Roger Ebert wrote the foreword to this collection of 35 in-depth interviews with the world's leading filmmakers and critics, from Fonda to Fassbinder, from Canby to Costa-Gavras, from Sarris to Sayles. Cineaste, America's leading magazine on the art and politics of the cinema, has become known for its in-depth interviews with filmmakers and film critics of international stature. The best of these interviews are now collected in this volume. The interviews: Constantin Costa-Gavras, Glauber Rocha, Miguel Littin, Bernardo Bertolucci, Ousmane Sembene, Elio Petri, Dusan Makavejev; Gillo Pontecorvo; Alain Tanner, Jane Fonda, Francesco Rosi, Lina Wertmuller, Roberto Rossellini, Tomas Gutierrez Alea, Gordon Parks, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, John Howard Lawson, Paul Schrader, Agnes Varda, Bertrand Tavernier, Andrew Sarris, Bruce Gilbert, Jorge Semprun, Vincent Canby, John Berger, Andrzej Wajda, John Sayles, Krzysztof Zanussi, Molly Haskell, Budd Schulberg, Satyajit Ray. The unique value of these interviews will be the comments by the filmmakers on the crucial artistic and political decisions confronted in the making of their films, many of which have become classics of their kind. The filmmakers and critics talk about their own development, films which influenced their work, and the continuing controversies and alternative approaches in filmmaking. They take on their critics and their own previous positions with a clarity and forcefulness to be expected from some of the leading practitioners of their art. The interviews are introduced with a foreword by Roger Ebert, television commentator and critic for the Chicago Sun-Times. Mr. Ebert discusses the relation of art and politics and some of the common perspectives which unite filmmakers of different cultures and of diverse artistic and political temperaments. Among the subjects of these wide-ranging talks are: the choice between popular and experimental forms of narrative; the filmmaker's responsibility to society; blacks and women in the movies; the rise of third world filmmaking; Hollywood's left and progressives; the conditions of filmmaking in different societies; the challenges of independent production; different forms of censorship, from the U.S. to Poland; trends in criticism and auteur theory to feminism; the power of the reviewer.

In When the Movies Mattered Jonathan Kirshner and Jon Lewis gather a remarkable collection of authors to revisit the unique era in American cinema that was New Hollywood. Ten eminent contributors, some of whom wrote about the New Hollywood movement as it unfolded across the 1960s and 1970s, assess the convergence of film-industry developments and momentous social and political changes that created a new type of commercial film that reflected those revolutionary influences in American life. Even as New Hollywood first took shape, film industry insiders and commentators alike realized its significance. At the time, Pauline Kael compared the New Hollywood to the "tangled, bitter flowering of American letters in the 1850s" and David Thomson dubbed the era "the decade when movies mattered." Thomson's words provide the impetus for this volume in which a cohort of seasoned film critics and scholars who came of age watching the movies of this era reflect upon and reconsider this golden age in American filmmaking. Contributors: Molly Haskell, Heather Hendershot, J. Hoberman, George Kouvaros, Phillip Lopate, Robert Pippin, David Sterritt, David Thomson

Digital technology and the Internet have revolutionized film criticism, programming, and preservation in deeply paradoxical ways. The Internet allows almost everyone to participate in critical discourse, but many print publications and salaried positions for professional film critics have been eliminated. Digital technologies have broadened access to filmmaking capabilities, as well as making thousands of older films available on DVD and electronically. At the same time, however, fewer older films can be viewed in their original celluloid format, and newer, digitally produced films that have no “material” prototype are threatened by ever-changing servers that render them obsolete and inaccessible. Cineaste, one of the oldest and most influential publications focusing on film, has investigated these trends through a series of symposia with the top film critics, programmers, and preservationists in the United States and beyond. This volume compiles several of these symposia: “Film Criticism in America Today” (2000), “International Film Criticism Today” (2005), “Film Criticism in the Age of the Internet” (2008), “Film Criticism: The Next Generation” (2013), “The Art of Repertory Film Exhibition and Digital Age Challenges” (2010), and “Film Preservation in the Digital Age” (2011). It also includes interviews with the late, celebrated New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael and the critic John Bloom (“Joe Bob Briggs”), as well as interviews with the programmers/curators Peter von Bagh and Mark Cousins and with the film preservationist George Feltenstein. This authoritative collection of primary-source documents will be essential reading for scholars, students, and film enthusiasts.

Giorgio Bertellini examines the historical and aesthetic connections of some of Italy's most important films with both Italian and Western film culture.

Home to the New York Yankees, the Bronx Zoo, and the Grand Concourse, the Bronx was at one time a haven for upwardly mobile second-generation immigrants eager to leave the crowded tenements of Manhattan in pursuit of the American dream. Once hailed as a "wonder borough" of beautiful homes, parks, and universities, the Bronx became -- during the 1960s and 1970s -- a national symbol of urban deterioration. Thriving neighborhoods that had long been home to generations of families dissolved under waves of arson, crime, and housing abandonment, turning blocks of apartment buildings into gutted, graffiti-covered shells and empty, trash-filled lots. In this revealing history of the Bronx, Evelyn Gonzalez describes how the once-infamous New York City borough underwent one of the most successful and inspiring community revivals in American history. From its earliest beginnings as a loose cluster of commuter villages to its current status as a densely populated home for New York's growing and increasingly more diverse African American and Hispanic populations, this book shows how the Bronx interacted with and was affected by the rest of New York City as it grew from a small colony on the tip of Manhattan into a sprawling metropolis. This is the story of the clattering of elevated subways and the cacophony of crowded neighborhoods, the heady optimism of industrial progress and the despair of economic recession, and the vibrancy of ethnic cultures and the resilience of local grassroots coalitions crucial to the borough's rejuvenation. In recounting the varied and extreme transformations this remarkable community has undergone, Evelyn Gonzalez argues that it was not racial discrimination, rampant crime, postwar liberalism, or big government that was to blame for the urban crisis that assailed the Bronx during the late 1960s. Rather, the decline was inextricably connected to the same kinds of social initiatives, economic transactions, political decisions, and simple human choices that had once been central to the development and vitality of the borough. Although the history of the Bronx is unquestionably a success story, crime, poverty, and substandard housing still afflict the community today. Yet the process of building and rebuilding carries on, and the revitalization of neighborhoods and a resurgence of economic growth continue to offer hope for the future.

This volume considers for the first time in a single collection this acclaimed, award-winning director's entire oeuvre, addressing and analyzing themes such as identity, family, and masculinity, supported by in-depth coverage of the generic and aesthetic aspects of DiCillo's distinctive and influential film style. Through detailed chapters on each of DiCillo's feature films, presented here is a candid look behind-the-scenes of both the American independent film industry - from the No Wave movement of the 1980s, through the Indie boom of the 1990s, to the contemporary milieu - and the Hollywood studio system. This study documents the writing, production, and release of every DiCillo picture, each followed by an extensive Q&A with the director. Also featured are exclusive interviews and commentary with many cast members and collaborators, and members of legendary rock group, The Doors. Films covered include Johnny Suede, Living In Oblivion, Box of Moonlight, The Real Blonde, Double Whammy, Delirious, When You're Strange, and Down in Shadowland.