The Film Comment Podcast
Episodes
Independents Day
04 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
What do we talk about when we talk about independent film? At various points it’s referred to a freedom of style, or it’s been shorthand for a low...
Bad Scenes in Good Movies, Good Scenes in Bad Movies
27 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
We expect that discrete scenes will play off of one another to create any given feature film, but what happens when one of these moments tugs the narr...
Streaming vs. Theatrical
20 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Having programmed two high-profile Netflix premieres, Bong Joon Ho’s Okja and Noah Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected), in the ma...
Movie Addictions
13 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Maybe it’s the magnetic pull of a performance, a sequence, or a mood, but there are some movies that demand multiple rewatches. This episode of the ...
Fassbinder’s Eight Hours Don’t Make A Day
05 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Did the golden age of television already happen? This episode of the podcast makes the case that it has—in 1970s Germany, courtesy of the one and on...
Cannes 2017 Roundtable #2
30 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The agony and the ecstasy of festivalgoing continues on this week’s episode. In the second week of Cannes, two television shows by established auteu...
Cannes 2017 Roundtable #1
23 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The dark of the theater and the sunny seafront come together but once a year at the Cannes Film Festival, and in this week's episode of the Film Comme...
Musicals! The Podcast
16 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
There's one alliterative movie musical that's dominated the recent conversational limelight, but less frequently discussed is how it operates within t...
1984
09 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Following a free screening of Michael Radford's adaptation of 1984 in early April as part of a nationwide event, Film Comment Editor Nicolas Rapold mo...
Movie Gifts
02 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
To celebrate the 55th birthday of our magazine, we present a special gift-giving episode of the podcast. The gifts in this case are movies: as in a Se...
Art Of The Real 2017
26 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This week's episode of the Film Comment podcast takes a sonic journey through this year's edition of Art of the Real, which runs through May 2 at the ...
John Waters Is on the Phone
25 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
On the occasion of Criterion Collection's home video release of Multiple Maniacs and the publication of his new book Make Trouble, Violet Lucca chats ...
The Classical
18 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
James Gray's The Lost City of Z, which opened last Friday, charts a course into the jungle alongside a character in search of transcendence. Shot on g...
Terrence Malick
11 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
"You don't want something to look too staged in movies or they look overly presented. You don't know what comes out . . . You don't know what you have...
Comedy Today
05 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In a March/April 2017 feature titled "No Joke," Film Comment Digital Producer Violet Lucca traces current trends in modern American comedies to the pr...
New Directors / New Films 2017 + Albert Serra
28 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This week's episode of the Film Comment podcast begins with an interview with the irrepressible Albert Serra, director of our March/April cover film T...
Coming Of Age Horror
21 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Horror films are unusually adept at giving mutable flesh to the terrors of adolescence, and Julia Ducournau's new film Raw is no exception. After a ch...
Live From True False 2017
15 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The True/False Film Fest in Columbia, Missouri, reliably assembles a selection of the world’s finest nonfiction film, tracking down surprises from s...
Acting For All Ages
07 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Jean-Pierre Léaud's familiar face graces the cover of the new March/April issue of Film Comment, waiting out his final days in Albert Serra's new fil...
Steve Bannon
28 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
As filmmaker and critic Jeff Reichert put it in his January/February 2017 Film Comment feature on Steve Bannon's documentary work, "We could dismiss B...
Before And After, Live
21 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In his 1985 film God's Country, Louis Malle visits a small town in Minnesota both before and after Reagan's election, documenting the stark economic d...
The King of Cinema
14 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
“I always go back to Ozu and Bresson, both of whom I admire a great deal. I like the way Bresson frames midriff: a person going across the room but ...
Women In New Hollywood
07 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Road-tripping crises of masculinity soundtracked by classic rock, Harvey Keitel making up for his sins in the streets—a laundry list of 1970s New Ho...
Raoul Peck + Dustin Guy Defa and Laura Dunn
31 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This week's two-pronged episode of the Film Comment podcast digs into a varied slate of contemporary filmmaking. First, from the New York Film Festiva...
Sundance History
25 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The first Sundance Film Festival, then known as the US/Utah Film Festival, took place in 1978 in an effort to bring independent filmmaking talent to t...
Sundance Critics' Roundtable
23 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Alpine air, ski-friendly powder, and independent film converge every January at the Sundance Film Festival. And now, as a slight respite from the hype...
Identity
17 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Ideology and aesthetics have somehow come to be positioned opposite one another—in film criticism, should one be privileged over the other? This epi...
Carte Blanche
10 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Questions of legacy can rile up the creative juices in unexpected ways, especially when filmmakers who win a bit of success are allowed to dive headlo...
Spooky Christmas
27 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
There’s no single way to celebrate the holiday season, but nearly every custom is centered on family and friends gathering together. In the first se...
LGBTQ Representation
20 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
On the other side of the visibility hurdle, questions about queer representation in film persist. Is visibility enough? How much is an appropriate amo...
The Best Of 2016
13 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
2016 may be ill-suited to fond recollections, but the annual Film Comment Top 20 list does have plenty of good cheer to go around. This year's poll wa...
The Marginalization Of Cinema
06 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The clickbait consensus may be that cinema is dead, but the fact of the matter is a bit more nuanced. In the November/December issue of Film Comment, ...
Tearjerkers and Manchester by the Sea
29 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
There’s more to tearjerkers than the deceptively simple term might suggest, and in this episode of the Film Comment podcast, we consider the nuanced...
Post-Election
23 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
According to the experts, this wasn’t supposed to turn out this way… but it did. While the election of Donald Trump has prompted a great deal of s...
Paul Verhoeven
15 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
What are the uncanny forces at work behind Paul Verhoeven’s visceral and transgressive cinema? In anticipation of the Film Society’s complete ret...
Election Day
08 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
It's finally here: Election Day. After you've cast your vote, hopefully this new episode of the Film Comment podcast will help you relax as the result...
NYFF Live Filmmaker Chat
01 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Although one-on-one interviews with filmmakers are often accessible (depending, of course, on the personality at hand), group roundtables with a varie...
Kristen Stewart and Chloë Sevigny
26 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Kristen Stewart took a quick breather from promoting her triptych of new films at NYFF to reflect on collaborating with Olivier Assayas and Kelly Reic...
Face Your Fears
25 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Is it possible to pinpoint what is so scary about an unsettling moment of a well-made horror film? It could be the image itself, but it could also be ...
Errol Morris Election Special
19 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Photography is by nature bittersweet: a warm moment with a loved one is captured forever, a reminder of an instant in time that can never be repeated....
NYFF 2016 Live Roundtable
18 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The fanfare of the 54th New York Film Festival may have officially wrapped on Saturday, but the films themselves live on—so let's talk about them. A...
The Living Cinema
11 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The September/October issue of Film Comment re-envisioned the magazine’s style and sharpened its focus, celebrating the vibrancy of cinema as well a...
Social Media and Criticism
04 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Aside from search engines, the most visited sites in the world are social media: the old mainstays Facebook and Twitter. Their impact on film culture ...
Classical Cinema, Now
27 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Great works of art transcend the passage of time, but the cinema of years past has its own special qualities of transcendence and immersion. This epis...
Charles Burnett and Oliver Stone
21 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
How do you approach political filmmaking in a meaningful way? And, in this politically charged era, where are the dissenting voices in film? In this e...
Live from TIFF '16
16 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Hosting over 300 films, many of which are world or North American premieres, the Toronto International Film Festival is a frequently overwhelming expe...
American Movie Acting Today
07 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is the first of three to dive into features from our newly redesigned September-October issue, which asks "What Is Cinema Now?" Shonni E...
VHS, RIP
30 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Last month, the final VCR rolled off the line at the Funai plant in Japan, officially signaling the end of an era. Although there have been numerous s...
Class at the Movies
23 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Visions of class surround us each day, both overtly and subliminally, in advertisements, literature, and film. Which visual and narrative tools are sp...
Ironic Soundtracks
16 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
While so many soundtracks seem to exist solely to underline the tone of a scene, unexpected musical cues can completely recontextualize and undermine ...
Mondo Mondo
26 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
This month, at Anthology Film Archives, FILM COMMENT contributor Nick Pinkerton has programmed a variety of shockumentary-style works ranging from the...
Merchant-Ivory + Howards End
19 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Though associated with heritage films—lush period films typically set in Britain’s imperial past—producer Ismail Merchant, director James Ivory,...
The July/August Issue
05 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Kristen Stewart takes the spotlight in the brand-new July/August issue of FILM COMMENT, in a nuanced and balanced appreciation of the star's performan...
David Bordwell and The Rhapsodes
28 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In his recently published book The Rhapsodes, seminal critic and film historian David Bordwell pays tribute to four groundbreaking film critics who we...
The Summer of '66
22 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Today, the term “summer movie” is synonymous with big budgets, explosions, superhero franchises, family-friendly animated films, and sequels. Yet ...
Hong Sangsoo
14 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Hong Sangsoo is a filmmaker who isn’t afraid to repeat himself. Fashioning narratives around lonesome or just pathetic male artists’ attempts at f...
Brian De Palma
03 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In their intimate and insightful documentary De Palma, directors Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow sit down with the legendary filmmaker to discuss his a...
Cannes Redux and Whit Stillman
27 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Believe it or not, but occasionally the critics attending Cannes take umbrage with the jury’s choices for awards—so much so this year that the Gra...
Live from Cannes 2016
20 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Comedies and genre films may not be the usual Croisette fare, but that wasn’t the case with the 69th edition of the Cannes Film Festival. Touching o...
History in the Making
10 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Plenty of films are set in the past, either adapted from texts from the period or written by authors looking back on history (and likely bringing thei...
The May/June Issue + Straub/Huillet
03 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
It’s that most special time of year: the May/June issue has arrived! What’s inside? We’re glad you asked: FILM COMMENT Digital Editor Violet Luc...
Queer Cinema Before Stonewall
26 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
On June 28, 1969, following a police raid of the Greenwich Village LGBT bar Stonewall Inn, a riot broke out around the neighborhood that continued int...
Vincent Lindon + Masculinity
19 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Described by Joan Dupont in the March/April issue of FILM COMMENT as “too haunted to be the suave lady-killer and too classy to be the loser,” Vin...
Everybody Wants Some!! + Sports
12 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Following the bold experiment of Boyhood, Richard Linklater returns with Everybody Wants Some!!, a semi-autobiographical movie about the infinite pote...
Art of the Real 2016
05 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Since film’s inception—from the Lumière’s early actualités to Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North—the boundary between documentary and f...
Comebacks
29 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In the spirit of fantasy football—or, you know, film criticism—FILM COMMENT contributors Michael Koresky (editor of Reverse Shot and director of p...
Arnaud Desplechin and Kent Jones
22 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Arnaud Desplechin’s My Golden Days takes the characters of his third feature, My Sex Life… or How I Got Into an Argument, and puts them into new (...
New Directors / New Films 2016
15 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Now in its 45th year, New Directors / New Films showcases fiction and documentary work from around the world. These filmmakers offer bold visions and ...
Representing History + Isabelle Huppert Interview
08 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Though we’re taught to compartmentalize historical movements into discrete events and dates, the truth (or what we know of it) is anything but. Four...
Better Living Through Criticism
01 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Criticism gets a bad rap a lot of the time, even from its practitioners. But rather than a defense of criticism, A.O. Scott. a chief film critic for T...
Live from Film Comment Selects
24 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
It's that most wonderful time of year: Film Comment Selects! This edition of our annual series of eclectic, international, and avant-garde films offer...
Influences
16 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Now that “takes,” gossip, and conversations about film can be instantly broadcast to the world, it’s sometimes easy to forget that above all els...
The Coen Brothers and Peter Greenaway
09 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
At first blush, the Coen Brothers and Peter Greenaway don’t appear to have much in common except that their new films, Hail, Caesar!and Eisenstein i...
Douglas Sirk and Representation
26 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The Film Society of Lincoln Center recently mounted a major retrospective of Douglas Sirk’s films, which included his first German productions from ...
The Best Performances of 2015
19 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
What were the noteworthy performances of 2015? And what different kinds of performance are there? Mindful of actors that weren’t nominated during aw...
The Best Films of 2015
18 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Rejoice, o ye year-end list obsessives! Digital editor Violet Lucca sat down with senior editor Nicolas Rapold, contributing editor and New York Film ...
New York Film Festival Roundtable 2015
20 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
A New York Film Festival Live talk, recorded October 9th, where Film Comment editors and contributors discussed this year's NYFF. Participants: Wesle...
50 Shades of Grey
20 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Melissa Anderson (contributor to Artforum, The Village Voice, and other publications) and Film Comment Digital Editor Violet Lucca speak about the fil...
The Film Comment Podcast: Shoah
03 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The first episode of our podcast: a discussion of Shoah by critic J. Hoberman and Joshua Oppenheimer, director of The Act of Killing. Please leave you...