FEATURES
ELEPHANT
By Amy Taubin
Inspired by the Columbine High School shootings, Gus Van Sant’s daring and sure-to-be-controversial new film depicts the eruption of inexplicable violence within the enclosed, heightened world of adolescence. The director discusses how he arrived at this haunting, at times hallucinatory vision.
Plus: further thoughts on a cruel story of youth by Kent Jones
EASTWOOD
By Kent Jones
Clint Eastwood began directing in 1971. Twenty years later, he took home a Best Director Oscar. Why is his status as a great American filmmaker still disputed? What lies behind his old-fashioned but still vital approach to moviemaking? And why is Mystic River up there with Bird, Unforgiven, A Perfect World, and The Bridges of Madison County?
YASUJIRO OZU
By Richard Combs
This Japanese master’s name has become synonymous with a transcendental vision of quietude and spiritual irresolution, in which daily life and domesticity occupy a central position. But underneath hides an altogether more elusive filmmaker, whose tactics of withholding, substitution, and suspension suggest a sensibility rounded in refusal and withdrawal.
THE HIRE
By Chuck Stephens
Enlisting cutting-edge directors (from Ang Lee to Joe Carnahan) and giving them carte blanche, BMW has brazenly upped the ante in the branding sweepstakes with its series of eight micromovies. The shortest action spectaculars ever made—or the world’s longest commercials?
ZOË LUND
By Kristin M. Jones
We reveal the extraordinary life and radical vision of this downtown icon.
CHINESE CINEMA NOW
By Bérénice Reynaud
A new wave of younger filmmakers move to center stage, ready to build on the Sixth Generation’s hard-won freedoms. Plus: a look at the career of quintessential Sixth Generation filmmaker Zhang Yang.
DEPARTMENTS
EDITOR’S LETTER
OPENING SHOTS
News, Off the Shelf by Chuck Stephens, Guilty Pleasures: Alec Baldwin
JOURNAL
Pablo Suárez on Buenos Aires
FIRST LOOK
Jean-Luc Godard’s Liberty and Homeland by Frédéric Bonnaud
SOUND & VISION
demonlover by Howard Hampton & Manhatta by Chris Chang
CRITICS CHOICE
Eight critics rate 25 new releases
DISCOVERY
Diego Lerman by Pablo Suárez
MOVIE OF THE MOMENT
demonlover by Serge Kaganski
STORYBOARD
“Consideration” by Bob Strauss
REVIEW
In This World by Michael Almereyda, To Be and To Have by Amy Taubin, The Trilogy by Mark Olsen, & The Party Monster by Velma Darwin
VIDI VIDI VIDI
Tightrope by Gavin Smith, White Hunter, Black Heart by Guy Maddin, The Rookie by Michael Koresky, Pink Cadillac & City Heat by Chris Chang
FSLC SEEN
Who’s who at recent Film Society events
