Email Author Jim Hoberman

2011 Stories by Jim Hoberman

• The Raven

  published December 14, 2011

  Dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot (1943). In his brilliantly nasty second feature, Clouzot takes a clinical pleasure in detailing a small town’s... More >>

• Daguerreotypes

  published December 14, 2011

  Dir. Agnès Varda (1976). Varda interviews her neighbors—the bakers, perfumers, and other shopkeepers on Paris’s evocatively... More >>

• The Servant

  published December 14, 2011

  Dir. Joseph Losey (1962). An arthouse hit of the early ‘60s, Losey’s comeback film was a sleekly baroque, daringly cool treatment of... More >>

• The Merry Widow

  published December 14, 2011

  Dir. Erich von Stroheim (1925). Assigned to adapt Franz Leher’s chestnut, Stroheim enlivens the somewhat Americanized, if pleasingly lavish,... More >>

• The Color Wheel

  published December 7, 2011

  Dir. Alex Ross Perry (2011). A brother-sister road trip takes on mythic—or at least richly psychological—proportions in this artfully... More >>

• The Wages of Fear

  published December 7, 2011

  Dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot (1954). The ultimate in existential drama, Clouzot’s nail-biter, hokey but effective, sends a pair of scurvy... More >>

• Possession

  published December 7, 2011

  Dir. Andrzej Zulawski (1981). Made with an international cast in still-divided Berlin, Possession starts as an unusually violent... More >>

• Raging Bull

  published December 7, 2011

  Dir. Martin Scorsese (1980). Underrated on its appearance in 1980, this saga of ‘50s boxer Jake LaMotta would become the most highly... More >>

• Late Spring

  published December 7, 2011

  Dir. Yasujiro Ozu (1949). Ozu acknowledged the post World War II order in this uncannily tranquil heartbreaker about a father who tricks his... More >>

• The Strange Case of Angelica

  published December 7, 2011

  Dir. Manoel de Oliviera (2010). As funny and peculiar as its title promises, de Oliviera’s latest last film puts his own eccentric spin on... More >>

• After Hours

  published December 7, 2011

  Dir. Martin Scorsese (1985). Scorsese updates Kafka in this deftly low-budget, echt ‘80s black comedy—a movie that, rather than Soho,... More >>

• Pripyat

  published December 7, 2011

  Dir. Nikolaus Geyrhalter (1999). This beautifully shot and eerily restrained documentary takes its title from the long-evacuated town closest to... More >>

• Into Eternity

  published December 7, 2011

  Dir. Michael Madsen (2010). Documenting the tombs the Finnish government has dug for their nuclear waste, Into Eternity is not so... More >>

• Diabolique

  published December 7, 2011

  Dir. Henri-George Clouzot (1955). Hitchcock’s Psycho, not to mention a ridiculous remake starring Sharon Stone, may have erased... More >>

• 2001: A Space Odyssey

  published November 23, 2011

  Dir. Stanley Kubrick (1968). As much a part of American history as the moon landing it presaged, Kubrick’s ultimate head trip is now his... More >>

• Orpheus

  published November 23, 2011

  Dir. Jean Cocteau (1949). Cocteau’s brilliant, hokey transposition of the Greek myth to postwar (or is it German-occupied?) France is not... More >>

• Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son

  published November 23, 2011

  Dir. Ken Jacobs (1969). In this classic of late ‘60s New York structural filmmaking, Jacobs reworks a static, pre-Griffith one-reeler so as... More >>

• Fantasia

  published November 23, 2011

  Dir. Walt Disney (1940). The kitschiest, most bombastic of early Disney animations—an attempt to bring Beethoven and Stravinsky (and Grieg... More >>

• Solaris

  published November 23, 2011

  Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky (1973). Originally hailed as the Soviet 2001, Tarkovsky’s sci-fi epic, adapted from Stanislaw Lem’s more... More >>

• Yi Yi

  published November 23, 2011

  Edward Yang, 2000) Yang’s most complex and inclusive portrait to date of Taiwan’s uneasy urban middle class is a wonderfully... More >>

• ¡Three Amigos!

  published November 23, 2011

  Dir. John Landis (1986). A trio of costumed washed-up Western stars (Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, and Martin Short) coping with Mexico circa 1916 in... More >>

• 4 Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle

  published November 23, 2011

  Dir. Eric Rohmer (1986). A snooty city mouse teams up with a deceptively pliant, artist wannabe country cousin in this deceptively slight Rohmer... More >>

• The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

  published November 23, 2011

  Dir. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (1943). World War II inspired all manner of morale-boosting epics—none more curious than this... More >>

• A Brighter Summer Day

  published November 23, 2011

  Dir. Edward Yang (1991). A youth-culture monument, Yang’s masterpiece is a four-hour teenage epic. This nocturnal immersion in high school... More >>

• Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti

  published November 16, 2011

  Dir. Maya Deren (1977). After inventing the idea of an American avant-garde filmmaker, Maya Deren used a Guggenheim grant to finance a trip to... More >>