time and space. But the studio manager wouldn’t allow [him] to make it because of its anti-Marxist interpretation of time! According to Marxism, time is irreversible.” Yet this instance of censorship simply goes to prove how provocative, or even revolutionary, Jankovics’ pagan symbolism might have felt at the time. Astonishingly experimental and perceptually disorienting, SON OF THE WHITE MARE has frequently been described as “psychedelic,” but I believe the term “shamanic” is more apt. After all, the practice of “taltosism,” or native shamanism, began to reemerge in Hungary in the 1980s not long after its release, significantly gaining in momentum after the collapse of Communism by the decade’s end. Might it be that Jankovics summoned an incipient pagan spirit building up in the Hungarian soul at the time? Perhaps it’s an outlandish thought, but to see SON OF THE WHITE MARE is to be reminded that great works of film art don’t just animate characters on screen—they also animate us. (1981, 86 min) [Michael Metzger]

Cine-File Contributors' Best of the Decade Lists

Edo Choi
2010s with apologies to films I've missed:
1. THE TREE OF LIFE (Terrence Malick, 2011)
2. TONI ERDMANN (Maren Ade, 2016)
3. THE IRISHMAN (Martin Scorsese, 2019)
4. THE MASTER (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012)
5. Films by Nathaniel Dorsky (2013-2019)
6. CARLOS (Olivier Assayas, 2010)
7. PHANTOM THREAD (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
8. HIGH LIFE (Claire Denis, 2018)
9. CERTIFIED COPY (Abbas Kiarostami, 2010)
10. HORSE MONEY (Pedro Costa, 2014)
11. THE ASSASSIN (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015)
12. Films by Hong Sang-Soo (2010-2018)
13. BOYHOOD (Richard Linklater, 2014)
14. THE SOCIAL NETWORK (David Fincher, 2010)
15. MOONRISE KINGDOM (Wes Anderson, 2012)
16. THE WIND RISES (Hayao Miyazaki, 2013)
17. INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2013)
18. GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE (Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
19. ZAMA (Lucrecia Martel, 2017)
20. SILENCE (Martin Scorsese, 2016)
21. THE LAST OF THE UNJUST (Claude Lanzmann, 2013)
22. MY GOLDEN DAYS (Arnaud Desplechin, 2015)
23. GONE GIRL (David Fincher, 2014)
24. CAROL (Todd Haynes, 2015)
25. VITALINA VARELA (Pedro Costa, 2019)
26. INHERENT VICE (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2014)
27. BURNING (Lee Chang-dong, 2018)
28. THE LOST CITY OF Z (James Gray, 2016)
29. BEFORE MIDNIGHT (Richard Linklater, 2013)
30. THE KID WITH A BIKE (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 2011)

John Dickson
HARD TO BE A GOD (Aleksei German)
THE SOCIAL NETWORK/GONE GIRL (David Fincher)
HOLY MOTORS (Leos Carax)
TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN (David Lynch)
THE GHOST WRITER (Roman Polanski)
BASTARDS (Claire Denis)
THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (Martin Scorsese)
LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE (Abbas Kiarostami)
ZAMA (Lucrecia Martel)
PHANTOM THREAD (Paul Thomas Anderson)

Dark Horse: ALLIED (Robert Zemeckis)

Jonathan Leithold-Patt
1. THE TREE OF LIFE (Malick, 2011)
2. INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS (Coens, 2013)
3. HOLY MOTORS (Carax, 2012)
4. 24 FRAMES (Kiarostami, 2017)
5. THIS IS NOT A FILM (Panahi, 2011)
6. A QUIET PASSION (Davies, 2017)
7. FIRST MAN (Chazelle, 2018)
8. THE SOCIAL NETWORK (Fincher, 2010)
9. MR. TURNER (Leigh, 2014)
10. CAROL (Haynes, 2015)

JB Mabe
1. CALIFORNIA PICTURE BOOK (Zach Iannazzi, 2013) & OLD HAT (Zach Iannazzi, 2016)
2. UN BEAU SOLEIL INTÉRIEUR (LET THE SUNSHINE IN, Claire Denis, 2017)
3. OUR SUMMER MADE HER LIGHT ESCAPE (Sasha Waters Freyer, 2012) & A PARTIAL HISTORY OF THE NATURAL WORLD, 1965 (Sasha Waters Freyer, 2015) DRAGONS & SERAPHIM (Sasha Waters Freyer, 2017)
4. MAGIC MIKE (Steven Soderbergh, 2012)
5. LIFE WITHOUT PRINCIPLE (Johnnie To, 2011)
6. MOUNTAIN CASTLE MOUNTAIN FLOWER PLASTIC (Annapurna Kumar, 2017)
7. ENDLESS, NAMELESS (Pathompon Mont Tesprateep, 2014)
8. OPTRA FIELD VII & IX (T. Marie, 2011) & PANCHROME I, II, III (T. Marie, 2014) 
9. DETROITERS (Tim Robinson & Sam Richardson, 2017-2018)
10. LIFE IS AN OPINION, FIRE A FACT (Karen Yasinsky, 2012) & AFTER HOURS (Karen Yasinsky, 2013) & THE LONELY LIFE OF DEBBY ADAMS (Karen Yasinsky, 2013)
11. GOLD MOON, SHARP ARROW (Malic Amalya, 2012)
12. ASSUMPTIONS OF YOUR PHANTOM(SY) (Karissa Hahn, 2012) & I (FRAME) (Karissa Hahn & Andrew Kim, 2015) & PLEASE STEP OUT OF THE FRAME. (Karissa Hahn, 2018)
13. MAPANG-AKIT (John Torres, 2011)
14. THINGS (Ben Rivers, 2014)
15. DISTANCE (Julie Murray, 2010) & LINE OF APSIDES (Julie Murray, 2014) & OUR EYES ARE ARMED BUT WE ARE STRANGERS TO THE STARS (Julie Murray, 2015)
16. RED CAPRICCIO (Blake Williams, 2014) & SOMETHING HORIZONTAL (Blake Williams, 2015)
17. SHADES OF GREY (Robert Todd, 2014) & ETUDE (Robert Todd, 2015)
18. FIFTEEN AN HOUR (Kevin Jerome Everson, 2011) & GRAND FINALE (Kevin Jerome Everson, 2015)
19. STILL LIFE (Kevin Eskew, 2015) & NOW 2 (Kevin Eskew, 2019)
20. BODY CONTOURS (Kristin Reeves, 2015) & WHAT IS NOTHING (AFTER WHAT IS NOTHING) (Kristin Reeves, 2017)
21. UTOPIA (Luther Price, 2012) & RIBBON CANDY (Luther Price, 2012)
22. RETURN TO FORMS (Zachary Epcar, 2016) & LIFE AFTER LOVE (Zachary Epcar, 2018)
23. DAMAGE CONTROL (Adam Paradis, 2010) & FORGET THE PAST (Adam Paradis, 2013)
24. CURIOUS LIGHT (Charlotte Pryce, 2011) & A STUDY IN NATURAL MAGIC (Charlotte Pryce, 2013) &  PRIMA MATERIA (Charlotte Pryce, 2015)
25. MAÎTRE-VENT (Simon Quéhiellard, 2012)
26. FILMS I (Pablo Valencia, 2011)
27. COLOR COPY (Jake Barningham, 2011)
28. WATERCOLOR (Fall Creek) (Vincent Grenier, 2013)
29. HILARIOUS CLIP FROM 30 ROCK!! (Nathan Fielder, 2012) & ELECTRONICS STORE (2015, Nathan Fielder)
30. MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (George Miller, 2015)

Michael Metzger
Top 25 (Narrative)
1 & 2 (tie): PERSONAL SHOPPER and CARLOS (Olivier Assayas) 
3. MEEK’S CUTOFF (Kelly Reichardt)
4. MAGIC MIKE (Steven Soderbergh)
5. STRANGER BY THE LAKE (Alain Guiraudie) 
6. THE STRANGE LITTLE CAT (Ramon Zürcher)
7. HOUSE OF TOLERANCE (Bertrand Bonello)
8. HOLY MOTORS (Leos Carax)
9. SIERANEVADA (Cristi Puiu)
10. AQUARIUS (Kleber Mendonça Filho)
11. THE MASTER (Paul Thomas Anderson)
12. COMPUTER CHESS (Andrew Bujalski)
13. I WAS AT HOME, BUT… (Angela Schanelec)
14. CEMETERY OF SPLENDOR (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
15. HIGH LIFE (Claire Denis)
16. JACKIE (Pablo Larraín)
17. FIRST REFORMED (Paul Schrader)
18. HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT (Josh & Benny Safdie)
19. TONI ERDMANN (Maren Ade)
20. SPRING BREAKERS (Harmony Korine)
21. BY THE TIME IT GETS DARK (Anocha Suwichakornpong)
22. THE SOCIAL NETWORK (David Fincher)
23. MARGARET (Kenneth Lonergan)
24. ZAMA (Lucrecia Martel)
25. THE HUMAN SURGE (Eduardo Williams)

Top 20 (Documentary) 
1. CAMERAPERSON (Kirsten Johnson)
2. HALE COUNTY, THIS MORNING, THIS EVENING (RaMell Ross)
3. NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT (Patricio Guzman)
4. THE HOTTEST AUGUST (Brett Story)
5. DAWSON CITY, FROZEN TIME (Bill Morrison)
6. CITIZENFOUR (Laura Poitras)
7. THE ILLINOIS PARABLES (Deborah Stratman)
8. THE IMAGE YOU MISSED (Donal Foreman)
9. INAATE/SE (Adam and Zach Khalil) 
10. LEVIATHAN (Lucien Castaing Taylor and Verena Parevel)
11. I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO (Raoul Peck)
12. CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS (Werner Herzog)
13. TIL MADNESS DO US PART (Wang Bing)
14. HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE (David France)
15. THIS IS NOT A FILM (Jafar Panahi)
16. BITTER LAKE (Adam Curtis)
17. EL MAR LA MAR (J.P. Sniadecki and Joshua Bonnetta)
18. THE ACT OF KILLING (Joshua Oppenheimer)
19. WHOSE STREETS? (Sabaah Folayan & Damon Davis)
20. THE TASK (Leigh Ledare)

Top 16 (?) Experimental
1. HOW NOT TO BE SEEN: A FUCKING DIDACTIC EDUCATIONAL .MOV FILE (Hito Steyerl)
2. I'LL REMEMBER YOU AS YOU WERE, NOT AS WHAT YOU'LL BECOME (Sky Hopinka)
3. 025 SUNSET RED (Laida Lertxundi)
4. THE ARBORETUM CYCLE (Nathaniel Dorsky)
5. GET OUT OF THE CAR (Thom Andersen)
6. STRANGELY ORDINARY, THIS DEVOTION (Dani and Sheilah Restack)
7. LOVE IS THE MESSAGE, THE MESSAGE IS DEATH (Arthur Jafa) 
8. FLUID FRONTIERS (Ephraim Asili)
9. ENCOUNTERS I MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE HAD WITH PETER BERLIN (Mariah Garnett)
10. THE DRAGON IS THE FRAME (Mary Helena Clark)
11. ANOTHER VOID (Paul Clipson)
12. AMERICA AT WAR, THE HOME FRONT: THE FILM OPENING (Ken Jacobs) 
13. A STUDY IN NATURAL MAGIC (Charlotte Pryce)
14. COLOR CORRECTION (Margaret Honda)
15. EDGE OF ALCHEMY (Stacey Steers)
16. RUBBER-COATED STEEL (Lawrence Abu Hamdan)

Scott Pfeiffer
1. THE TREE OF LIFE (Terrence Malick, 2011)
2. CERTIFIED COPY (Abbas Kiarostami, 2010)
3.  GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE (Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
4. THE IRISHMAN (Martin Scorsese, 2019)
5. MOONLIGHT (Barry Jenkins, 2016)
6. PHANTOM THREAD (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
7. BOYHOOD (Richard Linklater, 2014)
8. FACES PLACES (Agnes Varda, 2017)
9. AMOUR (Michael Haneke, 2012)
10. BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD (Benh Zeitlin, 2012) 
11. A BREAD FACTORY (Patrick Wang, 2018)
12. SILENCE (Martin Scorsese, 2016)
13. TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN (David Lynch, 2017)
14. A TOUCH OF SIN (Jia Zhangke, 2013)
15. TONI ERDMANN (Maren Ade, 2016)
16. THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL (Wes Anderson, 2014)
17. GET OUT (Jordan Peele, 2017)
18. HOLY MOTORS (Leos Carax, 2012)
19.  A SEPARATION (Asghar Farhadi, 2011)
20. LI’L QUINQUIN (Bruno Dumont, 2014)
21. MELANCHOLIA (Lars von Trier, 2011)
22. INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2013)
23. SHOPLIFTERS (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2018)
24. THE FLORIDA PROJECT (Sean Baker, 2017)
25. LA LA LAND (Damien Chazelle, 2016)

Harrison Sherrod
1. HOLY MOTORS, dir. Leos Carax (2012)
2. THE ACT OF KILLING, dir. Joshua Oppenheimer (2012)
3. HARD TO BE A GOD, dir. Aleksei German (2014)
4. PERSONAL SHOPPER, dir. Olivier Assayas (2016)
5. THE GREAT BEAUTY, dir. Paolo Sorrentino (2013)
6. BURNING, dir. Lee Chang-dong (2018)
7. THE PERVERT’S GUIDE TO IDEOLOGY / LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF (tie), dir. Sophie Fiennes (2012) / Thom Anderson (2014)
8. FIRST REFORMED, dir. Paul Schrader (2017)
9. TANGERINE, dir. Sean Baker (2015)
10. THE SQUARE, dir. Ruben Östlund (2017)

Michael Glover Smith
My Top 10 Films of the 2010s: 
10. ALMAYER'S FOLLY (Chantal Akerman, 2011)
9. MYSTERIES OF LISBON (Raul Ruiz, 2010)
8. A TOUCH OF SIN (Jia Zhangke, 2013)
7. THE STRANGE CASE OF ANGELICA (Manoel de Oliveira, 2010)
6. ZAMA (Lucrecia Martel, 2017)
5. BOYHOOD (Richard Linklater, 2014)
4. THE ASSASSIN (Hou Hsiao-Hsien, 2015)
3. CERTIFIED COPY (Abbas Kiarostami, 2010)
2. GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE (Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
1. TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN (David Lynch, 2017)

Extended Top 100 with commentary here: https://whitecitycinema.com/2019/12/23/my-top-100-films-of-the-decade/

K.A. Westphal
1. THE IMMIGRANT (James Gray, 2013)
2. PERSONAL SHOPPER (Olivier Assayas, 2016)
3. INHERENT VICE (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2014)

... and the rest alphabetically

L'APOLLONIDE: SOUVENIRS DE LA MAISON CLOSE (Bertrand Bonnello, 2011)
THE APOSTATE (Federico Veiroj, 2015)
THE ASSASSIN (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015)
BERNIE (Richard Linklater, 2011)
BLADE RUNNER 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)
CERTIFIED COPY (Abbas Kiarostami, 2010)
COSMOS (Andrzej Żuławski, 2015)
THE DEEP BLUE SEA (Terence Davies, 2011)
THE FLORIDA PROJECT (Sean Baker, 2017)
A GHOST STORY (David Lowery, 2017)
"I DO NOT CARE IF WE GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS BARBARIANS" (Radu Jude, 2018)
LEAFLESS (Nazlı Dinçel, 2011)
THE LOVE WITCH (Anna Biller, 2016)
MADELINE'S MADELINE (Josephine Decker, 2018)
MAGIC MIKE XXL (Gregory Jacobs, 2015)
MEEK'S CUTOFF (Kelly Reichardt, 2010)
MOONRISE KINGDOM (Wes Anderson, 2012)
PATERSON (Jim Jarmusch, 2016)
PHOENIX (Christian Petzold, 2014)
THE ROOM CALLED HEAVEN (Laida Lertxundi, 2012)
SHOPLIFTERS (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2018)
SUNSET (László Nemes, 2018)

Cine-File Contributors' Best of 2019 Lists

Edo Choi
2019 by international premiere date:
1. THE IRISHMAN (Martin Scorsese)
2. VITALINA VARELA (Pedro Costa)
3. AD ASTRA (James Gray)
4. MARRIAGE STORY (Noah Baumbach)
5. Mindhunter, Season 2 (David Fincher et. al.)
6. THE SOUVENIR (Joanna Hogg)
7. PARASITE (Bong Joon-ho)
8. SIBYL (Justine Triet)
9. AMERICAN FACTORY (Steven Bognar, Julia Reichert)
10. MARTIN EDEN (Pietro Marcello)
11. TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
12. OH MERCY (Arnaud Desplechin)
13. HIGH FLYING BIRD (Steven Soderbergh)

Rob Christopher
APOLLO 11 (Todd Douglas Miller)
BEAUTY #2 (Andy Warhol)
BURNING (Chang-dong Lee)
THE GREEN FOG (Guy Maddin & Evan Johnson & Galen Johnson)
IN MY ROOM (Ulrich Köhler)
KNIVES OUT (Rian Johnson)
THE ONE I LOVE (Charlie McDowell)
ROMA (Alfonso Cuarón)
SAINT FRANCES (Alex Thompson & Kelly O’Sullivan)
SUPPORT THE GIRLS (Andrew Bujalski)
THREADS (Mick Jackson)

Cody Corrall
Favorite Films of 2019 (in accordance with US release dates):
1. PARASITE (Bong Joon-ho)
2. THE FAREWELL (Lulu Wang)
3. THE IRISHMAN (Martin Scorsese)
4. KNIFE+HEART (Yann Gonzalez)
5. UNCUT GEMS (Safdie Brothers)
6. A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD (Marielle Heller)
7. THE LIGHTHOUSE (Robert Eggers)
8. CHARLIE SAYS (Mary Harron)
9. THE NIGHTINGALE (Jennifer Kent)
10. HER SMELL (Alex Ross Perry)

Favorite Films of 2019 (that have yet to be widely released in the US):
1. AND THEN WE DANCED (Levan Akin)
2. PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE (Céline Sciamma)
3. MAGGIE (Lee Ok-seop)
4. LOST TRANSMISSIONS (Katherine O'Brien)
5. INICIALES S.G. (Rania Attieh, Daniel Garcia)
6. BLOW THE MAN DOWN (Danielle Krudy, Bridget Savage Cole)
7. CIRCUS OF BOOKS (Rachel Mason)
8. AAMIS (Bhaskar Hazarika)
9. THE TRUTH (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
10. SWALLOW (Carlo Mirabella-Davis)

Honorable mentions: LITTLE WOMEN (Greta Gerwig), THE BEACH BUM (Harmony Korine), BLISS (Joe Begos), HAIL SATAN? (Penny Lane), US (Jordan Peele)

John Dickson
THE IRISHMAN (Martin Scorsese)
PARASITE (Bong Joon-ho)
THE IMAGE BOOK (Jean Luc Godard)
VITALINA VARELA (Pedro Costa)
HOTEL BY THE RIVER (Hong Sang-soo)
DOMINO (Brian De Palma)
HIGH LIFE (Claire Denis)
ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD (Quentin Tarantino)
UNCUT GEMS (Josh & Benny Safdie)
LA FLOR (Mariano Llinás)

Dark Horse: UNDER THE SILVER LAKE (David Robert Mitchell)

Marilyn Ferdinand
Favorite New Features (in no particular order):
WOMAN AT WAR (Benedikt Erlingsson, 2018)
COMMUNION (Anna Zamecka, 2018)
THE LITTLE COMRADE (Moonika Siimets, 2018)
WORKING WOMAN (Michal Aviad, 2018)
CHARLIE SAYS (Mary Harron, 2018)
NON-FICTION (Olivier Assayas, 2018)
BOMBAY ROSE (Gitanjali Rao, 2019)
PAIN AND GLORY (Pedro Almodóvar, 2019)
PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE (Céline Sciamma, 2019)
MS. PURPLE (Justin Chon, 2019)
LITTLE JOE (Jessica Hausner, 2019)
LITTLE WOMEN (Greta Gerwig, 2019)
JOJO RABBIT (Taika Waititi, 2019)
ALELÍ (Leticia Jorge Romero, 2019)
KNIVES OUT (Rian Johnson, 2019)

Favorite New Documentaries (in no particular order):
HAPPY WINTER (Giovanni Totaro, 2017)
WHAT IS DEMOCRACY? (Astra Taylor, 2018)
ROLL RED ROLL (Nancy Schwartzman, 2018)
AMAZING GRACE (Alan Elliott, Sydney Pollack, 2018)
MAIDEN (Alex Holmes, 2018)
#FEMALE PLEASURE (Barbara Miller, 2018)
ONE CHILD NATION (Nanfu Wang, Jialing Zhang, 2019)
F*** YOUR HAIR (Jason Polevoi, 2019)
SERENDIPITY (Prune Nourry, 2019)
AT THE HEART OF GOLD (Erin Lee Carr, 2019)
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MY MOTHER (Beniamino Barrese, 2019)

Favorite Older Films First Seen in 2019:
HOTEL IMPERIAL (Mauritz Stiller, 1927)
FRAGMENT OF AN EMPIRE (Fridrikh Ermler, 1929)
HALSTED STREET (Conrad O. Nelson, 1931)
MERRILY WE GO TO HELL (Dorothy Arzner, 1932)
THE NIGHT PORTER (Liliana Cavani 1973)
PERFUMED NIGHTMARE (Kidlat Tahimik, 1977)
THE LATE SHOW (Robert Benton, 1977)
CITY OF LOST SOULS (Rosa von Praunheim, 1983)
YEAR OF THE QUIET SUN (Krzysztof Zanussi, 1984)
WANDERERS OF THE DESERT (Nacer Khemir, 1984)
CAROL’S JOURNEY (Imanol Uribe, 2002)
SEMANA SANTA (Alejandra Márquez Abella, 2015)

Hall of Fame:
Cine-File’s very own Mike Metzger for reviving Block Cinema’s program with his excellent taste, adventurous programming, and interesting guest speakers.

Patrick Friel
Top Retrospective/Vintage Films with Chicago Public Screenings in 2019 Seen by Me for the First Time (plus One Sort-of-New Film and One New Film That Didn’t Screen in Chicago Proper)

(Note: some of these I saw via online or digital preview copies)

[SAN FRANCISCO AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE] (1906, Miles Brothers) [35mm; Chicago Film Society/Music Box Theatre and Block Cinema at the Block Museum of Art]

FILIBUS (1915, Mario Roncoroni) [Digital; Gene Siskel Film Center]

HE BUTTS INTO THE MOVIES AGAIN (1916, Gregory La Cava) [16mm; Chicago Film Society/Music Box Theatre]

WORLD CITY IN ITS TEENS: A REPORT ON CHICAGO (1931, Heinrich Hauser) [35mm; Chicago Film Society/Music Box Theatre]

LOOK-OUT SISTER (1947, Bud Pollard) [35mm; Chicago Film Society at NEIU]

THE LIFE OF JUANITA CASTRO (1965, Andy Warhol) [16mm; Block Cinema at the Block Museum of Art]

WEALTH OF A NATION (1964, William Greaves) [16mm; Chicago Film Society at NEIU]

DIALOGUE WITH CHE (1968, José Rodriguez-Soltero) [16mm; Block Cinema at the Block Museum of Art]

SANRIZUKA: HETA VILLAGE (1973, Shinsuke Ogawa) [16mm; South Side Projections at Logan Center for the Arts/University of Chicago]

EQUATION TO AN UNKNOWN (1980, Dietrich De Velda) [Digital; Music Box Theatre]

OUR CENTURY (1983, Artavzd Peleshian) [35mm; Block Cinema at the Block Museum of Art]

ISHTAR (1987, Elaine May) [35mm; Block Cinema at the Block Museum of Art]

JAZZ ’34: REMEMBRANCES OF KANSAS CITY SWING (1997, Robert Altman) [35mm; Chicago Film Society at the Music Box Theatre]

THE WANDERING SOAP OPERA (1990/2017, Raul Ruiz and Valeria Sarmiento) [Digital; Facets Cinémathèque]

6 UNDERGROUND (2019, Michael Bay) [Digital; suburban locations/Netflix]

Not on my main list, as I curated the screening they appeared in, but also these, which were at Block Cinema at the Block Museum of Art:

[Vitagraph Fragments No. 5] (1908) [35mm]

THE SALE OF A HEART (1913, Maurice Costello and Robert Gaillard) [35mm]

WHEN THE EARTH TREMBLED, OR THE STRENGTH OF LOVE (1913, Barry O’Neil) [35mm]

Jonathan Leithold-Patt
1. PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE
2. AD ASTRA
3. THE IRISHMAN
4. WAVES
5. MARRIAGE STORY
6. THE BODY REMEMBERS WHEN THE WORLD BROKE OPEN
7. A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
8. I LOST MY BODY
9. LITTLE WOMEN
10. UNCUT GEMS

JB Mabe
Work seen for the first time by me theatrically in Chicago in 2019.

I. 
MODEL TODDLE (Bob Cowan, 1967)
NOW 2 (Kevin Eskew, 2019)
DESNUDO CON ALCATRACES (Nude with Lillies, Silvia Gruner, 1986)
US (Jordan Peele, 2019) 

V. 
I HOPE I’M LOUD WHEN I’M DEAD (Beatrice Gibson, 2019)
GRETA (Neil Jordan, 2018)

VII. 
A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD (Marielle Heller, 2019)

VII. 
ONCE, MAYBE TWICE; OR, THE CLOCKWORK OF SUMMER (Dicky Bahto, 2017)
WHAT IS NOTHING (AFTER WHAT IS NOTHING) (Kristin Reeves, 2019)

X. 
HALE COUNTY THIS MORNING, THIS EVENING (RaMell Ross, 2018)

Michael Metzger
Narrative:
1. I WAS AT HOME, BUT (Angela Schanelec)
2. TRANSIT (Christian Petzold)
3. VITALINA VARELA (Pedro Costa)
4. FIRE WILL COME (Oliver Laxe)
5. PETERLOO (Mike Leigh)
6. HUSTLERS (Lorene Scafaria)
7. AN ELEPHANT SITTING STILL (Hu Bo)
8. JUST 6.5 (Saeed Roustayi)
9. JALLIKATU (Lijo Jose Pellissery)
10. THE BODY REMEMBERS WHEN THE WORLD SPLIT OPEN (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Kathleen Hepburn)
11. ENDLESS NIGHT (Eloy Enciso Cachafeiro)
12. BAIT (Mark Jenkin)
13. PARASITE (Bong Joon-Ho)
14. EMPTY METAL (Adam Khalil and Bayley Sweitzer)
15. GHOST TROPIC (Bas Devos) 
16. PAIN AND GLORY (Pedro Almodóvar)
17. EMA (Pablo Larraín)
18. THE SOUVENIR (Joanna Hogg)
19. ROJO (Benjamin Naishtat)
20. KNIVES AND SKIN (Jennifer Reeder)

Documentary:
1. THE HOTTEST AUGUST (Brett Story)
2. SWARM SEASON (Sarah Christman)
3. BLACK MOTHER (Khalik Allah)
4. MIDNIGHT FAMILY (Luke Lorentzen)
5. MY FIRST FILM (Zia Anger)
6. ISADORA’S CHILDREN (Damien Manivel)
7. LOS REYES (Bettina Perut, Iván Osnovikoff)
8. JUST DON’T THINK I’LL SCREAM (Frank Beauvais)
9. INFINITE FOOTBALL (Corneliu Porumboiu)
10. THE TWO FACES OF A BAMILEKE WOMAN (Rosine Mbakam)

Experimental:
1. 2008 (Blake Williams)
2. A LEAF IS A SEA IS A THEATER (Jonathan Schwartz)
3 (tie). THIS ACTION LIES (James N. Kienitz Wilkins) & KODAK (Andrew Norman Wilson)
4. INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO MAKE A FILM (Nazlı Dinçel)
5. THE EDDIES (Madsen Minax)
6. GARDEN CITY BEAUTIFUL (Ben Balcom)
7. THE REVERSAL (Jennifer Boles)
8. RECEIVER (Jenny Brady)
9. MAGIC BATH (Grace Mitchell)
10. BLACK BUS STOP (Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena N. Harold)
11. LYNDALE (Oli Rodriguez & Victoria Stob)

Local revival screenings:
1. YAMA: ATTACK TO ATTACK (Mitsuo Sato and Kyoichi Yamaoka, Justice Hotel)
2. HARMFUL INSECT (Akihiko Shiota, Doc Films)
3. JAZZ & THE L.A. REBELLION (Chicago Film Society)
4. JEROVI (José Rodríguez-Soltero, The Gate Theater Film Festival at filmfront)
5. GEORG (Stanton Kaye, The Gate Theater Film Festival at filmfront)
6. NOTHING HAPPENED THIS MORNING (David Bienstock, The Gate Theater Film Festival at filmfront)
7. TRUST (Hal Hartley, Chicago Film Society)
8. WORLD CITY IN ITS TEENS (Heinrich Hauser, Chicago Film Society
9. THE BIG CITY (Satyajit Ray, Doc Films)
10. OLD BOYFRIENDS (Joan Tewkesbury, Chicago Film Society)

Scott Pfeiffer
Top 10 of 2019
1. THE IRISHMAN (Martin Scorsese)
2. ROLLING THUNDER REVUE: A BOB DYLAN STORY BY MARTIN SCORSESE (Martin Scorsese)
3. LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (Bi Gan)
4. PARASITE (Bong Joon-Ho)
5. UNCUT GEMS (Josh and Benny Safdie)
6. THE IMAGE BOOK (Jean-Luc Godard)
7. US (Jordan Peele)
8. AN ELEPHANT SITTING STILL (Hu Bo)
9. VARDA BY AGNES (Agnes Varda)
10. ONCE UPON A TIME...IN HOLLYWOOD (Quentin Tarantino

Kathleen Sachs
Favorite New(-ish) Releases I Saw for the First Time in 2019
1. “I DO NOT CARE IF WE GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS BARBARIANS” (Radu Jude, 2018)
2. THE DISTANT BARKING OF DOGS (Simon Lereng Wilmont, 2018)
3. PAIN AND GLORY (Pedro Almodóvar, 2019)
4 (Tie). CHEZ JOLIE COIFFURE/THE TWO FACES OF A BAMILÉKÉ WOMAN (Rosine Mbakam, 2019)
5. LYNDALE (Oli Rodriguez and Victoria Stob, 2018)
6. PETERLOO (Mike Leigh, 2019)
7. THE BLONDE ONE (Marco Berger, 2019)
8. SWORD OF TRUST (Lynn Shelton, 2019)
9. VARDA BY AGNÈS (Agnès Varda, 2019)
10. BLACK BUS STOP (Kevin Everson and Claudrena Harold, 2019)

Special Mentions: RICHARD JEWELL (Clint Eastwood, 2019); PASOLINI (Abel Ferrara, 2014); THE SOUVENIR (Joanna Hogg, 2019); GRASS (Hong Sang-soo, 2018); A HIDDEN LIFE (Terrenc Malick, 2019); FORD V FERRARI (James Mangold, 2019); COME COYOTE (Dani Leventhal ReStack and Sheilah ReStack, 2019); DARK WATERS (Todd Haynes, 2019); TERMINATOR: DARK FATE (Tim Miller, 2019); AD ASTRA (James Gray, 2019); STAN & OLLIE (Jon S. Baird, 2018); THE DEAD DON’T DIE (Jim Jarmusch, 2019); TEMBLORES (Jayro Bustamante, 2019); QUEEN & SLIM (Melina Matsoukas, 2019); FRANKIE (Ira Sachs, 2019); DESTROYER (Karyn Kusama, 2018); ASH IS PUREST WHITE (Jia Zhangke, 2018); THE SOWER (Marine Francen, 2019); 36 HOURS (Adam Sekuler, 2019); THE FAREWELL (Lulu Wang, 2019)

Harrison Sherrod
TOP 10 NEWISH FILMS OF 2019 (no order)
Lots of doppelgängers, ghosts, and strange metaphysical glitches & feedback loops. Cinema died in the 2010s! Long live cinema!
1. LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, dir. Bi Gan
2. THE COMPETITION, dir. Claire Simon
3. THE WHISTLERS / INFINITE FOOTBALL dir. Corneliu Porumboiu
4. ASAKO I & II, dir. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
5. ATLANTICS, dir. Mati Diop
6. TRANSIT, dir. Christian Petzold
7. AD ASTRA, dir. James Gray
8. EVERYBODY IN THE PLACE, dir. Jeremy Deller
9. A FAITHFUL MAN, dir. Louis Garrel
10. DEATH STRANDING (Launch Trailer), dir. Hideo Kojima

\ \ \

TOP 10 FILMS NOT MADE IN 2019 THAT I WATCHED IN 2019
1. HYEENAS, dir. Djibril Diop Mambéty (1992)
2. A MAN VANISHES, dir. Shohei Imamura (1967)
3. MINUTE BODIES: THE INTIMATE WORLD OF F. PERCY SMITH, dir. Stuart A. Staples (2018)
4. OFFICE KILLER, dir. Cindy Sherman (1997)
5. MARATHON MILE, dir. Steve De Jarnatt (1989)
6. THE GREEN FOG, dirs. Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson (2017)
7. THE ONION FIELD, dir. Harold Becker (1979)
8. BLACK COAL, THIN ICE, dir. Diao Yinan (2014)
9. THE TASK, dir. Leah Ledare (2018)
10. THE CENTURY OF THE SELF, dir. Adam Curtis (2002)

Michael Glover Smith
My Top 10 Films of 2019 (only including titles that first screened in Chicago theatrically in the past calendar year):
10. BLACK MOTHER (Khalik Allah)
9. ATLANTICS (Mati Diop)
8. UNCUT GEMS (Josh and Benny Safdie)
7. HIGH LIFE (Claire Denis)
6. I WAS AT HOME, BUT... (Angela Schanelec)
5. A HIDDEN LIFE (Terrence Malick)
4. COINCOIN AND THE EXTRA-HUMANS (Bruno Dumont)
3. THE IMAGE BOOK (Jean-Luc Godard)
2. (tie) THE IRISHMAN / ROLLING THUNDER REVUE: A BOB DYLAN STORY (Martin Scorsese)
1. VITALINA VARELA (Pedro Costa)

Extended Top 25 with commentary here: https://whitecitycinema.com/2019/12/20/my-top-25-films-of-2019/

K.A. Westphal
Best Films of 2019
BEANPOLE (Kantemir Balagov) *
A BREAD FACTORY (Patrick Wang)
DIVINE LOVE (Gabriel Mascaro) *
EMA (Pablo Larraín) ^*
GIVE ME LIBERTY (Kirill Mikhanovsky) ^
GREENER GRASS (Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebee)
HER SMELL (Alex Ross Perry)
INCITEMENT (Yaron Zilberman) *
INVISIBLE LIFE (Karim Aïnouz)
LITTLE WOMEN (Greta Gerwig)
MARRIAGE STORY (Noah Baumbach
MONEYCHANGER (Federico Veiroj) §
LOS REYES (Iván Osnovikoff and Bettina Perut)
ROUNDS (Stephan Komandarev) §
SIBYL (Justine Triet) ^*
SUNSET (László Nemes)
TRAVEL STOP (Mike Gibisser)

^ Disclosure: Distributed by my employer, Music Box Films
* 2020 Theatrical Release
§ No US distributor

Best Films I Saw for the First Time in 2019
AUDIENCE (Barbara Hammer, 1983)
THE CRY OF JAZZ (Edward Bland, 1959)
DAGUERRÉOTYPES (Agnès Varda, 1976)
DRIFTING CLOUDS (Aki Kaurismäki 1996)
DRIVE-IN (Rod Amateau, 1976)
HOTEL IMPERIAL (Mauritz Stiller, 1927)
PLAY IT AS IT LAYS (Frank Perry, 1972)
REMEMBRANCE: A PORTRAIT STUDY (Edward Owens, 1967)
SATAN MET A LADY (William Dieterle, 1936)
SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS (Sergei Parajanov, 1964)

Interview with MOVING PARTS producer John Otterbacher

By Michael Glover Smith 

MOVING PARTS is an auspicious debut feature for American writer/director Emilie Upczak. This potent social-realist drama, which deals with the smuggling of a young Chinese woman, Zhenzhen (Valerie Tian), to Trinidad and Tobago where she falls into a life of prostitution, admirably refuses to either exploit or exoticize its subject matter. Upczak will be on hand to discuss the film when it receives its local premiere at the Gene Siskel Film Center on Friday, January 3. Producer John Otterbacher will join her for the Q&A at that screening and will also appear for audience discussion on Tuesday, January 7. I recently spoke to Otterbacher at his Chicago studio where most of the post-production on the film was carried out.

Michael Glover Smith: How does a filmmaker from the Midwest end up producing a film about a Chinese woman living in the Caribbean?

John Otterbacher: In my late 30s I went back to film school to get an MFA at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Totally fell in love with the program, loved the people there. My partner in crime, day one of being in Vermont, was Emilie (Upczak). We just clicked. It was her thesis project to write this script. But I’d produced films before and I’m hanging out with Emilie and she’s like, “You’ve made movies. Can you help me make this movie?” So she put me on the project early as a producer and kind of tapped me for knowledge. And while we were in school, she applied for and got a grant in Trinidad, which was a large amount of the funding for this. Trinidad’s economy was up, they were trying to encourage filmmaking and art in the area, and she had lived in Trinidad: She ran the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival. So, we graduate and within a year of her graduating, she makes the film. I wasn’t even there for the shoot but I helped with crewing up, equipment, story, budget, everything. And she had a plan for post-production; she was trying to take advantage of a tax credit in Puerto Rico. So post-production started there but it wasn’t working out. And I said, “let’s bring it here (to Chicago). I’ve got my team.” Every film I’ve been on, by necessity, I’ve had to take all the way through to delivery. Every film I’ve worked on has come through this space. You do it enough times and you feel confident. And I’ve got a good team of people who help me. With Emilie and I, there’s a trust thing. I think that’s one of the most important things about the director/producer relationship that gets overlooked. People think producers are about money. I’m not a money guy. I’m a “how do we get things done?” problem solver. How can we make the movie better? So that trust between the two of us is key. She came here and she worked with my editor, Jon Gollner, and sound designer, Kris Franzen. And we worked with another one of our VCFA classmates, Rafael Attias: He’s in Rhode Island but he’s from Venezuela. He’s amazing. He did the original score for the film.

MGS: Which is great, by the way.

JO: Thank you. We were very happy with it. He knows what that place sounds like, that part of the world. But he also added sound-design elements. He would bring elements to us and Chris would mix it. Chris is from the Midwest. He doesn’t know what Trinidad sounds like. But, between Emilie and Rafael, they were like, “You need these ‘peepers,’” these little frogs and different things. And they really build the world of the film for me. 

MGS: I think the film does a good job of putting a human face on the issue of sex trafficking, which is something everyone has heard about but is something of an abstract concept for most people. Was that always the goal for you guys? 

JO: Emilie, for a long time, was like, “This is not a sex trafficking movie.” She said, “This is a movie about a young woman who chooses to follow her brother to another country, for family reasons, and makes a series of bad choices influenced by dubious people.” And a lot of people talk about her being a prostitute. Prostitution isn’t sex trafficking. Well, they overlap, let’s say. I’m not an expert in that area. In Emilie’s opinion, she’s like, “This is a choice for some people. And I’m not saying Zhenzhen made good choices. She was in a difficult spot." So that was something we constantly discussed because, for me, it was always a human trafficking film. I just thought that was, I don’t want to say “the angle,” because I don’t want to put it in a box, but you are always looking for ways to describe the film to people. We’re talking about a young woman who, initially, was smuggled; she paid someone to be moved.

MGS: And that person then demanded more money as soon as she arrived. 

JO: Right, and that’s where smuggling and human trafficking very much overlap. For me it is a human trafficking movie. But, initially, Emilie wanted to tell the story and put a human face on something that most of us overlook. She didn’t want to paint Zhenzhen as this victim. I think that was really important to Emilie. You can see how someone makes a series of choices because of the situation they’re in. It’s not as simple as “These bad people went to this place and grabbed these people and brought them here as slaves.” It’s a series of choices and people taking advantage of people in bad spots combined that leads someone to this point. She definitely wanted Zhenzhen to be a real character and there were some points in the edit where there had been some storylines developed where it was more of a crime thriller. And we got feedback where people were like, “Oh, you should develop that more.” And we were like, “But we didn’t shoot that, really.” And so there was this strange pressure to make a crime thriller or a psychological thriller, which are genres that people understand – as opposed to this movie, which I think challenges people in a different way. And so, at the end of the day, Emilie felt strongly, “This is the story that I want to tell.”

MGS: Valerie Tian is great as Zhenzhen. She has this interesting quality of being very naturalistic while also having kind of a movie-star quality. She knows how to hold the screen. I know she’s a professional actress and I assume a lot of the rest of the cast are non-professionals. Can you talk about the casting process and blending different performance styles?

JO: Casting, as you know, is critical. You have to make certain choices by necessity. Valerie was not a choice made out of necessity. Casting on a low-budget film is often: I’ve got to cast these characters and I’m going to have to use locals and people where this is not their full-time job but they’re enthusiastic. If you’re doing something authentic and you have a good relationship with the community, which Emilie did, people want to be involved. And then I need to bring in these people who are pros: Valerie and Kandyse (McClure) were both in that department. And the willingness of people to go to Trinidad – and I’m not sure if it was the allure of something exotic and different, which I’m sure helped – but actors, if they’re into something, get excited and are willing to do things that they wouldn’t do for a big studio film or T.V. show. So there was a great mix. I thought Valerie was great. This is not a knock on Valerie but, the first cut of the movie, I didn’t think that her performance was great. It’s interesting how performances can kind of come out in post-production. That’s where my hands, particularly on the creative side, were most in this film. That was really interesting to me. Because I do think now, I agree with you, her performance is the movie in a lot of ways.

MGS: Her facial expressions are always compelling. 

JO: It did come out in the editing. The first pass: you just drop in the best-looking takes or the takes that are like, “We’ve got to get all the lines of dialogue in the film.” You follow the script; the script is your road map to the film. Then you get past the rough cut and you’re like, “Screw the script. The script doesn’t mean anything at this point. This is the footage we have.” We looked for what is the essence of her character. Sometimes the essence of the character is not necessarily in the best takes. You think it is but then it’s not. We certainly didn’t “create” her performance but post-production is a place where you can find the right performance for the film.

Interview with KNIVES AND SKIN director Jennifer Reeder

By Michael Glover Smith 

Imagine a feminist take on the Hollywood teen comedies of the 1980s, one that examines how the trauma and grief engendered by a missing person’s case can reverberate through an entire society – strengthening the bonds between some characters while exacerbating the tensions between others. Now imagine that film being lit like a giallo and punctuated by a capella musical numbers. Can’t do it? That’s probably because KNIVES AND SKIN, the splendid second feature by writer/director Jennifer Reeder, doesn’t look or sound like anything you’ve seen before. The locally made film, produced by Newcity’s Chicago Film Project, has taken the festival world by storm ever since its World Premiere at the Berlinale at the beginning of 2019. KNIVES AND SKIN will open at the Music Box Theatre for a theatrical run beginning, appropriately enough, on Friday the 13th. I recently spoke to Jennifer in person about her cinematic and literary influences and her singular approach to editing, lighting and music.

Michael Glover Smith: I loved your film. Are you tired of the TWIN PEAKS comparisons yet?

Jennifer Reeder: No, I’m not, I’m not! There are other comparisons that have not come up that I am very thankful for. But TWIN PEAKS is not one of them.

MGS: I think TWIN PEAKS is the greatest thing ever but your film is very different, stylistically and narratively. The comparison does seem valid in the sense that they both have central mysteries that serve as a narrative hook: In your case, the disappearance of Carolyn Harper allows you to go into all of these different homes and paint a portrait of an entire community. Was the concept of a missing girl always the point of origin for you?

JR: No, the starting point was actually wanting to write a story about a group of girls who had been very close when they were younger, like maybe in middle school, and had grown apart, and something happens to them that sort of forces them to be friends again, to come back together. I wanted to make a gentle, girl-power film, you know? I had made a bunch of short films leading up to this that were suggesting coming of age is a lifelong process, and sort of dealing with the lives of adolescent girls. There was often a dark element. But with KNIVES AND SKIN, I was driving back to Ohio to see my mother along this rural two-lane road - very typical of that area, or all of the Midwest, really - and sort of imagined these three goth-punk girls walking along that road - on their way to band practice, on their way to school, on their way home from school - and just knowing that there are kids in small towns all over the country who feel like misfits in their environment. They feel like misfits in their own skin but they actually look like misfits in their environment. I thought that was a great visual analogy for so many people who feel like they’re at a crossroads in life. So I started thinking about who those three girls are and what is about to happen to them that will change their lives forever. It’s such a typical moment in small towns: If someone, in particular a young person, goes missing, it gives the entire town an excuse to drop everything and refocus their lives - oftentimes in a way that transforms their lives, and everyone can exorcise their own psychosis and obsession through this other event. I feel like that general structure is what I liked about TWIN PEAKS: All those psychotic threads among the townspeople led back to Laura Palmer. But I was also influenced by RIVER’S EDGE, and that film did the opposite thing: That dead girl became a fissure through the lives of these young people but she was much more invisible than Laura Palmer. So it’s kind of fusing those two stories. But in terms of the world of David Lynch, I actually feel much more influenced by BLUE VELVET.

MGS: I thought about that while watching KNIVES AND SKIN.

JR: The kind of unraveling of another horrific mystery, and those two main characters trying to figure out what exactly has happened, and lots of other people are involved, and the mistrust in the town… Or even something like LOST HIGHWAY I feel has this really great way of suggesting these parallel worlds. For some people that can be a very frustrating experience but I really love how he creates this kind of plot-maze and oftentimes the plot is like a staircase that goes nowhere. It’s like a funhouse.

MGS: A puzzle with no ultimate solution.

JR: Correct. Some people don’t like it at all. I find it wickedly entertaining.

MGS: I thought about BLUE VELVET in terms of your production design. One thing Lynch does that I think is amazing, which you also do in a different and more female-centric way, is he makes films that are very culturally specific that are also universal and timeless. There are large sections of BLUE VELVET that feel like they could be taking place in the 1950s but then one little detail will snap you back into the present. Like Kyle MacLachlan’s earring will make you realize, “Oh, wait, we’re in the ‘80s.” Your film is similar because so much of it seems like it could be taking place in the ‘90s or the ‘80s or the ‘70s.

JR: I really tried to eliminate phones but there’s one scene where you realize they all have smart phones.

MGS: Right, when everyone gets the text from Carolyn. Well, it’s not very cinematic to see people spending a lot of time on their phones!

JR: Right. I did that on purpose. I wanted it to feel frozen in space and time. The ‘80s sensibility has a lot to do with my own autobiography but also the ‘80s were such a delicious time for teen films. So this is a film that sort of knows it’s a teen film. It has a kind of self-consciousness about it. And there’s something about ‘70s Italian horror, the colors of that, which felt really relevant. And then I think, certainly, there’s a kind of ‘80s club-kid fashion that exists among some of those girls.

MGS: A lot of high-school fashion is timeless: The letter-jackets, the cheerleader uniforms, the band uniforms…

JR: Correct. Yeah, and I wanted those characters to feel iconic or emblematic. Not so much like caricatures, although maybe when you’re first introduced to them you think you know them: You think you know who a cheerleader is, you think you know who a girl in the band is, you think you know who the jock is. But I also wanted for those expectations of those characters to unravel over the course of the film.

MGS: You were successful in that. Speaking of the ‘80s, I saw that someone recently compared KNIVES AND SKIN to Kathy Acker and that you were happy about that. I imagine Blood and Guts in High School must’ve been formative for you?

JR: Yeah, absolutely. It was super-cool to have a literary reference for the film. And, in that same tweet, Audra Lorde was mentioned. They’re very different writers but both, rest in peace, my queens. I feel like I’ve been deeply influenced by literature as much as by other films. And I think there have been so many female writers who have taken on the same subject matter as this film - a kind of abject approach to femininity or a kind of toppling of a patriarchy or dealing with gender and race in a very pointed way. People have asked me a lot about women and genre and “Isn’t this an interesting time for women in genre because so many women are taking it on or being handed opportunities to deal with genre?” But people forget that, in terms of literature, Mary Shelley invented Frankenstein.

MGS: As a teenager!

JR: Yes, exactly! Or Daphne DuMaurier, from Rebecca to The Birds to My Cousin Rachel and on and on. Or Patricia Highsmith. We could go on and on. There are so many women in literature who have dealt with such complex subject matter in terms of female identity.

MGS: And, in Acker’s case, female trauma.

JR: Female trauma, for sure. So that comparison, it just felt like that was exactly my audience. Not that I went into this thinking about Blood and Guts or thinking specifically about Kathy Acker but I do feel like I have these kind of wicked angels on my shoulder when I go into telling certain stories. And Audra Lorde and Kathy Acker are both right there along with me.

MGS: Let’s talk about this film as a portrait of the Midwest. It feels very Midwestern but I couldn’t tell if you cared exactly where it was set. Is it Illinois? Is it Indiana? Is it Wisconsin? Is it Ohio? It could be any of those places.

JR: Correct. So many of the films that I’ve written - almost every single one of them - in my brain, the landscape is Ohio, which is where I grew up. However, I’ve been living at the border of Illinois and Indiana for longer than I lived in Ohio, actually. And I will never not write films about the Midwest even if it’s more of a city film rather than a rural film. There was a time when we thought about shooting this in Louisville, Kentucky. Someone who was interested in producing it was living in Louisville. And that seemed interesting to me but then it also occurred to me I know nothing about Louisville, Kentucky. And perhaps even setting it in Kentucky and thinking about it as being Southern Gothic rather than Midwestern Gothic, I didn’t really know what that world was. So I wanted to set it in a place where it’s unidentified. The high school is Big River High School and that doesn’t even identify the state that they’re in. And I don’t presume that the Midwest owns refineries or quarries, you know? But it also feels like that kind of landscape - the refinery, the quarry, a river running through a town - does feel Midwestern. And there’s something about the sort of awkwardness and stubbornness of the people in this film that also feels Midwestern. It also felt really important that this film is not a city film but yet it’s very inclusive in terms of the cast, which to me feels really authentic. Where I grew up in Ohio and where I live right now in the northwest tip of Indiana, both have small-town Midwestern sensibilities and they’re racially really diverse. I think there are a lot of films that are made for young people of color or with young people of color in front of the camera and they’re city films and I just think that that’s not completely accurate.

MGS: It feels like your attitude toward the town is ambivalent. The scene that resonated the most for me is the one where the kids go up on the roof. It made me think about where I’m from in North Carolina - because they’re all looking at this highway that leads out of town. And I’m thinking that some of them are going to leave and some of them are not. This town is a place where terrible things can happen and some people want to escape from that. Could you talk a little bit about your attitude toward the town?

JR: I was so happy to leave my hometown. There was a trail of scorched earth between there and here. But I do still write stories that take place in and around central Ohio so I do have a love for where I grew up but not in a nostalgic or sentimental way. That town is where I learned to be resilient to that town on some level, you know?

MGS: It made you who you are.

JR: It made me who I am. But what’s remarkable to me and what I injected into this film, and I don’t know how evident it is, are all the people who are my peers and even the peers of my older siblings who never left where they grew up and never wanted to leave where they grew up. So, the adults in KNIVES AND SKIN - there is the relationship between, we’ll call her the “pregnant mom,” and the clown dad, and when they are breaking up there’s a suggestion that they’ve known each other a long time. That they were actually maybe sweethearts in high school and have never left that town. And that’s just remarkable to me. I can understand growing up in Chicago, growing up in New York, growing up in L.A. and never leaving because those cities evolve on some level. I think that small towns don’t evolve. And the idea that you would yourself want to evolve but that you are literally running into your high-school friends at the grocery store just seems like a nightmare to me. My mom still lives in the house where I grew up. And when I go home to visit, I still have a cluster of friends I’ve known since elementary school who I love to see. A lot of them went away to college and came back and are doing remarkable things but they have the context of at least going away for a little while and bringing all of that evolution back to whatever they’re doing. So it’s ambivalent in the sense that I’m very happy I left, I’m very happy for the young people in this film who will leave, and I still have love for the people who didn’t leave even though that wasn’t the path for me.

MGS: The word “dreamlike” has been used to describe this film a lot, which I think is the result of the way you use lighting, color, music and, especially, dissolves. This is something I don’t think many people have remarked upon but your use of dissolves strikes me as one of your signature aesthetic moves. I’ve talked to a lot of editors who don’t like dissolves. They’ll say, “They look good on film but not on digital,” or “They look good in black-and-white but not in color.” But you use them relentlessly. What is the appeal for you?

JR: On the one hand, I love putting two ideas in the same frame. Literally, you can put two people or two ideas in the same frame. And especially with something like this where there’s this ensemble cast, it was a way for me to suggest simultaneity. And oftentimes I would shoot heads or tails knowing that there were moments I could dissolve, and that there would be this great way that I could transition from one scene to the next physically through that dissolve and I knew, “This is going to look great dissolved into that moment.” And my editor, Mike Olenik, has perfected the long cross-dissolve. He’s got a really tricky way where - it takes him a long time once we know where those dissolves are - but he rebuilds, frame by frame, those dissolves and will sort of key out faces or something like that so that faces maintain longer. If you want to do it, it’s not just slapping on that cross-dissolve filter and moving on with your lives. It’s really making a pointed decision and then maintaining the integrity of the heads and tails of both of those scenes and really being able to finesse it and nuance it. But, I say this all the time, I went to art school, I didn’t go to film school. So there’s something about that kind of layering and collaging within a specific frame that aesthetically I really like. But it’s not a split screen. I hate a split screen and I love a long cross-dissolve. I feel like Mike and I have gotten really good at figuring out what scenes need them and then how to physically finesse that material so that those cross-dissolves are quite special.

MGS: Your use of color is also extraordinary. I wanted to ask how you decide what colors to use because they can really change the whole emotional tone of a scene. I’m thinking specifically of the first scene in the English class, there’s this pink light shining on the sides of the students’ faces. I thought, “This is amazing because it’s totally unmotivated.” It’s not a realistic use of color but, in a way, I wish my high school had looked like that. Who decides on the pink? Is that a discussion you have with your cinematographer?

JR: So it’s me and Chris Rejano, who shot a bunch of my films in the past 5 or 6 years, and our gaffer, Louie Lukasik, who’s actually the head gaffer on CHICAGO PD. He doesn’t always get to drench scenes in hot pink. But I said that I wanted the lighting to feel extraordinary in the sense that I wanted the whole thing to be hovering above reality. So, yes, the local light had a tint and the local light oftentimes had an invisible source. I mean, you’re a filmmaker so you can say, “Where is that light coming from?” Then when we switch to the other angle, you say, “I don’t even see the source of that light.” But I think for an audience who’s not so filmmaking-savvy, it could just be enough to kind of off-balance, to provide a different sort of tension in a scene. Even though those pinks and purples are really lovely, just not knowing where that light is coming from, those moments create a kind of unbalance, a kind of dis-ease. And I wanted the film to feel really femme! So I was like, “It’s got to be pink and purple!” Even the yellows and cyans that we used are still sort of poppy and not so much these darker greens or darker blues in a Cronenberg sense. They still are kind of delightful. And we shot with these vintage anamorphic lenses and so we knew that those lenses would do these really special things to the soft edges of those lights. And being able to fill the whole frame sometimes with these pools of contrasting light sources would just elevate the emotional and visual atmosphere of the film. On the very first day of shooting we put a pink light in one of the kitchens and Louie came to me and said, “Is that too weird?” And I said, “Let’s just assume we’re going for weird. It’s never going to be too weird.” Then we did all the color grading in Warsaw, Poland, with a woman was so in love with the film because Polish cinema still tends to be sort of drained of color. So she really loved being able to color this film.

MGS: To do something she normally wouldn’t be able to do?

JR: Yeah. It’s definitely a film where “more is more,” and I had full creative freedom, and I just feel so thankful that it’s finding super-fans.

MGS: Let’s talk about the music. In addition to everything else you do with genre, the film is a true musical. I was delighted to hear all of those songs because it seemed like the lyrical content was expressing what was going on between the characters. I think “I’ll Melt With You” was when the two girls were each in their own bedrooms but kind of singing to each other. And “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” was to me the real showstopper because you had kind of teased it in the dialogue so it was cathartic when it finally came. How did you decide which songs to use and were there any songs you wanted to use that you weren’t able to?

JR: Sure. A lot of the songs that are in there were some of the first choices: “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” “Our Lips Are Sealed,” “Blue Monday.” Even the Icicle Works song at the end, “Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream).” I was working with a company here, Groove Garden, to get the publishing rights because we knew that we would re-arrange them and re-perform them. I wanted all the songs, when I knew that they were going to be re-arranged as a kind of lamentation where we would really listen to the lyrics, that the lyrics had to have narrative content. It is, in a way, kind of a Greek chorus. So I had a list of songs but it wasn’t like any old list of ‘80s songs. I knew that it had to be something that, in its original form, was really infectious and poppy. But in its kind of eulogized form had to have a lot of pathos, a lot of melancholy, a lot of narrative weight. One of the first songs that was in the script that got jettisoned because we couldn’t get anybody to even answer an e-mail or phone call was Madonna’s “Lucky Star.” Which is a song that I really love and I knew that, slowed down, could be really spectacular. But we couldn’t get anybody to respond whatsoever. And I wanted to use “Don’t Change” by INXS, which is such a great, empowering anthem but it’s evidently really difficult to deal with posthumous estates. I wanted to use a Smiths song, “Bigmouth Strikes Again,” even though I don’t agree with Morrissey’s current politics. But it was going to be extremely expensive even just for the publishing rights. So we were like, “Okay, that’s a hard pass.” And the same thing with Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love” - even though the Soft Cell version is a cover of the original - but that song is also extremely expensive. I love the “I’ll Melt With You” moment. That was always in the script - that they would dissolve into each other. And there’s a great scene in 1983’s VALLEY GIRL that also uses that song so it was kind of an ode to VALLEY GIRL. And then when I figured out how to deal with “Promises, Promises” - that sort of P.T. Anderson/MAGNOLIA moment where all of the characters sing together - that felt like a real revelation for me, if I could be like, “Oh, I did it!” Because I’ve loved that scene in that film for a long, long time and that also can be a real polarizing scene where I think that some people are like, “What was that?” Maybe even more so than the frogs in that film. But, for me, I always thought that was a really beautiful way to tie together this ensemble cast. So figuring out that song and who would sing it and - again, that’s all cross-dissolves - how I would shoot that and where people would be was complicated but I think it’s one of my favorite parts of the film.

Interview with PARADISE NEXT director Yoshihiro Hanno

Kyle Cubr: How did PARADISE NEXT come to be?

Yoshihiro Hanno: Since 1998, I’ve been a film composer. So when I thought about [expression beyond just] a music career from colors to words to peoples’ emotions and so on, I thought the film could be a good art form to express those components.

KC: Speaking more to your career as a composer, you’ve worked with Jia Zhanke (on PLATFORM and THE MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART) and Hou Hsiao-Hsien (on FLOWERS OF SHANGHI). Have they had any influence on your filmmaking?

YH: What I most admire about them is that they created and established their style. Creating your own style is such a crucial element to be a great filmmaker. Through them, I learned how to establish my own style. I was influenced by them quite a bit. I put more weight on not creating a manipulative film but [in] creating a signature style that I could only do. I weighed [making] my own style with just making a film. 

KC: [What was the experience like of scoring your own film]?

YH: To me, the composing of film and directing of film is the same. Although those two roles are a part of making a film, directing to me is saying yes to this or no to this [such as] with editing. Music [and composing] helps get the film towards its goal. One thing I think that I might [do] different from other directors, not music-composer directors, is that I already create the sound design and music [while working] on the script. I can imagine what sound effects and music could come in [while I’m] writing and imagining where the story goes. It happens at the same time.

KC: The narrative follows a straight line but features these elliptical moments where either flashbacks to past events or waking dreams of people the characters faced in the past that remind me of refrains and codas in music. Was this your intention?

YH: With the chronological timeline, I’m not too conscious about how the music is composed in the flashbacks and with the gaps between the past and the present. I [focused] more on the harmony and balance. Its not necessarily the same songs. Its like a tone that I create. The same tone but different songs each time so that [makes something] distinguishing between the past and the present. [They’re] themes and variations. I believe the tone could be a trigger or clue for the people to know the story more and what would happen.

KC: Are you familiar with the movie DAISIES?

YH: No. Does it have a Japanese name?

KC: Probably but I wouldn’t know it. It’s a Czech film from the 60’s. There’s a few sequences in your film with a typewriter and someone typing at it that recall a similar image in DAISIES. [In PARADISE NEXT], Shima and Makino are reminiscent of the two rebellious spirits that lead DAISIES. I thought there were interesting parallels between the to films.

YH: DAISIES [is the name]? I’m curious and will have to look into it.

KC: I wanted to talk some about the colors of the film. There’re segments with pastels that contrast its more serious tone but at the same time there’s deep reds and golds when overlooking the palace. How do you feel about this use of color and any symbolism it portrays?

YH: In Taiwan and Asian countries, color tone is different from the Western world. It’s a little unbalanced to compare the symmetry [between the two]. (…) The story starts in Taipei where the colors are from the neon, store signs, and the rest of the city. I wanted to use those vivid colors only the city could have. When the story moves (…) to the countryside, the color is still vivid but it comes from nature, the greens of the grass and the blues of the ocean. I wanted the colors to feel natural as the story moves.

KC: Shima is a serious and tough guy while Makino is jovial and emotional. Their lives are tied together through their past and through tragedy. They have different responses to this. How did you approach their juxtaposition to one another? 

YH: When I created the two characters,, I [thought about how] there are two ways to handle tragedy. One is to not [show] anything and internalize it. The second is to [overly] lie and cover it through [excessive] talking [or faked emotions]. That’s the baseline for the two characters but they both have the same goal which is to hide the fact that something bad happened.

KC: With both characters in the film coming from Japan to Taiwan, did you identify with them at all since you’re also from Japan but made the film in Taiwan?

YH: I tried to be as truthful as possible and collaborate with the Taiwanese culture. I tried to have the characters customize themselves to the Taiwanese culture; however, there is one song that plays during three different parts that is based on the music of the indigenous people in Taiwan. I saw it more as Taiwan itself watching over them. That’s the feeling that I wanted to create. The story can be a little vague but I wanted to create a mythical or folktale feeling as if that’s what’s being told and it acts as a trigger for motivations. 

KC: What’s next?

YH: I have many projects lines up for film composing, particularly Chinese films, but I’ve started thinking about my next film as a director and to create a challenge. When you go to see a movie, the theatre gets dark but then the light comes up and projected onto the screen. I want to create something that challenges if that light is needed. I’m trying to create something totally fundamental but it might not align with what film itself is. That’s my ambition. Since I’m a composer, I want to create something that orients the film [to the sound and the music]. I want to make them the main components but still have a strong story. I hope it is a new experience for the audience.

KC: Thank you so much for your time and good luck with the festival.

YH: Thank you very much.

Interview with VITALINA VARELA director Pedro Costa

VITALINA VARELA screens three times at the Chicago International Film Festival: Monday, October 21 at 6pm, Tuesday, October 22 at 5:45pm and Friday, October 25 at 2:45pm.

By Michael Glover Smith

Pedro Costa has been one of the world’s most important filmmakers for the past quarter of a century. His latest, VITALINA VARELA, is, perhaps surprisingly, his first film to win the top award at a major film festival (Locarno). This deserved honor, coupled with theatrical distribution from the enterprising Grasshopper Films in the U.S., has the potential to bring his work to a wider audience than ever before. Over the course of his career, Costa’s unique, poetic style of filmmaking has evolved from working with full screenplays and professional actors (Isaach De Bankole and Edith Scob appear in 1994’s CASA DE LAVA) to casting non-professionals to portray some version of themselves (notably Cape Verdean immigrants living in working-class neighborhoods in Lisbon — including Fontainhas, the systematic destruction of which was captured in the director’s 2000 masterpiece IN VANDA’S ROOM). Along the way there have been side trips into documentary filmmaking proper (WHERE DOES YOUR HIDDEN SMILE LIE? and CHANGE NOTHING both document the working lives of artists Costa admires: filmmaking team Straub/Huillet and chanteuse/actress Jeanne Balibar, respectively).

VITALINA VARELA, however, feels like something of an apotheosis for Costa — his work in its purest form. Taking its title from the protagonist (and the actress who plays her), VITALINA VARELA is the darkest and most beautiful film he has yet made. No one knows how to light and frame images like Costa; where most directors film daytime interiors by framing actors against windows, and thus shooting into the light, Costa nearly always frames his subjects against walls in dark, cave-like interiors, allowing them to be illuminated only by the light entering from windows on the room’s opposite side. Of course, the resulting painterly images would be nothing if Costa’s cinematographic eye wasn’t focused on compelling subjects. Enter Vitalina Varela, a Cape Verdean woman whose sad story of attempting to join her husband in Portugal after decades apart, but arriving three days after his death, was first recounted during her brief appearance in 2014’s HORSE MONEY. Here, Varela is the whole show and her striking physicality and dramatic sotto voce line readings make her the year’s most remarkable screen presence. I conducted the following interview with Costa about the film via e-mail.

Michael Glover Smith: VITALINA VARELA is the darkest movie you've made. Almost every shot is either a nighttime exterior or a daytime interior that's shot in a dark location. Can you speak about why you've moved increasingly in this direction?



Pedro Costa: Vitalina had spent all her life under a grueling sun, working the land in the mountains of the Island of Santiago, Cape Verde. She married her first love, Joaquim, a boy from the same village, of Figueira das Naus. Like most Cape Verdean young men, Joaquim left his country, in 1977, with the promise of work as a bricklayer. Like all Cape Verdean girls, Vitalina remained, waiting and longing for a happy life. With his first money saved, Joaquim buys a brick and plate shack in the neighborhood of Cova da Moura, in the suburbs of Lisbon. He writes one or two letters to Vitalina, and calls her promising a plane ticket to come join him in Portugal. In 35 years, Joaquim will only return to Cape Verde twice. During his first stay, Joaquim and Vitalina begin building a house near the chapel of their home village. During his second, as soon as he arrives, he claims he must see a cousin in the north and takes the first plane back to Lisbon. This was the last time Vitalina saw him. Every other night he's seen wandering and stumbling in the dark alleyways of Cova da Moura. Rumor has it that he stabbed a fellow mason in a fight over some shady business. He misses work, his colleagues lose his trail, they knock on his door, but he never answers. He dies on June 23rd, 2013 and is buried the on 27th. Vitalina arrives in Portugal 3 days later. Nobody knows her in the neighborhood, no one comforts her, everyone turns a suspicious eye. These are the facts. And this is where the film begins. Vitalina spends countless days and nights locked in Joaquim's shack. She barely survives the pain and the nightmares.

MGS: Vitalina expresses a lot of different emotions in the film — grief, sorrow, disappointment, anger. What did she bring to the writing process and how did you shape that? I'm especially curious about some of the more poetic things she says - like when she criticizes her husband for chasing street women "like a lamb that escaped the barn.”

PC: I'm lucky to have the best scriptwriters. Of course, I keep an order to all things, I make my own suggestions, sometimes I add detail, I associate and crisscross a bit, but mainly, my job is to concentrate, to get it tighter and tighter. The film began to take shape as I started visiting Vitalina in the neighbourhood of Cova da Moura and talking with her every day. We had long talks. When I realized the amount of pain and grief that Vitalina was enduring, I thought that the film would be impossible. I told her it might not work. She kept saying: "If there's love, things will work out!" I kept telling her: "But your words will be in the film, they will be the film!"  She kept saying: "You must!' We talked every day: she told me about herself and her runaway husband Joaquim, about her peasant life in Cape Verde and her immigrant life in Lisbon... In the beginning was the word, and the word was Vitalina.



MGS: I understand the priest Ventura plays is based on a real person but in the chapel scenes it was impossible for me not to think about THE DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST. Was Bresson an influence in your depiction of a lonely priest who has lost his flock?

PC: "What a wonder that one can give what one doesn't possess, sweet miracle of our empty hands." It's impossible not to think of Bresson, it's unforgettable. Like the young priest of Ambricourt, Ventura is paying all the debts and bills of his immigrant parishioners with his shaky, empty hands. Like him, Ventura is a weak, exhausted, drunken, downcast priest. But there's also something in him of the healthy, strong preacher of STARS IN MY CROWN. I feel that Ventura has also a sparkle of the humor and wit that belong to that miracle man played by Joel McCrea. 

MGS: When I interviewed you about HORSE MONEY, you described the closing shots of Ventura looking at knives in a display window as his character "coming out of that long nightmare reinvigorated. He's ready for action and he needs a weapon." Can one say the same thing about Vitalina at the end of this film?

PC: We all know that people like Vitalina or Ventura or Vanda are condemned. When their boat leaves the harbour, the minute their plane takes off the ground, they are doomed. Since the day they are born. And maybe they've been condemned long before that. Just plain guilty. I can't give much to my Cape Verdean friends. I can't give them loads of money, I can't give them a bright future, I can't give them hope. But maybe there's everything to gain from our work in cinema. Cinema can set the record straight and, somehow, those who have been wronged will be avenged. A sweet miracle, indeed. Ventura quotes Saint Paul's letter to the Philippians: "Our country is in heaven". And he adds: "But fear can also enter heaven".

Mark Patton is not ashamed of being a scream queen—and he shouldn’t be

Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival continues through Sunday at Chicago Filmmakers (5720 N. Ridge Ave.).

Roman Chimienti and Tyler Jensen’s SCREAM, QUEEN! MY NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET screens at Chicago Filmmakers (5720 N. Ridge Ave.) on Sunday at 6pm.

Mark Patton and co-directors Tyler Jensen and Roman Chimienti are scheduled to attend the screening.

By Cody Corrall

If you ask a horror fan how they feel about A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET PART 2: FREDDY'S REVENGE, the response isn’t likely to be all-too positive. The highly anticipated sequel in the iconic film series was largely met with criticism—most of which was directed at actor Mark Patton for his performance as the vulnerable and queer-coded protagonist Jesse Walsh.

The spotlight on Patton—including questions of his sexuality and being dubbed a “scream queen”—forced him to come out to an unaccepting world and ultimately compromised his career as an actor when he was at his prime.

In SCREAM, QUEEN! MY NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, Patton tells his story in attempts to change the narrative. More than 30 years after the release of FREDDY'S REVENGE, Patton chronicles how he was treated by the media and the horror community at large, opens up about being HIV positive, and tries to find closure with the cards he was dealt with in a deep and honest way .

Spliced with Patton’s own story are insights from queer media scholars on the legacy of FREDDY'S REVENGE as well as queer horror fans who found parts of themselves in Jesse Walsh—so much so that they pay tribute to the film’s camp sensibilities through drag and other forms of queer self expression.

SCREAM, QUEEN! shines a light on an integral moment not just in Patton’s life, but also in the horror genre as it continues to reinvent the shared experience of what it means to be afraid in a terrifying world.

Cody Corrall: What was it like to revisit this time in your life? Do you feel like you ever really got away from it?

Mark Patton: I'm very at peace with what happened. You know, I've been making this documentary for over 3 years, almost 4 years. So, I've had a lot of time to process it. Now I'm out on the road—it's emotional to have your life story up on the screen every night. It's cathartic, fun. I'm meeting a lot of people. The movie is touching a lot of people which really...that makes me feel really good. People relate to it.

The movie didn't start out being about me...but over the course of maybe a year it became clearer and clearer what the story actually was. I'm a very open person and when I had talked about HIV that really was probably the most kind of fulfilling thing I did. When I put that glove on and I was on the cover of magazines and it was on CNN in minutes, it was, you know, there's nothing left to hide.

It's weird. Once in a while when my dad comes up on screen or something like that, I might get a little teary or overwhelmed. You know, I have my little breakdowns but I put it away and we sign some autographs and have fun.

CC: Do you think the horror community views you differently now that time has passed and social norms have changed?

MP: I only came back to go to Comic Con and all of those things because I was a little pissed off at the way Jesse was treated and the way [FREDDY'S REVENGE] was treated.

I realized that maybe it's a right of passage that people are gonna say nasty things. It's all cool for me now because I took those lemons and turned them into lemonade.

But people now have been super kind to me. Whereas, it used to be kind of nasty on the internet where you'd see horrible things [about me] now you see Mark Patton is a horror icon and he works with the community. They call me the “scream queen.”

CC: I was curious about that. In the film, you and Jesse are largely referenced to as a “scream queen” or the “final girl” or “final boy.” Do you identify with those labels or do they feel like mischaracterizations?

MP: I can own that [label] and accept it and be happy with it. If I die and they say Mark Patton: “Nightmare on Elm Street Scream Queen”—I'd probably be OK with that.

I sort of created “scream queen.” In the industry, you see a lot of people don't wanna say “scream queen.” They say “scream king,” they're very into that gender thing. I'm not. You can't offend me by calling me a woman or a girl, that's not offensive to me. I'm the “final boy” in the movie, back then there was no such thing. And then they would say “final girl” and I just picked it up and owned it.

I don't think [FREDDY'S REVENGE] is about homosexuality. It's about gender. People were just not ready to see a boy be the victim. And also the way that Freddy Krueger was in love with me, basically. He treated me like his lover—and he didn't kill me, of course. I'm still alive running around somewhere.

CC: Do you think FREDDY'S REVENGE in some way opened the door for gay representation in horror or a growing community of gay horror fans?

MP: I think it was a doorway for a lot of filmmakers and a lot of people. They saw themselves in that film. Whether it was homophobic or whatever, they glomed onto seeing a boy like that. So, it became a cool thing.

I don't ever think Jesse hated himself—and I was Jesse so I get to say that. There was no self-hate there. Just coming to terms with whatever horror that was, like coming out.

CC: You’ve done a lot in your career as an actor and an activist, what do you hope your legacy to be?

MP: You know when you're at church, when they say peace be with you? I try to say that to people all the time in different ways. And I love it when they say it back to me. So I just hope that I'm remembered as a person who tried to bring some peace to the world and tried to make a bad situation into a good thing. And I succeeded.

I want to be remembered as a kind person more than anything else.

Interview with Franz Rogowski of TRANSIT

John Dickson: First off, Franz, welcome to Chicago.

Franz Rogowski: Thank you. I like it here. I’m impressed by the architecture. It’s quite intimidating. And of course, the Mafia. It’s an honor to be a part of the festival. It’s great to be here with both movies.

JD: I haven’t had a chance to see IN THE AISLES yet, but I saw TRANSIT and found it to be remarkable, along with your performance.

FR: That’s nice to hear. I never know, though, because everyone here has been so polite with their compliments, and so kind, so I am never quite sure.

JD: I’m quite rude, so no fakery here.

FR: That’s nice. I like rude people. I’m from Europe, as you know.

JD: (laughs) Well as I said, I saw TRANSIT and loved it. Having also seen your performance in Michael Haneke’s HAPPY END, your work remains memorable long after you’ve gone offscreen, yet your style seems closer to a simmer than a full on explosion, the opposite of a lot of acting styles nowadays. Everyone seems to be loud and showy. Performances seem to be devoid of mystery. Is this something you’re aware of, and does it influence your own approach to acting?

FR: I think you’ve asked two very interesting questions here. The one is, has my acting always been like this? And the other is if this is my acting technique. I think, one, that I have always been a person that tries to listen carefully and tries to be real or honest. It’s hard sometimes, we are totally fake and I try to act accordingly to what I feel and what happens. As an actor, you try to be in the moment, which is quite difficult when there are lights around you and all the technicians. At the end of the day, you’ve tried to be in that very moment, like we are now. That’s what I try to think about. Just imagine us, and some very weird tripods, some very weird light, and a lot of people, and we’d be as natural as we are right now. You just try to be real. That seems to create an energy that I would say is maybe less expressive. This character, Georg, in TRANSIT, is a refugee, but he’s also a drifter. Someone who doesn’t set down roots, he doesn’t leave a family or job, he’s just on his way. But he doesn’t exactly know where to go. It changes during the movie and I think that all this creates a rather introverted character.

JD: Which is what is so remarkable about him. There is so much hidden. In a city like Chicago, which embraces a very theatrical style of acting, it stands out that your character isn’t trying to be the most noticeable person in the frame, yet it’s hard to not be drawn to your performance.

FR: Yeah but you can’t always do that. In this movie, the director gives me a lot of space, so I don’t have to fight for it. He creates movies that play with different elements, different materials, and different textures. You have the music, you have the silence, you have the images, you have the acting, but I don’t have to be this main guy all on my own. Already he creates a lot of space for this character. Sometimes the best choice is to exist in the fiction and to respond to what is happening around you. I think, to embody your emotions, that is something that maybe in American movie culture is more of a tradition than the culture I come from. We don’t always show our emotions. You know what I mean? In acting there is obviously expression and style, but I think maybe Germans are a little more introverted. I don’t know.

JD: Another word I might use is “microscopic.”

FR: Yeah.

JD: It puts the audience member in a position to be more intuitive, because your character and his motivations are pretty ambiguous up until a certain point.

FR: The first time we met, Christian and I, I told him, “Man, I really like your script, but I’m not going to play a refugee. I can’t be a refugee, I don’t know how they feel. I’ve never experienced anything like that. It would be arrogant and wrong if I pretend to know how that feels,” and we were both on the same page. He said, “Of course not, that would be so wrong.” Thats what so great about Georg: he’s not crying and there aren’t any Nazis going ‘Heil Hitler.’ No, he’s a guy on his path. He lives in wartime but he’s not really busy with the war, he just has to flee. He wants to leave Europe. But I don’t have to comment on that. I really like that about the movie. Also the fact that we chose characters from the 40’s, from a novel that was inspired by German history ,and combine this with today’s Marseilles, at the edge of Europe, dealing with immigration on a daily basis, I think the movie doesn’t comment on this at all. It just coexists between two worlds. We don’t show that he is a refugee. It’s more up to you to experience this reality than him showing it to you.

JD: The movie does seem to hang suspended in a very unique space and time. You’re seeing things and events from the 40’s, like TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT or CASABLANCA for example, but it’s modern and not those things at the same time.

FR: CASABLANCA is actually a very strong reference for this film.

JD: You hear it in the dialogue, the whole idea of characters seeking transit papers...it gives the movie a very unique place in time. It isn’t trying to be a strict adaptation, it’s existing in its own world, that isn’t that different from our own. It isn’t about refugees, that’s a part of it, but it has its own agenda. What was it like playing a character that was written for the 40s, but is also modern?

FR: You can’t really play it the way its written. I think we chose a language that is quite neutral. It could be from the past or it could be from today. The voiceover has, how do you say, a lyrical language? The dialogues are what they are, you can’t really connect them to the book or Marseilles as it is today. I think that’s what Christian is really interested in, figures lost in times. Ghosts. It’s something he has been working on for the last 30 years. These characters have a lot in common with ghosts.

JD: His films do take on a very ghostly, haunted atmosphere. What is it like working with him as a director?

FR: It’s great. He’s like a walking encyclopedia of cinema. He has a quote or reference for every kind of acting situation. It’s a little freaky actually, but it’s very inspiring. We would watch movies. We have movie nights on a roof terrace with a shitty projector and a white wall. For example, we would watch CASABLANCA, and he would talk about his own perspective on certain words and scenes, and what the connection is for him between other work, the work we were going to do, and this novel. He’s an intellectual. He gives you a lot of material to work with.

JD: I’m curious, do you remember what movies he showed you in preparation for TRANSIT?

FR: The truth is, and it’s one of my secrets, that I always forget (laughs). I always forget. For acting though, it’s good, because with every new movie you have to start again from zero. But yeah, I forgot basically all of the titles (laughs). It’s really bad, I really have a memory issue.

JD: You are going to be featured in the new Terrence Malick movie, RADEGUND, and I’m sure there’s only so much that you can say about it. But I am curious: as opposed to someone like Petzold, what was it like working with a filmmaker like Malick?

FR: During that time, when I was shooting with Malick, I was doing the Haneke movie. Petzold’s special approach is he would only do one take. He would rehearse in the morning, take all the time it needs, no set, no technicians, nobody. Just the actors and the director, like a very intimate theater rehearsal situation. Then we would go to costume, then make-up while the technicians would come in, build up the set, and once we would return to the set, we would do one take and that’s it. We’d do another only for technical reasons, like if something would go wrong. That’s it. Haneke, he was the mood of my summer two years ago (laughs). My mood was based on his work. His work was forty takes for one scene and sometimes also just letting you know that what you’re doing is not good enough. Then you have to figure it out yourself. The only reason that approach works is because people trust him. Like me personally, I admire his work and I think he has done some of the most amazing films I’ve seen in my life, and I’m willing to do this with him. But it is quite painful, forty takes and a guy just telling you that what you’re doing is kind of crap. So then during that shoot, when I wasn’t filming with Haneke, I would go into the mountains of Germany and meet Terry, with his cowboy hat. Totally different approach. More like an energy guide. He goes with the moment and the flow. You can see that he had all the possibilities, but his set was very intimate. We would just do 30-45 minute improv takes in a row. Me and August (Diehl), who plays the main character, we would, for example, be in a prison, where the scene was taking place. The take would be 30 minutes, and it would just be us, sitting in this cell, waiting, forever. Then maybe, after 20 minutes, a ray of light would shine through the window and Terry really liked it, and so did we. So then we’d sit in the light, and he would come to us and whisper something in your ear, and I would repeat it once he left the frame. So a totally different approach. You could say that Terry doesn’t really create scenes but spaces and atmospheres. It was an incredible experience.

JD: What sort of limits does that directing style put on you as the actor? Do you find it challenging, freeing, or both?

FR: Limitations are always freeing because total freedom, I think, is too much for a human being. You can’t really limit freedom if you don’t know where it ends, you know? Therefore, I think that the limitations are something very important. The fact that he does improv scenes doesn’t mean you do whatever you want. It requires a lot of being in the moment and listening to each other, trusting each other. It’s like hunting the beauty of little things; singing a song, listening to the silence. It’s a very different approach, but I would never say this is the best approach or only approach. I just love Terry for showing me his way of making movies, and I am very thankful we had this time together. I was only on set for two days but it felt like, “This guy really knows me, thats so weird. I trust him, and I would go wherever he needed me to go.” It’s really strange. It’s very easy, then, to understand why everyone that works with him is so happy to have worked with him. Because he gives you trust and sees you as...lets say he’s a painter…and he sees you as a certain color, but it doesn’t feel like he limits you or puts you in a box. It’s more like he shows you the beauty of your own color. Often, I feel an ‘orange’ is asked to be a ‘blue,’ and thats pretty dramatic in front of the camera and it’s really painful. I think he also wants that process. He wants to see what could happen. Then, in the end, he takes a lot of material and takes a lot of time to edit it. Nobody then knows when the premiere will be. All I know is that August, the main role, went to sound studios for over the past two years, on a weekly basis, trying out new versions, new options, new possibilities. So they’re really composing this work. One could think of it more as a composition of music, than a narrative, that you would just edit. Then with Haneke, in his head it’s done before he starts shooting. Then he and the others, that don’t have his head, try to come as close as possible to how he sees it and what he has already done. I think sometimes its very hard for him to come on a set and realize that the other people don’t fully understand his visions. So he has to accept some compromises with his own imagination and the reality, and that’s sometimes painful so he starts screaming, but he would never scream at you because you’re an idiot. He’s fighting for the beauty of art, his movie. He just wants his movie to be good and therefore it’s not personal.

JD: His movies are very exacting, like an almost cold precision of an idea.

FR: Yeah, and you can’t be so cold if you don’t love human beings, and hate them at the same time. (Laughs.) Which is great.

JD: Which seems to be the total opposite of Malick, who seems to be guiding you through, like, an acid trip or something.

FR: Yeah, I can imagine that, especially when you work with him over a period of one, two, three months. I was just jumping into two days, and it already felt like a little trip. Maybe not acid, more like a little magic mushroom from Holland.

JD: That’s where the good shrooms are?

FR: Yes, but not as good as the ones in New York.

JD: This is good to know. You’ve been asked a lot of the same questions during your press circuit, with a lot of people comparing you, at least physically, to Joaquin Phoenix or Vincent Gallo. What does that do to you as an actor? Do you not give a shit or do you find those kind of comparisons intimidating?

FR: It’s not intimidating. It’s more a compliment than anything, but I think comparison never really works. But they’re both great, and I have no problem with that. (Laughs). If people need to compare, I’m here.

JD: It seems easier for people to make a comparison.

FR: Of course. I mean, I have a cleft-lip, so then you already see the connection. (Laughs.)

Cine-File Contributors' 2018 End-of-Year Lists

Julian Antos

I wasn't going to post anything, but I had a really great time seeing the following four films at the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk, CT today (ed note.: Sunday, December 23) - all presented in 70mm IMAX:

POLAR EXPRESS (Robert Zemeckis, 2004)

OCEANS: OUR BLUE PLANET (Mark Brownlow, Rachel Butler, 2018)

BACKYARD WILDERNESS (Susan Todd, Andrew Young, 2018)

PANDAS (David Douglas, Drew Fellman, 2018)

Yes, I watched all four films in a row. I was pleased to have snuck in a coffee from Dunkin Donuts. 

Rob Christopher

2018 was the year I learned that when you're making a film, you don't go to theaters very often. Or at least I didn't. As a result, there are lots of 2018 heavyweights missing from my list. For me, watching movies at home, for better or worse, fosters a sense of intimacy that I don't feel in the same way when I watch a movie on the big screen. And because I'm in the midst of making my own, more than usual I found myself really wrapped up in the nuts-and-bolts craft of filmmaking. It can be kind of drag when I'd rather just suspend my disbelief and lose myself in a film, but que sera sera.

BLACKKKLANSMAN (2018, Spike Lee)
DAWSON CITY: FROZEN TIME (2016, Bill Morrison)
THE DEATH OF STALIN (2017, Armando Iannucci)
THE FLORIDA PROJECT (2017, Sean Baker)
THE INQUIRING NUNS (1968, Kartemquin Films)
LADY BIRD (2017, Greta Gerwig)
MERCURY IN RETROGRADE (2017, Michael Glover Smith)
99 RIVER STREET (1953, Phil Karlson)
PORTO (2016, Gabe Klinger)
WIDOWS (2018, Steve McQueen)
WON'T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR? (2018, Morgan Neville)
ZAMA (2017, Lucrecia Martel)

Kyle Cubr

10 Movies I Liked A Lot This Year in No Particular Order

THE DEATH OF STALIN (Armando Iannucci)

THE GREEN FOG (Guy Maddin)

HEREDITARY (Ari Aster)

MANDY (Panos Cosmatos)

ASH IS PUREST WHITE (Zhangke Jia)

ROMA (Alfonso Cuaron)

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND (Orson Welles)

BURNING (Chang-dong Lee)

MINDING THE GAP (Bing Liu)

SORRY TO BOTHER YOU (Boots Riley)

John Dickson
1. ZAMA (Lucrecia Martel)

2. THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS (Joel & Ethan Coen)

3. FIRST REFORMED (Paul Schrader)

4. THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT (Lars von Trier)

5. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND (Orson Welles)

6. THE MULE (Clint Eastwood)

7. 24 FRAMES (Abbas Kiarostami)

8. ASH IS PUREST WHITE (Jia Zhangke)

9. THE WILD BOYS (Bertrand Mandico)

10. READY PLAYER ONE (Steven Spielberg)

Marilyn Ferdinand

Best New Features I Saw in 2018 (in no particular order)

1.     THE MINER (Hanna Antonina Wojcik Slak, 2017)

2.     HAPPY BIRTHDAY (Christos Georgiou, 2017)

3.     CATCH THE WIND (Gaël Morel, 2017)

4.     OUTSIDE IN (Lynn Shelton, 2017)

5.     SUMMER 1993 (Carla Simón, 2017)

6.     THE TALE (Jennifer Fox, 2018)

7.     NANCY (Christiana Choe, 2018)

8.     MEMOIR OF WAR (Emmanuel Finkiel, 2017)

9.     NIGHT COMES ON (Jordana Spiro, 2018)

10.  I AM NOT A WITCH (Rungano Nyoni, 2017)

11.  TRANSIT (Christian Petzold, 2018)

12.  THE GOOD GIRLS (Alejandra Márquez Abella, 2018)

13.  CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME? (Marielle Heller, 2018)

14.  ROMA (Alfonso Cuarón, 2018)

15.  BURNING (Lee Chang-dong, 2018)

Best Documentaries I Saw in 2018 (in no particular order)

1.     UNREST (Jennifer Brea, 2017)

2.     SONG OF GRANITE (Pat Collins, 2017)

3.     IN THE LAND OF POMEGRANATES (Hava Kohav Beller, 2018)

4.     ELIAN (Tim Golden, Ross McDonnell, 2017)

5.     SHOULDER THE LION (Erinnisse Heuer, Patryk Rebisz, 2015) 

6.     93QUEEN (Paula Eiselt, 2018)

7.     REEL INJUNS (Neil Diamond, Catherine Bainbridge, Jeremiah Hayes, 2009)

8.     LIYANA (Amanda and Aaron Kopp, 2017)

9.     HALF THE PICTURE (Amy Adrion, 2018)

10.  HALE COUNTY THIS MORNING, THIS EVENING (RaMell Ross, 2018)

Best Older Films I First Saw in 2018 (in no particular order)

1.     THE EMPEROR’S NIGHTINGALE (Jiri Trnka, 1949)

2.     LIGHTHOUSE KEEPERS (Jean Gremillion, 1929)

3.     VOICE OF THE NIGHTINGALE (Wladyslaw Starewicz, 1925)

4.     BLIND SPOT (Robert Gordon, 1947)

5.     THE BIG COMBO (Joseph H. Lewis, 1955)

6.     THE CHASE (Arthur D. Ripley, 1946)

7.     SAFE IN HELL (William Wellman, 1931)

8.     ECSTASY (Gustav Machaty, 1933)

9.     WINTER SLEEP (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2014)

10.  THE BOY WITH GREEN HAIR (Joseph Losey, 1948)

11.  THE CRIME OF MONSIEUR LANGE (Jean Renoir, 1936)

2018 Hall of Fame

Director Radu Jude for two fascinating films released in the year, SCARRED HEARTS (2016) and I DO NOT CARE IF WE GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS BARBARIANS (2018)

Kino-Lorber for releasing PIONEERS: FIRST WOMEN FILMMAKERS 6-DVD/BD set 

Film historian and archivist Eric Grayson for completing his long odyssey to restore and release LITTLE ORPHANT ANNIE (Colin Campbell, 1918)

Flicker Alley for restoring and releasing THE ANCIENT LAW (E. A. Dupont, 1923)

Max Frank

Max's Happiest Moment of 2018:

The only time this year when I forgot that we live in a demented, computer-simulated and Alien-scripted hellscape in which everything is horrible and the Yield Curve is inverting was the 114 minutes comprising MAMMA MIA: HERE WE GO AGAIN, which I saw at the world-famous Loews Cinema on 42nd Street in Times Square. I don't understand why this film is absent from literally every film publication's year-end lists, as its virtues and pleasures are as boundless as they are vast. From Robert Yeoman's crisp, swirling cinematography; to Amanda Seyfried and Lily James' heartstringing performances; to a veritable feast of ABBA's greatest D-list songs; and above all, to an unyielding feeling of overwhelming optimism, because in this film, the world isn't a demented computer-simulated and Alien-scripted hellscape in which everything is horrible and the Yield Curve is inverting. 

A viewer might further realize during the film's climax - when Andy Garcia sings "Fernando" to Cher - that they are watching a Cuban actor singing a Swedish pop song about the Mexican Revolution in a British-American film set on a Greek island but shot in Croatia. And that astute viewer may exclaim with delight - "there was something in the air that night... the stars were bright... Fernando!"

And that viewer may realize, with greater delight, that the stars are indeed shining down - for you and me, for Liberty.

JB Mabe

Favorites seen in a theater in Chicago:

1. UN BEAU SOLEIL INTÉRIEUR (LET THE SUNSHINE IN, Claire Denis, 2017)
2. NEW SUN BREATHING IN (Chloe Reyes, 2017)
3. STRANGE IMPERSONATION (Anthony Mann, 1946)
4. JEANNETTE, L'ENFANCE DE JEANNE D'ARC (JEANNETTE: THE CHILDHOOD OFJOAN OF ARC, Bruno Dumont, 2017)
5. REMEMBRANCE: A PORTRAIT STUDY (Edward Owens, 1967)
6. DRAGONS & SERAPHIM (Sasha Waters Freyer, 2017)
7. RETURN TO FORMS (Zachary Epcar, 2016)
8. THE SHAPE OF WATER (Guillermo del Toro, 2017)
9. CHRONICLES OF A LYING SPIRIT (BY KELLY GABRON) (Cauleen Smith, 1992)
10. AS WATER IS IN WATER (Madison Brookshire & Tashi Wada, 2017)

Michael Metzger

Favorite newish features seen in 2018:
1. HALE COUNTY THIS MORNING, THIS EVENING (RaMell Ross)

2. HIGH LIFE (Claire Denis)
3. A BREAD FACTORY (Patrick Wang)

4. A HOUSE IN THE FIELDS (Tala Hadid)

5. THE TASK (Leigh Ledare)

6. DISTANT CONSTELLATION (Shevaun Mizrahi)

7. TOO LATE TO DIE YOUNG (Dominga Sotomayor)

8. SUPPORT THE GIRLS (Andrew Bujalski)

9. FIRST REFORMED (Paul Schrader)

10. ZAMA (Lucrecia Martel)

Honorable mention: ASH IS PUREST WHITE (Jia Zhang-Ke), THE IMAGE YOU MISSED (Donal Foreman), THE GREEN FOG (Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson, Guy Maddin), FUTURE LANGUAGE (THE DIMENSIONS OF VON LMO) (Lori Felker), SORRY TO BOTHER YOU (Boots Riley)

Favorite newish shorts and experimental films seen in 2018:

1. STRANGELY ORDINARY, THIS DEVOTION (Sheilah and Dani Restack)

2. THE ARBORETUM CYCLE and COLOPHON (FOR THE ARBORETUM CYCLE) (Nathaniel Dorsky)

3. VIOLENCE OF A CIVILIZATION WITHOUT SECRETS (Adam Khalil, Zach Khalil & Jackson Polys)

4. WATCHING THE DETECTIVES (Chris Kennedy)

5. DECOY (Alee Peoples)

6. HELIOPOLIS, HELIOPOLIS and THE SKIN IS GOOD (Ojoboca)

7. BETWEEN RELATING AND USE (Nazlı Dinçel)

8. BLUE (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)

9. BLUE MOVIE (Michael A. Morris)

10. HONANE (Takuya Dairiki and Takashi Miura)

Honorable mentions: TARPAULINS (Lisa Truttmann), ARE YOU TIRED OF FOREVER? (Caitlin Craggs), 350 MYA (Terra Long), STAR FERRY (Simon Liu), FAINTING SPELLS (Sky Hopinka), TEMPLE OF TRUTH (Giuseppe Boccassini, Alex Inglizian), THE WATCHMEN (Fern Silva), CREATURE COMPANION (Melika Bass), AN EMPTY THREAT (Josh Lewis), AS WATER IS IN WATER (Madison Brookshire), ON THE RINK (Benjamin Buxton), FRAGMENTS 83 (Richard Millen, Corentin Koskas), THE SOURCE IS A HOLE (Madsen Minax), NOTHING A LITTLE SOAP AND WATER CAN'T FIX (Jennifer Proctor), CPS CLOSINGS AND DELAYS (Kristin Reeves), WALLED / UNWALLED (Lawrence Abu Hamdan), THE WORDS ARE NOT WHAT YOU MEANT (Jiayi Chen)

Favorite older films seen for the first time on Chicago screens in 2018:
1. PERSONAL PROBLEMS (Bill Gunn & Ishmael Reed)

2. THE LUSTY MEN (Nick Ray)

3. TWO FRIENDS (Jane Campion)

4. THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPERS (Jean Grémillon)

5. BALLAST (Lance Hammer)

6. JE TU IL ELLE (Chantal Akerman)

7. SANKOFA (Haile Gerima)

8. A SCENE AT THE SEA (Takeshi Kitano)

9. THE FRONTIER EXPERIENCE and THE BOY WHO LIKED DEER (Barbara Loden)

10. L'ENFANT SECRET (Philippe Garrel) 

Scott Pfeiffer
(This omits the windy introduction I usually do for these on my blog, said intro typically not having all that much to do with film at all, as well as my comments on the entries. If you'd like to read all that, it's here.)

Top 10 Features

10. AT ETERNITY'S GATE (Julian Schnabel)

9. THE GREAT BUDDHA + (Huang Hsin-yao)

8. SORRY TO BOTHER YOU (Boots Riley)

7. ASH IS PUREST WHITE (Jia Zhangke)

6. PRIVATE LIFE (Tamara Jenkins)

5. ROMA (Alfonso Cuarón)

4. FIRST REFORMED (Paul Schrader)

3. BURNING (Lee Chang-dong)

2. IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE CITY (Tamer El Said)

1. SHOPLIFTERS (Hirokazu Kore-eda)

Top 10 Documentaries

10. FREE SOLO (Jimmy Chin & Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi)

9. SHIRKERS (Sandi Tan)

8. UNITED SKATES (Tina Brown & Dyana Winkler) 

7. SEARCHING FOR INGMAR BERGMAN (Margarethe Von Trotta) 

6. THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS (Tim Wardle)

5. MINDING THE GAP (Bing Liu)

4. MISS KIET'S CHILDREN(Peter Lataster & Petra Lataster-Czisch) 

3. WON'T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?(Morgan Neville)

2. THAT SUMMER (Göran Hugo Olsson)

1. THE KING (Eugene Jarecki) 

Kathleen Sachs

Favorite New(-ish) Releases I Saw for the First Time in 2018

1. THE REST I MAKE UP (Michelle Memran, 2018)

2. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT Trailer 
3. YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE  (Lynne Ramsay, 2018)
4. BITTER MONEY (Wang Bing, 2016)/DEAD SOULS (Wang Bing, 2018)/PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF DESIRE (Hao Wu, 2018)
5. CLAIRE’S CAMERA/THE DAY AFTER (Hong Sang-soo, 2017)
6. THE ARBORETUM CYCLE (Nathaniel Dorsky, 2017)
7. ZAMA (Lucrecia Martel, 2018)
8. TRANSIT (Christian Petzold, 2019)/THE COMMUTER (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2018)
9. PRIVATE LIFE (Tamara Jenkins, 2018)
10. PADDINGTON 2 (Paul King, 2018)/SHOPLIFTERS (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2018)

Special Mentions: THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS (Ethan and Joel Coen, 2018), BURNING (Lee Chang-dong, 2018), THE FAVOURITE (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018), LET THE SUNSHINE IN (Claire Denis, 2018), MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS (Josie Rourke, 2018), MINDING THE GAP (Bing Liu, 2018), VOX LUX (Brady Corbet, 2018)

Best Repertory in 2018

1. THE HEARTBREAK KID (Elaine May, 1972)/MIKEY AND NICKY (Elaine May, 1976) - Both on 35mm at the Music Box Theatre
2. TWO FRIENDS (Jane Campion, 1986, 16mm at Chicago Filmmakers)/CALIFORNIA SPLIT (Robert Altman, 1974, 35mm at the Music Box Theatre)/DETOUR (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1945, 4K DCP Digital Restoration at the Siskel Film Center) - For Rebecca Lyon 
3. WANDA (Barbara Loden, 1970, 2K DCP Digital Restoration at the Siskel Film Center) + THE FRONTIER EXPERIENCE/THE BOY WHO LIKED DEER (Barbara Loden, 1975, 16mm at Chicago Filmmakers)
4. MARY JANE'S NOT A VIRGIN ANYMORE (Sarah Jacobson, 1996, 16mm at Chicago Filmmakers)

5. ONE SINGS, THE OTHER DOESN'T (Agnès Varda, 1977, 2k DCP digital restoration at the Siskel Film Center)

6. “From the Other Side: The Films of Chantal Akerman ” at Doc Films (16mm, 35mm, DCP)

7. Barbara Hammer: VITAL SIGNS at the Nightingale Cinema (Various shorts on 16mm; full disclosure: I co-programmed this with Cine-File contributor Michael Phillips)

8. San Francisco Silent Film Festival - Special thanks to Marilyn Ferdinand

9. TIE XI QU: WEST OF THE TRACKS (Wang Bing, 2003, DCP at the Film Society at Lincoln Center) - For Ben Sachs, the only person with whom I’d travel to see a nine-hour movie
10. RIO BRAVO (Howard Hawks, 1959, 35mm at the Music Box Theatre)
11. The “Deep Seijun: Rare Films of Suzuki Seijun” series at Doc Films (Mostly 35mm)
12. THE SACRIFICE (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1986, 4K DCP digital restoration at the Siskel Film Center)/THE BURBS (Joe Dante, 1989, 35mm at the Music Box Theatre)
13. Music Box of Horrors at the Music Box Theatre (Mostly 35mm) - For Heather Nichols

Dmitry Samarov

Best Movies I Saw in a Movie Theater in 2018

AT ETERNITY’S GATE

ZAMA
THE FAVOURITE
THE AREA
PHANTOM THREAD
MONROVIA, INDIANA
FIRST REFORMED
SORRY TO BOTHER YOU
LOVELESS
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND
YI YI

CHARLEY VARICK

MARY JANE’S NOT A VIRGIN ANYMORE

Ingmar Bergman and Jiri Trnka retrospectives

Harrison Sherrod

11 films that more or less came out in 2018 that I more or less enjoyed 

11. THE ROAD MOVIE, dir. Dmitrii Kalashnikov
10. ZAMA, dir. Lucrecia Martel
9. THE GUILTY, dir. Gustav Möller
8. HAVE A NICE DAY, dir. Liu Jian
7. THE YOUNG KARL MARX, dir. Raoul Peck
6. SORRY TO BOTHER YOU, dir. Boots Riley
5. AMERICAN REVOLUTION 2, dirs. The Film Group
4. SHAKEDOWN, dir. Leilah Weinraub
3. BURNING, dir. Lee Chang-dong
2. FIRST REFORMED, dir. Paul Schrader 
1. THE GREAT BUDDHA+, dir. Huang Hsin-yao

Michael Smith

My 10 favorite new feature films to receive a Chicago theatrical premiere in 2018:

10. THE WOMAN WHO LEFT (Diaz)
9. FIRST REFORMED (Schrader)
8. ASH IS PUREST WHITE (Jia)
7. MADELINE'S MADELINE (Decker)
6. 24 FRAMES (Kiarostami)
5. BURNING (Hong)
4. PHANTOM THREAD (Anderson)
3. THE MULE (Eastwood)
2. ZAMA (Martel)
1. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND (Welles)

K.A. Westphal

Best Films I Saw for the First Time in 2018

FAT CITY (John Huston, 1972)

FRAGMENT OF AN EMPIRE (Fridrikh Ermler, 1929)

THE FRONTIER EXPERIENCE (Barbara Loden, 1975)

THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPERS (Jean Grémillon, 1929)

MARY JANE’S NOT A VIRGIN ANYMORE (Sarah Jacobson, 1996)

MOTHER KRAUSE’S JOURNEY TO HAPPINESS (Phil Jutzi, 1929)

PHANTOM THREAD (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017) - 70mm Presentation

PHOENIX (Christian Petzold, 2014)

THE REMAINS OF THE DAY (James Ivory, 1993) - 70mm Presentation

UFORIA (John Binder, 1985)

Best Films of 2018

UN BEAU SOLEIL INTÉRIEUR (Claire Denis)

BELMONTE (Federico Veiroj)  §

BELL & HOWELL (Julian Antos) §

THE CAPTAIN (Robert Schwentke) ^ 

EIGHTH GRADE (Bo Burnham)

“I DO NOT CARE IF WE GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS BARBARIANS” (Radu Jude)  §

MADELINE’S MADELINE(Josephine Decker)

NON-FICTION (Olivier Assayas) *

THE OLD MAN AND THE GUN (David Lowery)

OLD WORLD (Robert Todd)

SHOPLIFTERS (Hirokazu Kore-Eda)

TOO LATE TO DIE YOUNG (Dominga Sotomayor Castillo) *  

TRANSIT (Christian Petzold) ^ * 

VAZANTE (Daniela Thomas) ^

ZAMA (Lucrecia Martel)

^ Disclosure: Distributed by my employer, Music Box Films
* 2019 Theatrical Release
§ No US distributor