Film
Blake Edwards’s Experiment in Terror
By Harrison BlackmanSince its release in 1962, Experiment in Terror has inspired artists from David Lynch to Lana Del Rey. Sometimes considered a “neo-noir” due to its production several years after the film noir’s heyday, the movie represents a bridge between the classic noir period of the 1940s and the glut of serial killer content which started arriving in the wake of The Silence of the Lambs (1991).
Jia Zhangke: Three Films for the New Cold War
By Daniel LoPilatoJia Zhangke’s signature blend of slice-of-life portraiture, documentary realism, and understated surrealism offers a salve to cinemagoers made weary by the revanchist Cold War nationalism taking hold over the US press and ruling class. In anticipation of his new film, three of Jia’s narrative features warrant revisiting for their remarkable ability to transform sites of globalization into humanistic meditations on alienation and exploitation.
Raoul Peck’s Exterminate All the Brutes
By Ella TurenneAs critical race theory continues to be under attack, Raoul Peck’s Exterminate All the Brutes (2021) provides a solid argument for why historical context matters. The four-hour series is at once a stunning visual text as well as a deeply personal essay that explores white supremacy and its impacts in the Americas. The docuseries is a disruption of white supremacy, documentary narrative form, and the essentializing of the Black experience.
