The latest on the Current, Criterion’s online magazine

By rahmat hidayat

Monday, May 31, 2021

Featuring Rachel Kushner's Top 10, a new personal essay by novelist Bryan Washington, and a close look at contemporary Indigenous cinema.

The Current HIGHLIGHTS MAY 30, 2021 A roundup of recent articles from Criterion's online magazine. Happy reading!

Collective Visions How Contemporary Indigenous Filmmaking Challenges Auteurism. The most memorable work showcased at Toronto's imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival pushes against cinephile culture's individualist ethos by emphasizing community both behind and in front of the camera. By Girish Shambu READ MORE The artistic director of imagineNATIVE, Niki Little, speaks with Shambu about the festival's mission and the path forward for Indigenous cinema.

Alone Together Finding a Friend in Yi Yi. In the latest entry of our ongoing series First Person, the author of the novel Memorial reflects on how Edward Yang's epic swan song has accompanied him around the world, through different stages of his life. By Bryan Washington Illustration by Xia Gordon WATCH Yi Yi is now playing on the Criterion Channel with supplemental features from our edition, including an audio commentary by Yang and critic Tony Rayns.

Rachel Kushner's Top 10 The author of The Flamethrowers shares her favorite films, including masterworks by Barbara Loden, Robert Altman, and Ousmane Sembène. WATCH Loden's Wanda—which Kushner's mother called "the best movie about being a woman in America"—is playing on the Criterion Channel.

On Her Own Two Feet Hideko Takamine Navigates Life's In-Between Moments. Known for her resilient heroines, the prolific Japanese actor finds agency through hesitation in Mikio Naruse's When a Woman Ascends the Stairs. By Moeko Fujii READ MORE Previous articles in our Performances series have paid tribute to stars like Frank Sinatra, Gloria Grahame, and Kristen Stewart, as well as lesser-known figures like character actor Billy Gilbert.   Dewarping a Pre-Code Classic The Biggest Challenge in Restoring Merrily We Go to Hell. A member of our team of digital-restoration artists details his painstaking work on Dorothy Arzner's 1932 film, which we released in a new edition this month. By Eric Luszcz READ MORE Another Arzner movie, Dance, Girl, Dance, joined our collection after a complicated preservation process involving a decomposing nitrate print.

OLDIE BUT GOODIE "I think to make universal cinema is the most Palestinian thing you can do! The more universal, the more Palestinian. This is my concept of what it is to be Palestinian." —Elia Suleiman in an interview with Bilge Ebiri, published in 2019. Suleiman's films are streaming for free at the Arab American National Museum's website through the end of the week.

THE DAILY Barry Jenkins's "Act of Seeing" Praise for The Underground Railroad. The ten-episode adaptation of Colson Whitehead's novel has inspired great writing from recent Current contributors Devika Girish and Blair McClendon. READ MORE David Hudson dives into the most noteworthy film books published this month.

For further information on Criterion and our products, please visit our website at criterion.com. To start streaming the Criterion Channel, please visit criterionchannel.com. If you are not already on our mailing list and would like to be added, please click here to register at criterion.com. To unsubscribe, click here.  © 2021 The Criterion Collection :: 215 Park Ave S. New York, NY 10003

Share :

Facebook Twitter Google+