Cinema Scope. 20.

Doug Cummings points out that the Canadian magazine, Cinema Scope has a new site. Which looks smart and sharp as they come and will no doubt introduce a whole new readership to the five-year-old magazine. Introducing the new issue, editor Mark Peranson notes a running thread throughout that echoes a bit that current Matthew Clayfield piece in Senses of Cinema mentioned earlier:

Most of these artists (and most of the good ones today, it's not an accident) seemed fixated in extolling the uniqueness of a place, or looking about what each of their own places can say about the people who live there. Or defending a place. In all of these ways, more than just standing for a regional cinema, they are clearly globally minded, even if they might not seem so on the surface.

On that note, the two articles in the "Spotlight" section available online are all about LA, but also, in their way, about countless elsewheres. If the name Thom Andersen rings a bell, it's probably because you've heard of, maybe even seen his video essay Los Angeles Plays Itself. Critical reaction to it provides him an opportunity to contemplate the city further, focusing primarily on two films, Mulholland Drive and Collateral. Heinz Emigholz sets out to write about a film "that seems to get nothing right.... But this is precisely why it deserves to be admired." It takes him a while to actually begin discussing The Fountainhead, but it's a thoroughly enjoyable warm-up.

At the opposite end of the local-global scale would seem to be Jonathan Rosenbaum's column digging up treasures buried on obscure DVDs from various spots around the planet - but of course, all these universal pleasures are far more rooted in their local origins than standard Hollywood fare. The other column is Andréa Picard's, on Agnes Varda's Cinévardaphoto.

Features: James Quandt on Bergman's Saraband; one of the more telling observations is parenthetical: "(As with late Godard, there is a sense of revenance in this return, and a predication of cultural memory.)" And Christopher Huber on Eugène Green's Les pont des arts, "the major event of the festival [at Locarno], firmly heralding a unique and commanding new voice in current cinema."

Interviews: Peranson with Don McKellar and B Kite with Jennifer Reeves.

Reviews: Richard Porton on Vera Drake and Jay Kuehner on Nobody Knows.

All in all, Cinema Scope goes on that list over there on the right immediately.

Posted by dwhudson at October 30, 2004 6:09 AM