Sign up for the Film Comment Letter today to get original film writing delivered to your inbox every week! >>

Published by Film at Lincoln Center

Eric Hynes

Make It Real: Look Ma, We’re All Hands

By Eric Hynes
March 15, 2016
Around and about: the filmmaking process and its many meanings at True/False 2016

Make It Real: The Dancer and the Dance

By Eric Hynes
March 3, 2016
Two kinetic films at Sundance flipped the script in different directions

Make It Real: I Was Up Above It, Now I’m Down In It

By Eric Hynes
February 15, 2016
Getting too comfortable: how filmmakers at Sundance express compassion—or not—in framing themselves and their subjects

Make It Real: The Big Short, A Documentary Feature

By Eric Hynes
January 22, 2016
Adam McKay made a documentary. At least, 70 years ago we would have called it that. Our intrepid columnist explains

Make It Real: How It Happened

By Eric Hynes
January 4, 2016
Ten titles testified to the vitality of nonfiction film in 2015

Make It Real: The Ones That Got Away

By Eric Hynes
December 23, 2015
Notable exceptions: giving some darned good overlooked documentaries their moment in the sun

Make It Real: Medium Well

By Eric Hynes
December 18, 2015
Sweet spots: feature-length is not the only game in town, as nonfiction fest RIDM demonstrates with its selection of mid-length miracles

Make It Real: Video Revives the Radio Star

By Eric Hynes
December 4, 2015
How many music documentaries is too many? We may soon be nearing an answer to this question.

Make It Real: On Characters and Democrats

By Eric Hynes
November 20, 2015
Out of the ballot box: Camilla Nielsson's engrossing documentary about Zimbabwe's democratic election doesn't simplify for the sake of storytelling

Make It Real: Of Cameras and Compassion

By Eric Hynes
November 13, 2015
How the extraordinary Of Men and War performs cinematherapy for its war-veteran subjects speaking about trauma

Make It Real: Melting Pot

By Eric Hynes
November 4, 2015
Wiseman’s neighborhood watch In Jackson Heights

Make It Real: The Varieties of Nonfiction Experience

By Eric Hynes
October 30, 2015
Mixed media: the new Wind-Up Fest experiments with audio-only performance and what goes on behind closed doors

Interview: Patricio Guzmán

By Eric Hynes
October 22, 2015
The Chilean director of The Pearl Button and Nostalgia for the Light finds elemental terms for reflecting upon his nation's tortured past

Make It Real: On Cinematic Autobiography, Part 2

By Eric Hynes
October 16, 2015
Autobiography in the first, second, and third person: exploring the work (and relationships) of Ed Pincus, Lucia Small, and Manoel de Oliveira

Make It Real: On Cinematic Autobiography, Part 1

By Eric Hynes
October 9, 2015
Candid constructions: a consideration of documentarians who make films about their own lives

Make It Real: The Artist Is Present in the Edit

By Eric Hynes
October 1, 2015
Finders keepers: the strategies of documentarians who assemble films from footage they didn't shoot

Make It Real: The Director Stays in the Picture

By Eric Hynes
September 23, 2015
Down in front: what happens when filmmakers become characters?

Make It Real: The Long and the Short of It

By Eric Hynes
September 11, 2015
The right fit: challenging the accepted wisdom about documentary runtimes, sales, and what audiences are willing to watch

Review: Queen of Earth

By Eric Hynes
September 3, 2015
(Alex Ross Perry, U.S., 2015)

Make It Real: The Long Echo of When the Levees Broke

By Eric Hynes
August 31, 2015
On the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Spike Lee's mournful, mighty "requiem in four acts" still testifies loud and clear