On the surface, "The Philosophical Hitchcock: Vertigo and the Anxieties of Unknowingness", is a close reading of Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 masterpiece "Vertigo". This, however, is a book by Robert B. Pippin, one of our most penetrating and creative phi...

Was it an omen? Richard Nixon and the film industry arrived in Southern California in the same year, 1913. As Mark Feeney relates in this unusual and unusually absorbing book, Nixon and the movies have shared a long and complex history. Some of that...

Born Julius Marx in 1890, the brilliant comic actor who would later be known as Groucho was the most verbal of the famed comedy team, the Marx Brothers, his broad slapstick portrayals elevated by ingenious wordplay and double entendre. In his spirite...

"Warner Bros" charts the rise of an unpromising film studio from its shaky beginnings in the early twentieth century through its ascent to the pinnacle of Hollywood influence and popularity. The Warner Brothers – Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack – arrive...

In the 1940s, American movies changed. Flashbacks began to be used in outrageous, unpredictable ways. Soundtracks flaunted voice-over commentary, and characters might pivot from a scene to address the viewer. Incidents were replayed from different ch...

Who killed Mrs Gandhi? We know the name of the assassins, but did they act alone? In this fictional filmscript, Tariq Ali suggests that larger forces were at work, exploiting genuine Sikh grievances to settle their own score with a Prime Minister who...

The BBC commissioned Tariq Ali to write a three-part TV series on the circumstances leading to the overthrow, trial and execution of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the first elected Prime Minister of Pakistan. As rehearsals were about to begin, the BBC hierarc...

David Lynch has always been in the spotlight as a filmmaker, directing some of the most iconic movies ever made, but as a visual artist, he is less widely known. Lynch delights in the physicality of painting and likes to stimulate all the senses in h...

In the 1940s and '50s, Havana was a locus for American movie stars, with glamorous visitors including Errol Flynn, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, and Marlon Brando. In fact, Hollywood was seemingly everywhere in pre-Castro Havana, with movies theaters t...

"Tarkovsky for me is the greatest", wrote Ingmar Bergman. Andrey Tarkovsky only made seven films, but all are celebrated for its striking visual images, quietly patient dramatic structures, and visionary symbolism. "Time within Time" is both a diary...