Thematically and stylistically, Storm de Hirsch’s Goodbye in the Mirror is a bizarre amalgam of films by Varda, Cassavetes, Akerman, Wishman, and a dozen other directors working across mainstream, independent, and avant-garde contexts.
French New Wave director Jean-Denis Bonan is among the cursed and damned filmmakers – revered by a few, reviled by most. His formerly shunned A Woman Kills (1968) slips out of the shadowy margins and appears for modern viewers.
Jacques Doniol-Valcroze’s New Wave film A Game for Six Lovers is drenched in High Culture, while La Dénonciation is high Sixties style and gripping all the way.
Céline and Julie Go Boating transcends its mystic device of hijacked cinéma verité to present an authentic idea of truth in the contrived world of celluloid.
Éric Rohmer isn't interested in a pure critique of misogyny; his moral tales are mere observations on how we use other people to serve our interests and how we invent narratives from our relationships through which we define ourselves.
Jean-Luc Godard's cinematic oddities First Name: Carmen, Détective, and Hélas pour moi, newly released on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber, embody the vast landscape of possibilities open to the director during the '80s and '90s.
Our pop culture landscape is controlled by capitalistic saturation and a deeply-entrenched machismo ethic. It might not be powerful enough to erase Agnès Varda's genius, but it is shameless enough to eliminate her from the common discourse.
Jacques Rivette's first French New Wave film, Paris nous appartient, is infused with the look and feel of Hollywood's more paranoid, conspiratorial and apocalyptic films noir.
When we objectify Agnès Varda as a "harmless granny" in pop culture, we lose perspective of her important work. DeRoo's book works toward rectifying this.
Jacques Rivette's film features two female characters who exhibit feminine strength and solidarity in a masculine world.
Under the lens of cultural and historical context, as well as understanding the reflective nature of popular culture, it's hard not to read this film as a cautionary tale about the limitations of isolationism.
