George Elkind

Mar 21, 2023 | metrotimes.com | George Elkind

One of film’s most obvious functions is of establishing a record, serving an essential archival function of documenting times, lives, moments, and places. Two welcome, newly restored works screening locally play to this strength of the medium and a good bit more this week, reworking in their own loose, productive ways the details of their respective directors’ own formative years.

Mar 15, 2023 | metrotimes.com | George Elkind

In one telltale moment in Frederick Wiseman’s A Couple, Nathalie Boutefeu (playing Sophia Tolstaya, the wife of Leo Tolstoy) reads aloud a diary entry from her husband, treating her with the harsh description, “thinking herself the victim of my unending whims.” The couple, who we never see together, have long been married even then — but their engagement is mediated through letters, diary entries, and her expressive monologues — all rendered through her person.

Mar 6, 2023 | romulans.net | George Elkind

Delicacy and beauty aren’t by themselves sufficient in a work that calls for more emotional sensitivity or insight, though they certainly don’t hurt. In the case of Lukas Dhont’s Close, a film whose capable (if opaque) leading performances buoy it partway emotionally alongside its formal strengths, the film lacks sorely the sense of intimacy promised by its title.

Mar 6, 2023 | metrotimes.com | George Elkind

Delicacy and beauty aren’t by themselves sufficient in a work that calls for more emotional sensitivity or insight, though they certainly don’t hurt. In the case of Lukas Dhont’s Close, a film whose capable (if opaque) leading performances buoy it partway emotionally alongside its formal strengths, the film lacks sorely the sense of intimacy promised by its title.

Mar 3, 2023 | metrotimes.com | George Elkind

Another director-focused series is running in metro Detroit from Cinema Lamont, this time with a trio of works by Kelly Reichardt screening at Oloman Cafe.