The Film Comment Podcast

For a while now, we’ve been wanting to do an episode on the curious art form known as the TV movie. For a lot of people, the TV movie couldn’t be less of an art form, the term itself having become a byword for hokey or schlocky storytelling, even long after TV movies were being made in any great number. But why do so many remember these movies vividly for so many years afterward? And what might they have in common with other forms historically regarded as “less than serious,” like the melodrama? And what makes TV movies—including those directed by Steven Spielberg, Robert Altman, and George Cukor, to name a few—different from, just, a movie? Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold turns to Soraya Nadia McDonald, culture critic at The Undefeated, and FC contributor Shonni Enelow for help answering the vexing question: What was the TV movie?

Welcome to another edition of the Rep Report, our regular roundup of retrospectives, repertory cinema, and other film series in New York. This week, we turn our attention to a remarkable series at Film Forum titled The Hour of Liberation: Decolonizing Cinema, 1966–1981. The series looks at landmark works from around the world that pushed cinema and political critique into bold new directions, and includes rarely screened films by Ousmane Sembène, Med Hondo, Sara Gómez, Glauber Rocha, and many others. FC Editor-in Chief Nicolas Rapold is joined by Elspeth Carroll, the curator of the series and Repertory Programming Associate at Film Forum, and Ashley Clark, Senior Repertory and Specialty Film Programmer at BAM.

In her feature on Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir in the May-June issue of Film Comment, Sheila O’Malley writes,“The autobiographical origins of The Souvenir are obvious (Hogg doesn’t try to hide them), yet she allows for free-floating associations, creating a kind of space where connections are possible, where there can be a wincing kind of recognition, a remembrance of first love and first heartbreak. The response is a not always comfortable: ‘Yes. My God, I know that. That is so true.’’’ The film, a self-portrait of the artist as a young woman, is a complex and multi-layered exploration of first love, heartbreak, creativity, family, and class. Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold sat down with O’Malley (also author of the FC column Present Tense) and FC contributor and columnist Michael Koresky to discuss the The Souvenir and how Hogg’s previous films Unrelated (2008), Archipelago (2010), and Exhibition (2013) inform her latest.

For our latest Film Comment Free Talk, the director of I Shot Andy Warhol and American Psycho sat down for a conversation about at her latest, Charlie Says. The film looks past the mythology of the Manson Family murders to focus on the experiences of three women under the charismatic cult leader’s spell, both at the time of the crimes and in prison. Harron and FC Editor-in-Chief discuss the genesis of the film, the director’s background as a punk-era music journalist, and her depictions of violence—both physical and psychological—on screen.

The end is nigh! For our final salvo from the Riviera, we welcome guest Manohla Dargis, critic for the New York Times, for a wrap-up of all the festival goings-on. Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold sat down with Dargis to discuss a Cannes line-up that was widely considered a success. The two run through their highlights of the festival, including Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles’s phantasmagorical Bacurau, the fascinating flawed jewel that is Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, and Mounia Meddour’s Algerian ’90s coming-of-age drama Papicha. They also discuss the lowlights, including Abdellatif Kechiche’s much maligned three-and-a-half-hour ogle Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo. Other topics include TV Westerns of the ’60s and ’70s, movie stars and press junkets, the politics of what plays in competition, and much more.

The Film Comment Podcast takes you into the closing weekend of Cannes with guest Rasha Salti, programmer for the Marrakesh International Film Festival. Salti joins FC Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold for a closer look at Middle Eastern and African films, including Alaa Eddine Aljem’s The Unknown Saint, Amin Sidi-Boumédiène’s Abou Leila, Ala Eddine Slim’s Tlamess, as well as Bertrand Bonello’s Zombi Child, Rebecca Zlotowski’s The Easy Girl, and many others.

We're back from Cannes, this time with a recording of a live Film Comment event at the American Pavilion. Joining Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold on the stage were Film at Lincoln Center Deputy Director Eugene Hernandez, FC contributing editor Amy Taubin, and FC contributor Jonathan Romney. Through the fog of ”baguette overdose,” the four take a big-picture look at the festival and discuss the 2019 entries they believe will stand the test of time. The films discussed (and debated) include Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite, Jim Jarmusch’s The Dead Don't Die, Robert Egger’s The Lighthouse, Abel Ferrara’s Tomasso, and many more.

It’s two-fer Tuesday! We’re back with a fresh-out-of-the-oven special episode on two of the most anticipated films at the festival: Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life. Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold is joined by critic and programmer Giulia d'Agnolo Vallan and Eric Hynes, FC contributor and curator of film at the Museum of the Moving Image, for a conversation on Tarantino’s post-Summer-of-Love comedown and a (somewhat) heated debate on Malick’s meditation on war and ethics.

The Film Comment Podcast returns for another day of fun, sun, and Cannes-versation from the French Rivieria. For day 7, Italian critic Carlo Chatrian, recently named Artistic Director of the Berlin Film Festival, sat down with Film Comment Editor-in-Chief to discuss Bertrand Bonello’s Zombi Child, Albert Serra’s literally Sadistic Liberté, Bruno Dumont’s Joan of Arc, and Corneliu Porumboiu’s unclassifiable The Whistlers and gestures toward genre at Cannes.

Welcome back for day 6 of our podcast from Cannes. We’re kicking the week off with guests Dennis Lim, director of programming at Film at Lincoln Center, and Film Comment contributor Jonathan Romney. They join FC Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold for a discussion of three Cannes sensations: Corneliu Porumboiu’s dream-like The Whistlers, Albert Serra’s “radical,” La Liberté, and Robert Eggers’s “intensely physical” The Lighthouse.