The Film Comment Podcast

They say that "democracy dies in darkness," but a handful of new films, including Mike Leigh's Peterloo and Jordan Peele's Us, argue otherwise, providing evidence that the subject is alive and well in darkened theaters across the country. This week, we discuss how these films—along with the work of Agnès Varda, Agnieszka Holland, and Frederick Wiseman—portray democracy on screen. Film Comment Editor in Chief Nicolas Rapold, contributing editor Amy Taubin, and FC contributor Shonni Enelow convene a committee to explore how these filmmakers and films approach the often messy, non-linear, and multi-faceted process of collective governance.

The Rep Report returns with an in-depth conversation about the upcoming Nelly Kaplan retrospective at the Quad Cinema, along with other rep highlights. This week, Film Comment Editor in Chief Nicolas Rapold is joined by FC contributing editor Nellie Killian and first-time guest Chris Wells, director of repertory programming at Quad Cinema for a look at an underappreciated filmmaker whose work is primed for reappraisal. The fascinating Nelly Kaplan was something of a polymath, variously a journalist, documentary filmmaker, writer of surrealist fiction, screenwriter, and film critic and theorist (and occasional contributor to Film Comment). Under discussion here is the series of politically probing, playful, and ferociously feminist features which the Paris-based Kaplan began making in the late ’60s. In addition to the Kaplan series, which opens April 12 at the Quad, we also touch on Film Forum's upcoming Fay Wray and Robert Riskin series and pay tribute to the Nitrate Picture Show at the George Eastman Museum.

High Life, the new movie from Claire Denis, comes to theaters on April 5. With a cast featuring Film Comment cover subject Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, and André Benjamin as members of a group of death-row convicts trapped on an experimental, interstellar journey, High Life tells a story of intimacy, isolation, and taboo. Though it touches on themes of family and group identity that may be familiar to fans of Denis, the film’s setting and nods to science fiction make it a both a continuation and a complication of many of the ideas, feelings, and sensations that she’s explored before. For the occasion, Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold welcomed FC contributing writer Nick Pinkerton (author of the March-April issue’s High Life cover story) and Madeline Whittle of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, to discuss both High Life and one other Denis film chosen by each guest. Denis and Pattinson will sit down for a Film Comment Free Talk on Thursday, April 4, at 5:30pm. The seating will be first-come, first-served, and doors will open at 4:30pm. Don’t miss what’s sure to be an enlightening, exciting conversation. For more information, visit filmlinc.org.

For our latest Film Comment talk, Academy Award-winning director László Nemes sat down to discuss his latest film, which opened Film Comment Selects last month. The film, Sunset, tells the story of an orphaned young woman, Irisz, searching for her mysterious brother in the nightmarishly labyrinth of pre-World War I Budapest. Sunset opens in theaters on March 22. Nemes joined Film Comment editor Nicolas Rapold for a conversation following on Saturday, February 9 to discuss Sunset and the director's work more broadly.

Over the years, the True/False festival (based in the college town of Columbia, Missouri) has grown into one of the most outstanding annual showcases for documentary film. This year, Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold returned to moderate “Toasted,” the True/False festival’s very late-night wrap-up event, in front of a lively audience. Rapold was joined by a crew of filmmakers and programmers, including Brett Story, director of The Hottest August; Maíra Bühler, director of Let It Burn; Miko Revereza, director of No Data Plan; and Jason Fitzroy Jeffers, filmmaker and founder and director of the Third Horizon collective and the Third Horizon Film Festival.

This week, the Film Comment Podcast digs into Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will and the ways in which the reputations of the notorious film and its maker have shifted over the years. In a feature article on the legendary Nazi-propaganda project in the latest issue of Film Comment, contributing editor J. Hoberman writes that, “Triumph of the Will is an organic product of cinema history, a synthesis of Metropolis’s monumental mass ornament, Potemkin’s pow, and Hollywood extravagance.” Once denounced as the fascist propaganda it in fact is, the film came to be celebrated as a masterpiece of formal daring in the 1960s and 1970s, a rehabilitation that culminated with Riefenstahl receiving a controversial tribute at the 1974 Telluride Film Festival. Film Comment Editor in Chief Nicolas Rapold is joined by Hoberman and filmmaker and professor Zoe Beloff for a discussion of the film’s relevance to the current historical moment (Steve Bannon and Roger Ailes are purportedly big fans) and the larger question of artistry in the service of evil. Read J. Hoberman's article: https://www.filmcomment.com/article/triumph-of-the-will/

On February 13, Film Comment presented a special evening with the Spike Lee, Best Director nominee for BlacKkKlansman. The night included an extended conversation between Lee and Emmy Award–winning writer and television host Lawrence O’Donnell (The West Wing, MSNBC), followed by a screening of BlacKkKlansman, presented by Film Comment. Lee discusses the genesis of BlacKkKlansman, how he chooses collaborators, and what it would mean to him to win an Oscar for the film. Nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Director, BlacKkKlansman tells the true story of Ron Stallworth (John David Washington), the first African-American detective to serve in the Colorado Springs Police Department, who bravely sets out on a dangerous mission: infiltrate and expose the Ku Klux Klan. In his feature on the film in the July-August 2018 issue of Film Comment, Teo Bugbee writes that, "BlacKkKlansman is no straight biopic. Instead, it follows the beats of a traditional cop movie, where a man of the law is torn between allegiances in his efforts to solve a case. In this regard, the film represents the latest chapter in the underrated career of Spike Lee, genre filmmaker."

Love is, of course, in the air, and with most new release schedules in hibernation, February can be a great time for repertory cinema for both lovers and loners. Guests Nellie Killian (FC contributing editor and independent programmer) and Jon Dieringer (founder of Screen Slate) join Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold to run down the best rep screenings on offer around New York City. First up are two series at Anthology Film Archives: the annual “Valentine’s Day Massacre”—featuring mainstays Albert Brooks’s Modern Romance and Maurice Pialat’s We Won’t Grow Old Together—and “In-Person Reenactment,” featuring Martha Coolidge’s Not a Pretty Picture. The three also discuss new documentaries about outsider musicians, the recently wrapped-up Film Comment Selects series, the Marlon Riggs series at BAM, and Claire Simon’s The Competition, among others.

The Film Comment Podcast returns with our final episode on the wild, windswept ride that was Sundance 2019. Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold sat down with Film Society of Lincoln Center Deputy Director (and Film Comment Co-publisher) Eugene Hernandez to dissect and analyze their standout films from the festival, with a special focus on documentaries Leaving Neverland and Halston. The two also discuss the evolution of Sundance over the years, from Eugene's first visit in 1992 ("The Year of the Twentysomething") to the festival's more recent efforts to expand their programming beyond the world of American independent cinema. Catch up on all The Film Comment Podcast reports from Sundance 2019.

Maintaining a marathon pace, the Film Comment Podcast returns with more insightful commentary and conversation from the Sundance Film Festival. FC Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold is joined once again by guests and FC contributors Devika Girish and Eric Hynes (also curator of film at the Museum of the Moving Image) for a discussion of some under-the-radar films that might not have received as much attention at the Festival. These gems include the Macedonian documentary Honeyland, Danish drama Queen of Hearts, experimental short film America, teen drama Selah and the Spades, and finally, a cynical comedy that stood out in all the wrong ways: Brittany Runs a Marathon.