This article appeared in the January 17, 2025 edition of The Film Comment Letter, our free weekly newsletter featuring original film criticism and writing. Sign up for the Letter here.

Illustration by Yuri Kavalerchik.

Here at Film Comment, we live by Serge Daney’s motto: “Cinephilia is not only a particular relationship to cinema, it is a relationship to the world through cinema.” We love moving images because they nourish, entertain, and educate us, and also because they reveal our innermost selves—our deepest desires, fears, and fantasies. 

In that spirit, we’re thrilled to present the second installment of our advice column, You’re Projecting. This edition is packed with wise words from FC contributors Inney Prakash and Imogen Sara Smith. Submit your questions for our upcoming Valentine’s Day–themed round here.

Dear You’re Projecting, 

Thanks for this endearing “agony aunt,” cinephile-style. I am an early-career film programmer, and I can (fairly happily) say I have now started my journey in the film industry. However, I sometimes have the sense that cinema is just becoming a routine, a given task, and I am afraid I will soon lose the magical feeling that made me fall in love with it and decide to make it my profession.

Any recommendations to make me start believing again?

Yours,

Soon-to-Be-Lost Cinephile

***

Dear Soon-to-Be-Lost,

There are two drastically different answers to your question, and which is more relevant depends on the true nature of the feelings that motivated it. I’ll start with the easy answer: we all get stuck in ruts and routines, and sometimes a little shake-up is all that’s needed.

Do you specialize in a particular type of cinema-viewing/programming? Try stepping out of your comfort zone. I started watching horror movies for the first time this past Halloween, and lately I’ve been hankering to watch a sleazy giallo at the end of a long day of emails with filmmakers, distributors, archivists, and screening partners.

How’s your home-viewing setup? I recently invested in mine. I did some research and bought a nice but reasonably priced projector, a retractable 100” screen, and black curtains to complete the experience. Nothing beats going to the cinema, but watching movies at home is now more exciting than it’s ever been for me, especially with friends.

Now, a question that gets at the more serious issue potentially plaguing you: is this really what you want to do? I try to remind myself every day that there are cinephiles around the world who dream of doing what I get to do for a living, and I tell myself that if I ever no longer derive joy from it, I’ll step away. I’ve definitely had day-nightmares about waking up and suddenly not loving movies anymore. Knock on wood, it hasn’t happened yet. If you feel this larger issue might be at play, I recommend a session with a therapist or a career counselor.

Oh, and don’t forget to step away from movies occasionally and read books, meet new people, and go outside!

Wishing you the best,

Inney Prakash (Programmer of Ten Years and Still a Cinephile)

Dear You’re Projecting, 

I am trying to build my wardrobe, but it has never been only about clothes: fashion is a feeling, a way of life. What films are driven by characters with style and flair, who move through the world with agency and confidence clearly reflected in their fashion decisions? (I like most 1930s and 1940s Hollywood movies, but I want to explore beyond this era!) 

Warmly, 

Mink Coat

***

Dear Mink Coat,

My mind goes first to the fast-talking dames of the 1930s and ’40s whom we both seem to love. They sauntered from screwball comedy into film noir: Lauren Bacall in her Hawksian checked suits and berets; Ella Raines as an emancipated professional (a textile designer, no less) in The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945). (Raines’s entire career is worthy of sartorial study: No one ever wore a bolero jacket or high-waisted, wide-leg trousers better.) Although I cannot really offer her as a role model for female agency, there are few wardrobes in cinema that I covet more than the one designed by Jean Louis and worn by Gloria Grahame as Laurel Gray in Nicholas Ray’s In a Lonely Place (1950). The pencil skirts with hip pockets and high-necked sweaters with buttons accentuating the sleeves; the slacks and checkered jacket for an unplanned, early-morning trip to the police station; a couple of drop-dead cocktail dresses—it’s one of the most stylish movie wardrobes that I can actually believe comes from the closet of a real woman. Alas, Laurel’s clothing choices are smarter than her taste in men.

I would also nominate Kinuyo Tanaka as a sassy office worker by day, gangster’s moll by night in Ozu’s Dragnet Girl (1933); Barbara Stanwyck in Sirk’s There’s Always Tomorrow (1956) (Stanwyck in anything, really, though it’s more about how she wears clothes than what she wears); and Silvana Mangano and all the female migrant workers in Bitter Rice (1949), for the style and panache with which they wear any old rags.

Lastly, few women in cinema have more fun with clothes than the title characters of Jacques Rivette’s Céline and Julie Go Boating (1974). Since this film was created in collaboration with its lead actors, Juliet Berto and Dominique Labourier, I assume they had a hand in devising the wardrobes—(of course, they had an unfair advantage, being French). It’s one of the great films about clothing as performance and play, and about women dressing for each other.

Sincerely,

Imogen Sara Smith

Inney Prakash is a film curator and critic based in New York City.

Imogen Sara Smith is the author of In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City and Buster Keaton: The Persistence of Comedy. She has written for The Criterion Collection and elsewhere, and wrote the Phantom Light column for Film Comment.