The Film Comment Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Spike Lee Aug 01, 2018

Show notes

Our cover story for the July/August issue is about Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman—a story about incredible events in America’s past that feel well-suited to our incredible present. “In a case where the events of history improve upon the fantasies of fiction, BlacKkKlansman, the latest Spike Lee joint, is based on the 2014 memoir written by Ron Stallworth, a black undercover police officer who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in 1979,” Teo Bugbee writes in her feature. “However, Lee does not get lost in the details of Stallworth’s life story, and BlacKkKlansman is no straight biopic. Instead, it follows the beats of a traditional cop movie, where a man of the law is torn between allegiances in his efforts to solve a case. In this regard, the film represents the latest chapter in the underrated career of Spike Lee, genre filmmaker.” For this episode, I joined Bugbee and Ashley Clark of BAMcinématek to discuss Lee’s wide-ranging, and chronically misunderstood, career.

The Russians Jul 26, 2018

Show notes

As long as we are being inundated with worrisome news about Russian cyberwarfare and other attacks, the time seems ripe for taking a look at the motherland’s cinema. The summer series “Putin’s Russia: A 21st-Century Mosaic” at the Museum of the Moving Image provided a perfect opportunity for surveying key films in the country’s recent history, including award-winning auteurs like Andrei Zvyagintsev and lesser-known directors. For this discussion I was joined by the co-programmers of the series: Eric Hynes, curator of film at Museum of Moving Image and FC columnist, and writer/filmmaker Daniel Witkin.

Boots Riley and Questlove Jul 18, 2018

Show notes

On July 17, our latest Film Comment Free Talk brought together Boots Riley, director of the mind-altering new film Sorry to Bother You, and special guest Questlove at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. “All art is political,” said Riley, who detailed the genesis of the movie’s surreal Marxist story of a African-American telemarketer, and traded stories with Questlove about the nitty-gritty of the creative process. The talk was moderated by filmmaker and Film Comment contributor Farihah Zaman. For more on Sorry to Bother You, don’t miss Ina Diane Archer’s essay in the July/August issue and our podcast discussion from July 4. Our next Film Comment Free Talk takes place on August 6 with Crystal Moselle, the director of Skate Kitchen (and The Wolfpack).

Drone Cinema Jul 11, 2018

Show notes

“In just a few years’ time, they’ve become both requisite filmmaking tools and regrettable freighters of cliché. Drone shots are easily recognizable not because drone cameras have a single, easily definable use, but because nearly everyone’s using them the same way: god’s-eye view of a landscape, smooth gliding (heaven forbid there’s a jerk or rattle), low-grade wow factor, cut,” Eric Hynes writes in his essay about drones in the July/August issue of Film Comment. “Yet perhaps we shouldn’t blame the tool for how it’s being used, especially since we’re still in the early days, and since potential applications are still being explored within both documentary and fiction.” There’s great potential in drone photography, for sure, but how are filmmakers harnessing its power for good, and not just for awesome? In this week’s Film Comment Podcast, I discussed drones in cinema with Hynes, an FC columnist and Curator of Film at the Museum of the Moving Image, and a bona fide cinematographer, Ashley Connor (Madeline’s Madeline), and hashed out the good, the bad, and the ugly of this curious airborne invention.

Sorry to Bother You Jul 04, 2018

Show notes

“Audiences will enjoy Sorry to Bother You in one go, but the film invites and can stand up to multiple viewings, in much the same way that complex rap lyrics benefit from repeated plays and familiarity gained from memorization,” Ina Diane Archer writes in our July/August issue. “Boots Riley is, by his own definition, a storyteller—a socially conscious, political artist, communist, proud Oaklander, and the beloved front man of The Coup.” Riley’s scabrous satire tracks a telemarketer (Lakeith Stanfield) on the rise in a company engaged in some nefarious labor practices that bring corporate malfeasance into a surreal realm. For our latest episode, Archer joined me in a discussion of the feature and the many layers she unpacks in her essay.

Visconti Jun 28, 2018

Show notes

For many New York moviegoers, the past few weeks at the Film Society of Lincoln Center have virtually belonged to Luchino Visconti. The retrospective has included established landmarks such as Rocco and His Brothers, The Leopard, Death in Venice, and Ossessione, but it’s also fostered rediscovery of Ludwig, The Stranger, The Damned, and more. The record audiences suggest that Visconti’s richly drawn canvases, larger-than-life characers, and sweeping historical dramas still have a special pull on the big screen. And decay never looked so good. In this episode of the podcast, I talked about Visconti’s work (and its resonance with glam rock?) with regular FC contributor Nick Pinkerton, and Florence Almozini, associate director of programming at the Film Society and co-programmer of the retrospective.

Paul Schrader Jun 21, 2018

Show notes

“Although religious symbols and themes have often found their way into Schrader’s film work, First Reformedmarks the first time he has applied elements of transcendental style—as extolled in his seminal book Transcendental Style in Film—to his own filmmaking. Early in his career, Schrader was occupied with exploring the pathological lure of sex and violence in narrative cinema,” Aliza Ma wrote in her review of Paul Schrader’s First Reformed for our May/June issue. As part of our Film Comment Free Talks series, Schrader joined Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold for a conversation about the twists and turns and leaps in the writer-director’s career—from starting out as a critic and UCLA film student in the ’60s, to writing screenplays for Taxi Driver and Last Temptation of Christ, to directing films from Blue Collar through First Reformed. This week’s podcast captures the discussion. (Please note: the audio is at times slightly imperfect due to an unforeseeable technical snafu.) Looking ahead, our Film Comment Free Talks continue on July 17 with filmmaker Boots Riley, director of the much-anticipated satire Sorry to Bother You, starring Lakeith Stanfield and Tessa Thompson.

Ari Aster Jun 14, 2018

Show notes

This summer we kicked off our Film Comment Free Talks, a new series of conversations with filmmakers held at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. For the release of horror sensation Hereditary, we invited the film’s director, Ari Aster, to come for a wide-ranging chat. The talk was moderated by FSLC Editorial Director Michael Koresky, who wrote of Hereditary in our May/June issue: “We are compelled by our family stories, but they are often constructed narratives, given to biases, subjectivities, fictions. If at times Hereditary feels more like an askew domestic melodrama than a horror movie, that’s not accidental.” Aster talks about his love of Ingmar Bergman, his fear of The Wiz, his next project, and the arduous road to staging a scene just so. Our next Film Comment Free Talk will take place on July 17 with director Boots Riley where he'll discuss his funny, scathing, weird, and audacious satire Sorry to Bother You.

Le Cinéma du Glut Jun 07, 2018

Show notes

In the May/June issue of Film Comment, Nick Pinkerton wrote: “Like few feature films before it, Spielberg’s [Ready Player One] exemplifies an aesthetic of pop-culture decoupage that has developed, in recognizably kindred forms, across a wide range of media, one that has been increasingly prevalent through the early years of the 21st century. It is that of the junk-pile jumble of accumulated mass-manufactured character properties at the end of pop history—the aesthetic of glut.” Pinkerton, regular FC contributor, is joined by FC Digital Producer Violet Lucca and Light Industry co-founder and 4Columns contributor Ed Halter to discuss our new pop culture reality, where everything—good or bad—is here to stay.

Queer Criticism May 29, 2018

Show notes

In his essay “Responsibilities of a Gay Film Critic”—first published in the January/February 1978 issue of Film Comment—Robin Wood wrote: “Critics are not, of course, supposed to talk personally. It is regarded as an embarrassment, as bad taste, and besides it is an affront to the famous ideal of ‘objectivity.’ . . . Yet I believe there will always be a close connection between critical theory, critical practice, and personal life; and it seems important that the critic should be aware of the personal bias that must inevitably affect his choice of theoretical position, and prepared to foreground it in his work.” Michael Koresky, Director of Editorial and Creative Strategy at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, invoked this landmark essay during a talk at the RiverRun International Film Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he was joined by K. Austin Collins, critic at Vanity Fair, and filmmaker and critic Farihah Zaman. Addressing representation in recent films like Love, Simon and Call Me by Your Name, the process of identification, and the absence of sexuality in the Marvel universe, their conversation is an earnest and thoughtful consideration of movie-viewing while queer.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

The Film Comment Podcast

Related Podcasts

1

2

3

4

5

6