The eloquence of cinematic space: Eric Rohmer 1920-2010

Image from La Collectionneuse (Eric Rohmer, 1967)

"What Rohmer does, in essence, is precisely to give space to this elusive life of the heart, expanding the arena for those subtle and important personal choices which most of the time, for most of us, are squeezed below the surface made up of work and more conscious or pressing demands", Judith Williamson [Deadline at Dawn: Film Criticism 1980-1990, Marion Boyars, London, 1993, p. 180]

“After all I do not say, I show. I show people who move and speak. That is all I know how to do, but that is my true subject.” Eric Rohmer ["Letter to a Critic Concerning my Contes moraux"]

"Rohmer remained true to a restrained, rationalist aesthetic, close to the principles of the 18th-century thinkers whose words he frequently cited in his movies. And yet [his] work was warmed by an undercurrent of romanticism and erotic yearning, made perhaps all the more affecting for never quite breaking through the surface of his elegant, orderly films" 

Dave Kehr [The New York Times, January 11, 2010]

A shocked Film Studies For Free mourns the passing of Eric Rohmer, one of the key directors of the French New Wave and one of the most eloquent founders, audiovisually and verbally, of the discourse of modern cinema.

David Hudson of The Auteurs is busily gathering links to a fantastic range of eulogies to, and other worthwhile material about, this filmmaker. Below, FSFF offers up its own (customary) tribute in the form of a list of links to online, freely accessible, and notable scholarly resources which explore Rohmer's magnificent body of cinematic work:

• Michael J. Anderson, ' Face & Form in Rohmer: From Ma nuit chez Maud’s Talking Cinema to the Denial of Eloquence in Le Rayon vert', Tativille, August 9, 2009 

• Jay Antani, 'Chloe in the Afternoon', CinemaWriter.com, November 9, 2009

• Thomas Elsaesser, 'The Cinema of Irony', Monogram 5, 1973, 1-2
  

• Aurélien Ferenzi, 'Interview with Eric Rohmer, with a Rohmer filmography', Senses of Cinema, Issue 16, 2001

• Aaron Goldberg, 'The 4 Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle', Senses of Cinema, Issue 35, 2005 

• Dennis Grunes, '[On Eric Rohner's] A Tale of Winter (1992)', Dennis Grunes, January 11, 2010 (also see Grunes/Rohmer)

• Rahul Hamid, 'My Night at Maud's', Senses of Cinema, Issue 35, 2005

• Dan Harper, 'A Tale of Springtime', Senses of Cinema, Issue 35, 2005
  

• Daniel Hayes, 'Claire's Knee', Senses of Cinema, Issue 35, 2005

• Molly Haskell, 'Claire’s Knee: Rohmer’s Women', Criterion Collection, 2006  
  

• Alexander C. Ives, 'The Grace of Suffering: Rohmer's Full Moon in Paris', Senses of Cinema, Issue 35, 2005
  

• Kevin B. Lee, 'Le signe du lion / The Sign of Leo (1959, Eric Rohmer)', Shooting Down Pictures, November 11, 2009
  

• Jacob Leigh, ‘The Caprices of Rosine or the Follies of a Fortnight: Parallel Intrigues in Eric Rohmer’s Conte d’automne’, Undercurrent Issue 2, July 2006

• Philip Lopate, 'La Collectionneuse: Marking Time', Criterion Collection, 2006 
  

• Bill Mousoulis, (comp.), "Rohmer Talk." Senses of Cinema, Issue 5, 2000

• Bill Mousoulis, 'Interview with Mary Stephen Rohmer's editor, Senses of Cinema, Issue 5, 2000

• Manuel Ramos Martínez, 'Betrayed Borders: Double Agents and the Crisscrossing of Conflicts', Sarai Reader 2007: Frontiers
  

• Steven Rybin, 'Place de l'Etoile', Senses of Cinema, Issue 35, 2005

• Damion Searls, 'On Eric Rohmer: 1920-2010', n+1, January22, 2010
  

• Tamara Tracz, 'Eric Rohmer', Senses of Cinema, 2003  

• Tamara Tracz, 'Triple Agent: Portrait of the Unknowable Other, Reflection of the Unknowable Self', Senses of Cinema, Issue 34, 2005
  

• Fiona A. Villella , 'Magic Realism in Autumn Tale', Senses of Cinema, Issue 5, 2000

• Ginette Vincendeau, 'Eric Rohmer: Blueprints for a Brilliant Oeuvre',   Criterion Collection Essays, 2008
  

• Leah Vonderheide, Literariness in the Films of Eric Rohmer, MA Thesis, University of Canterbury, 2008

• YouTube videos (part 1 and part 2): excerpts of Claire Denis's film of Serge Daney interviewing Jacques Rivette on his early interest in filmmaking, his days with Cahiers du cinéma, and his first meetings with Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and Eric Rohmer (from 3 mins 30 secs). A must watch for those who haven't yet seen Denis's Jacque Rivette, The Watchman.

Tenth Anniversary SCOPE !! On Cultural Borrowings: Appropriation, Reworking, Transformation

Sissy Spacek as Carrie (Brian de Palma, 1976). See Queering the Cult of Carrie: Appropriations of a Horror Icon in Charles Lum's Indelible by Darren Elliott in the new Scope issue

Hooray! It's OUT. Film Studies For Free has been checking almost every day for a couple of months now because it knew that an amazing issue of Scope: an online journal of film and tv studies -- its TENTH anniversary issue -- was just about to be published. It's here now *Scope* # 15: an issue and  an e-book -- see the contents links below -- and contains some fantastic items of film and media studies. 

Congratulations to the whole editorial team at Scope, who do a fabulous job. These have been ten great years of remarkably high quality and FREELY ACCESSIBLE scholarly works. Thank you.


Cultural Borrowings: Appropriation, Reworking, Transformation
Edited by Iain Robert Smith

Notes on Contributors

Acknowledgements Iain Robert Smith

Foreword: Scope's Tenth Anniversary  Mark Gallagher and Julian Stringer

Introduction Iain Robert Smith

Part I: Hollywood Cinema and Artistic Imitation

Exploitation as Adaptation I. Q. Hunter

The Character-Oriented Franchise: Promotion and Exploitation of Pre-Sold Characters in American Film, 1913-1950 Jason Scott

Novelty through Repetition: Exploring the Success of Artistic Imitation in the Contemporary Film Industry, 1983-2007 Stijn Joye

Part II: Found Footage and Remix Culture

A Taxonomy of Digital Video Remixing: Contemporary Found Footage Practice on the Internet Eli Horwatt

Ethical Possession: Borrowing from the Archives Emma Cocker

Music Videos and Reused Footage Sérgio Dias Branco

Part III: Modes of Parody and Pastiche

From Cult to Subculture: Re­imaginings of Cult Films in Alternative Music Video Brigid Cherry

Queering the Cult of Carrie: Appropriations of a Horror Icon in Charles Lum's Indelible Darren Elliott

Irony Inc.: Parodic-Doc Horror and The Blair Witch Project Jordan Lavender-Smith

Part IV: Transnational Screen Culture

A Marxist's Gotta Do What a Marxist's Gotta Do: Political Violence on the Italian Frontier Austin Fisher

"Tom Cruise? Tarantino? E.T.? ...Indian!": Innovation through Imitation in the Cross-cultural Bollywood Remake Neelam Sidhar Wright

"La Television des Professeurs?": Charles Dickens, French Public Service Television and Olivier Twist Pamela Atzori

On INCITE! A journal of experimental media & radical aesthetics

An image from Michael Robinson's Victory Over the Sun (2007)

A shivering, but purposefully heroic, Film Studies For Free has crept out from its cosy igloo in order to excite some more, much merited, interest in INCITE!, the online and Open Access journal of experimental media & radical aesthetics.  

INCITE! describes itself thus:

Merging handmade and online platforms, this hybrid [on and off-line] publication addresses the lack of critical attention afforded film and media artists working today. In addition to scholarly articles, INCITE! publishes aesthetic statements, manifestos, artist projects, multiples, archival documents, interviews, reviews, and hastily drawn plans.

Stationing ourselves at the cross-flow of research, scholarship, and creation, we encourage personal writing, critical poetics, and radical approaches to film and media.

Issue # 1: Manifest appeared in Fall 2008 -- see the wonderful list of contents below.

Issue # 2 "Counter-Archive," which should go online in early 2010, is thus much anticipated. But the journal has also just launched "Back & Forth," a new monthly interview series.

In the first edition of the series, Cat Tyc talks to the poetic pop recycler Michael Robinson about his filmmaking roots, cultural references, thematic trajectories, and future directions (see also Michael Sicinski's wonderful Cinema-Scope article about Robinson here).

You can follow INCITE! on Twitter and join its Facebook group here.

Issue # 1: Manifest Fall 2008

Introduction Brett Kashmere Where Are We Now?

Dossier: The Life, Death, and Life of Film
Rick Hancox Film – Is There a Future in Our Past? (The Afterlife of Latent Images)
Gerda Cammaer Film: Another Death, Another Life
Carl Brown AFTER: A Beginner’s Guide to Alchemy
Independent Imaging Retreat FILM FARM 1994-2006: Films, Excerpts & Video Diaries
Ken Paul Rosenthal Shot of Solitude: Hand (and Heart) Processing on the Film Farm
Additional Reading

 

Manifestos
Association for Film Art Manifesto
Atelier national du Manitoba The Horizontalist Manifesto / Les Horizontalistes: manifeste
Michael Betancourt ____________ Manifesto
Double Negative Collective Manifesto
Dumba Mission Statement / Manifesta
Richard Kerr The Aesthetic WOW!
The League Manifesto
Jonas Mekas Anti-100 Years of Cinema Manifesto
Regina Muff Thus Spake Zarathustra
Peter Nowogrodzki The Pesto Manifesto
Syracuse Experimental There’s More to Filmmaking than Making Films
Ryan Tebo RAMers generation manifest

More Manifestos

Articles
Scott MacKenzie ‘Be Realistic: Demand The Impossible’, or, A Secret History of Film Manifestos
Solomon Nagler Winnipeg Eats Itself: L’Atelier national du Manitoba's Scheme for Sovereignty
Georgette Nicolaides The Good/Bad Art Collective of Denton, Texas
Scott Berry Brooklyn Babylon Cinema

Interviews
Steve Polta Masochism of the Margins: An Interview with Craig Baldwin
Brett Kashmere Against the Current: A Two-Part Interview with Karl Lemieux (and Daïchi Saïto)

Lists
Rick Hancox Bibliography
Karl Lemieux Filmography
Double Negative List of Screenings & Events
The League List of Works & Happenings
Syracuse Experimental Summary of Activities

Artist Projects
Clint Enns light is the first bodily form
Leslie Supnet Hand Cranked VHS
Kenneth White Directions of Encounter

Irish cinema studies online (I gcuimhne ar Michael Dwyer)

Film Studies For Free would like to offer its condolences to the partner, family, and friends of renowned Irish film festival founder and Irish Times film correspondent Michael Dwyer, who very sadly died on Friday at the far too young age of 58. 

Dwyer (pictured above) was a very talented, and much admired, film critic, broadcaster, and programmer, 'a true star of Irish film', as a great tribute to him in the Irish Times put it. Known very much as a keen internationalist in his film tastes and championings, Dwyer did make an incalculably important contribution to Irish national film culture, as many of the personal tributes to him since his untimely death have made very clear (see, for instance, those posted here and here). Here is a link to his last column for the Irish Times with his favourite film lists for 2009 and the last decade.

Below, in his memory, FSFF has assembled its own list of links to high quality, online, and openly accessible scholarly resources on Irish cinema.

• Desmond Bell, 'Interview with Filmmaker Pat Murphy', Kinema, 2008

• Maeve Connolly, 'Excluded by the Nature of Things? Irish Cinema and Artist’s Film', CIRCA 106, winter 2003: 33-39

• Seán Crosson, 'Vanishing Point: An examination of some consequences of globalization for contemporary Irish film', e-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies, Volume 2: 1-23

• Seán Crosson, "‘They can't wipe us out, they can't lick us. We'll go on forever pa, ‘cause we're the people' - Misrepresenting death in Jim Sheridan's In America (2003)", Estudios Irlandeses: Journal of Irish Studies, Issue 3, (2008)

• Christine Evans, 'On Genre and Semantic Quibbling: Or, there's no pleasing a genre critic', Genre and Irish Cinema Conference, University of British Columbia, March 2005
  

• Peter Flynn, 'Some Mother's Son: Postcolonial, Postnational, Posthistorical?', Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 29, July 2000  

• Roddy Flynn, 'Raiders of the Lost Archive: the Report of the Interdepartmental Committee on the Film Industry 1942', Irish Communications Review, Volume 10, 2007 (large pdf - scroll down)
  

• Debbie Ging, 'A ‘Manual on Masculinity’? The consumption and use of mediated images of masculinity among teenage boys in Ireland', Irish Journal of Sociology, Vol. 14(2) 2005, pp. 29–52

• Rosa Gonzalez Casademont, 'Ireland on Screen. A View from Spain', International Journal of English Studies, vol. 2 (2), 2002, pp. 71-82

• Brendan Kelly, 'Psychiatry in contemporary Irish cinema: a qualitative study', Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine, 2006; 23(2): 74-79

• Cornelis Martin Renes, 'The Quiet Man and Angela's Ashes: Hollywood Representations of Irish Emigration as Male Quest Narrative', Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 2, 2007

• Brian McIlroy, 'The Repression of Communities: Visual Representations of Northern Ireland during the Thatcher Years', first published in Fires Were Started: British Cinema and Thatcherism., ed. Lester Friedman. Revised edition. London: Wallflower Press, 2006: 77-90
  

• Brian McIlroy, 'Exodus, Arrival & Return: The Generic Discourse of Irish Diasporic and Exilic Narrative Films', first published in Keeping It Real: Irish Film and Television, eds. Ruth Barton and Harvey O’Brien (London: Wallflower Press, 2004): 69-77
  

• Raita Merivirta-Chakrabarti, 'Between Irish National Cinema and Hollywood: Neil Jordan's Michael Collins', Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 2, 2007

• Raita Merivirta, 'Like Cain and Abel: Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera in Neil Jordan’s film Michael Collins', Wider Screen, 1, 2005
  

• Paula Murphy, 'The Irish Phone Home: Reflections of Ireland in Jim Sheridan’s In America', Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 4, 2009
  

• Paula Murphy, 'Interrogating Intermission', Kritikos: A Journal of Postmodern Cultural Sound, Text and Image, Volume 3, 2006

• Kim Newman, 'Irish Horror Cinema', The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies, Issue 1, October 2006

• Harvey O’Brien, The identity of an Irish cinema, 3rd edition, 2007
  

• Renée Penney, 'Bloody Sunday: Classically Unified Trauma?', Vol. 1, UBCinephile, April 2005

• Renée Penney, 'Genre and Irish Cinema Conference Review - March 2005', Center for Cinema Studies,University of British Columbia
  

• Sarah Pierce, 'The Archival Fourth Dimension', Afterall, November 23, 2009

• Marita Ryan, 'Answering the Question: “What is Intermission?” – An Exploration of Intermission as a Postmodern Film', International Journal of Baudrillard Studies, Volume 5, Number 1 (January, 2008)

• Matthew Ryan, 'Ourselves Alone: Solipsism in Neil Jordan's Novels and Films', Barcelona English Language and Literature Studies, no.11, 2000, pp.187-98

• Sean Ryder, 'Representing Ireland: Literary Adaptation and Irish Cinema', Barcelona English Language and Literature Studies 9, 1998, 119-130

• Tony Tracy (ed.), 'Irish Film and Television - 2005' (including Introduction Tony Tracy; Irish Film 2005: An Industry in Crisis? Roddy Flynn;Boy Eats Girl Ruth Barton; Masculinity in Contemporary Irish Cinema Debbie Ging;Adam and Paul Barry Monahan;The Trouble with Sex Emma Grealy;Pure Mule Tony Tracy;Fair City Helena Sheehan;Mickybo and Me and The Mighty CeltPádraic Whyte; Man About Dog Díóg O’Connell;Documentary Film and TelevisionHarvey O’Brien; Pavee Lackeen Seán Crosson;Adaptations: Tara Road and Breakfast on Pluto Tony Tra), Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 1, 2006
  

• Tony Tracy (ed.), 'Irish Film and Television – 2006' (including Introduction Tony Tracy; Industrial In/Activity Roddy Flynn; TG 4 Eithne O'Connell; The Wind that Shakes the Barley Ruth Barton; Isolation Barry Monahan; Capital Letters Debbie Ging; Once Tony Tracy; Middletown Jane Ruffino; Six Shooter Seán Crosson; Brendan Gleeson Harvey O'Brien; The Clinic Diog O Connell; The Tiger's Tail and The Pope's Children Pat Brereton) Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 2, 2007

• Tony Tracy (ed.),'Irish Film and Television – 2007 (including Introduction Tony Tracy; From Kings to Cáca Mílis: Recent Trends in Irish Film and Television as Gaeilge Seán Crosson; Cré na Cille Gearóid Denvir The Kings’ Irish: Dialogue, Dialect and Subtitle in Kings Eithne O’Connell; Altered Images: Shrooms and Irish Cinema Roddy Flynn; Small Engine Repair Ruth Barton; Lenny Abrahamson’s Garage: A Drama of Cinematic Silence Barry Monahan; Prosperity: Social Realism in the New Millennium; Díog O’Connell; The Celtic ‘Chick-flick’: How About You and PS I Love You Debbie Ging; The Brave One Maria Pramaggiore; Experimental Conversations: Ourselves Connected? Donal Foreman; Ghosts of Empire: Mitchell and Kenyon inIrelandand Saoirse? Harvey O’Brien; At Home With the Clearys Pat Brereton; Interview with Simon Perry Tony Tracy), Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 3, 2008

• Tony Tracy (ed.), 'Irish Film and Television – 2008',(including Irish Film and Television Review 2008 Tony Tracy; In the Beginning: Ardmore Studios Celebrates 50 Barry Monahan; Kisses Ruth Barton; Hunger Seán Crosson; Staging Space: Cinema, Image, and Text in Declan Recks’ Eden Harvey O’Brien; In Bruges Joan Dean; Entering the Dark Place: Visions of Irish Horror in SeerZélie Asava; 32A Roddy Flynn; Níl aon tinteán mar do hinteán féin: Home insecurity in recent Irish Cinema Veronica Johnson; Tom Jordan Murphy: An Appreciation Michael Patrick Gillespie; The Short Film and Irish Cinema Conn Holohan; Drawing Conclusions: Irish Animation and National CinemaLiam Burke; Meltdown makeover: TV3’s The Apprentice Gavin Titley; Fairytale of Katmandu Laura Canning; Bertie: Portrait of a Politician Under Suspicion Pat Brereton; Striapacha Tri Chead Bliain Duailcis Niamh O’Reilly), Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 4, 2009
  

• Pilar Villar-Argáiz, 'Latter-day Mother Irelands: The Role of Women in Michael Collins and The Wind that Shakes the Barley', Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 2, 2007

They came from the Twitterfeed...

Image from El sur/The South (Víctor Erice, Spain, 1983), subject of a recent blogpost by Kevin B Lee. See also Jo Evans, 'A Myth in Time: Victor Erice's El sur', Journal of Hispanic Research, 4 (1995-96) and Miguel Marías, 'El sur', Senses of Cinema, Issue 38, 2006.

Below is a quite horrendously long (and hyperbolic) list of live links to online and freely accessible items of note (or of quirk) as already delivered up to e-posterity (or e-phemerality) by Film Studies For Free's occasionally very vibrant Twitterfeed.

If you'd like to be almost constantly supplied with news of such magnificent resources as these (-- in 140 characters or fewer -- in real time -- as they excitedly happen --), please subscribe to the ever so abbreviated & abridged @filmstudiesff HERE. Ta!

• One of the best (and best written) reviews of film in 2009 from the ever excellent Tativille (Michael J Anderson): http://bit.ly/6lKAhv
• Yes, indeed: "oh God" (thanks to Matthew Flanagan @flanaganm): - 'The Top 10 Conservative Movies of the Last Decade' http://bit.ly/5zhsqw
• Another highly compelling decade list, this time by Chuck Tryon (@chutry) 'My Decade in Movies, Part I' http://bit.ly/8s6t8T
• Another one of the best: Michael Z Newman/Zigzigger's fab Faves 2009 http://zigzigger.blogspot.com/2009/12/faves-2009.html
• Lots of great links at Girish Shambu's blog: 'Framework on Cinephilia, etc.' http://bit.ly/5KNChe
• 7 video interview segments featuring François Truffaut discussing his filmmaking - from Scott Myers @GoIntoTheStory http://bit.ly/8fNnQP
• GREAT film decade list by Miriam Bale (House Next Door): 'Shifted Images [Not the best or worst but the most enduring]' http://bit.ly/8HCxru
• Great stuff from Jim Barratt: 2009: 'a [film business] year in rear view' http://bit.ly/5HmhUY(@BigPicResearch)
• David Cairns' (@dcairns) Hitchcock Year comes to a (near) end - http://dcairns.wordpress.com/2009/12/30/the-pattern-is-complete/
• Andrew Sarris's CONFESSIONS OF A CULTIST ON THE CINEMA (1955, 1969) Internet Archive Free Download: http://bit.ly/8U0AS7
• Some excellent pointers from Omar Ahmed at E L L I P S I S to hard to find INDIAN CINEMA on YOUTUBE - http://bit.ly/8ukI1F
• Some great film articles in new Journal of the Imaginary and Fantastic : Vol.1 No.6 : Talking Animals http://bit.ly/5uYknt
• Some end of the decade brilliance from Bordwell & Thompson: 'The ten-plus best films of … 1919' - http://bit.ly/8MWeaY   
• Wonderful continuing exploration of Single Take Titles -- 'Part 4: The POV' -- thanks to @ArtoftheTitle- http://bit.ly/5cjtum 
• Fab new December issue of online Irish Journal Of Gothic and Horror Studies http://bit.ly/4B4vfC
• Properly up and running online now: new Senses of Cinema, Issue 53: http://bit.ly/422jIv (RT @theauteursdaily& @sallitt)  
• Acquarello (@filmref) posted some notes on Renate Günther's book on Marguerite Duras (MUP) http://tinyurl.com/yfx2q8m (RT @theauteursdaily) 
• Brilliant mapping out in Chuck Tryon's MLA '09 paper: “Blogging, Scholarship, & the Networked Public Sphere” (@chutry) http://bit.ly/4T2oB4
• More truly great stuff from @drnorth: 'Gaia and Dolls: James Cameron’s Avatar' at Spectacular Attractions - http://bit.ly/5MDMUb
• Aaron Cutler on Louis Feuillade atThe House Next Door: 'The Treasure of Tih Minh' http://bit.ly/8gkdZy
• A particularly good article by Adrian Danks on the New Iranian Cinema, Close-Up and the “Film-on-film” Genre http://bit.ly/4z6HTG
• Great post @ E L L I P S I S on KANCHENJUNGHA (Satyajit Ray, 1962): 'Why accept a life of endless submission?' (indeed) http://bit.ly/8MRbB4
• Great blogpost by Kevin B. Lee (@alsolikelife) on Erice's El sur (1983): http://bit.ly/5NeJix
• Check out James MacDowell's great blog, The Lesser Feat, for a lovely tribute to Robin Wood http://bit.ly/8vO8W4       
• Jonathan Rosenbaum's 1974 great Sight & Sound review of THEORY OF FILM PRACTICE by Noël Burch http://bit.ly/5yJ29d
• Monumentally BRILLIANT essay on Gamer, ('As radical as reality itself': dir. Neveldine/Taylor, 2009) by Steven Shaviro: http://bit.ly/5fjUY0  
• Wonderful post by Luke McKernan at The Bioscope on fashion in silent cinema: 'Catwalks and pavements' http://bit.ly/7SBdii 
• MUST-read (Via @theauteursdaily & @chutry): Jason Sperb is brilliant on on cinephilia & Gondry's BE KIND REWIND http://bit.ly/6fGIPv 
• Great post by Chris Cagle at Category D: A Film and Media Studies Blog: 'The Influence Fallacy' http://bit.ly/78xeoq
• Great article by Lisa Gye on Baz Luhrmann's Australia and McLean's Wolf Creek in new Fibreculture Journal Issue 15 http://bit.ly/6AlCRA
• 'Magic, Medicine & Technology in Aronofsky’s The Fountain, Gibson’s The Neuromancer & Slonczewski’s Brain Plague' pdf http://bit.ly/4sRiha
• Martha Nochimson on Wong Kar-wai's Ashes of Time Redux in latest issue of Cineaste Magazine http://bit.ly/4Na8XC    
• Matt Zoller Seitz's great video essay on Clint Eastwood and revenge (Pts 1 and 2) at Moving Image Source http://bit.ly/5C06nn 
• 'A CINEMATIC FABLE': Adrian Martin on Jacques Rancière's essays (large [and beautiful...] pdf) http://bit.ly/4yHgAx
• Reverse Shot Direct Address #1: Sally Potter on direct address, her new film Rage & the power of the filmed image.http://bit.ly/7M5Sii
• Richard Brody's 'Best Films of the Decade' @tnyfrontrow is one of the most interesting lists I've read so far http://bit.ly/5lZjiW 
• Interesting observations on the world premiere of Born of Hope, an independent, fan-made cinematic prequel of Lord of the Rings http://bit.ly/6tNi2O 
• Viewing (3'40"). AO Scott (http://bit.ly/69zAyh) on Chris Marker's LA JETÉE (1962, http://bit.ly/sl6tH) (RT @theauteursdaily)
• And, to conclude, some shameless self-promotion... Catherine Grant's latest post at Directing Cinema - 'Auteurist collaborations: Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville' http://bit.ly/6NkQzM