Richard Brody

New York

I am the movies editor for Goings On About Town and the author of “Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard.”

Articles

One Hundred Years of New York Movies

4 days ago | newyorker.com | Richard Brody

This magazine’s ongoing centenary celebration has included a cinematic component: a series at Film Forum, “Tales from The New Yorker,” which featured movies connected to The New Yorker’s history, whether because the source material was published here or because contributors to the magazine were involved with the movies in question.
Our Favorite “Only in New York” Spots

5 days ago | newyorker.com | Shauna Lyon |Richard Brody |Jennifer Wilson |Hua Hsu

“Only in New York” may be a cliché, but only because it’s so true. For Goings On, in our New York-themed centenary issue, we asked staff writers to share some of their favorite spots that can be found . . . only in New York. These are places that are indelibly charming in their specificity—places that you never knew you needed but once you discover you’d be sad if they were gone—often thanks, especially, to the fascinating characters who created them and to the dedicated people who keep them running.
Rediscovering a Great Film Critic of Hollywood’s Golden Age

1 week ago | newyorker.com | Richard Brody

Sometimes there’s light at the end of the rabbit hole. When Josef von Sternberg’s film “The Devil Is a Woman,” from 1935, was recently screened, I was curious about how it was received in its first run and found a sharply perceptive review of it in the Times, by one Andre Sennwald, whom I’d never heard of.
“The Rehearsal” Finally Achieves Liftoff

1 week ago | newyorker.com | Richard Brody

The second season of “The Rehearsal” is instantly better than the first because it’s about something. In the show’s previous season, Nathan Fielder developed and applied his methodology—the so-called Fielder Method of role-playing amid elaborate simulations—to situations in which the participants’ investment was principally emotional and narrowly personal in scope. The new season starts with a bang: a simulated plane crash, which heralds Fielder’s main idea.
A Joyfully Chaotic Tribute to Pavement in “Pavements”

1 week ago | newyorker.com | Richard Brody

Rock documentaries and bio-pics have been parodied for nearly as long as they have existed, but there’s a reason for their ingrained absurdity that’s even weightier than fan service: music rights. Without the coöperation of musicians or of their estates, a music-centered movie risks ending up like Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla” and John Ridley’s “Jimi: All Is by My Side,” deprived of the songs crucial to their stories. Hence, hagiography.
A Joyfully Chaotic Tribute to Pavement in “Pavements”

1 week ago | flipboard.com | Richard Brody

It’s Been Two Decades Since I Read This Book, But I Think About It Every DaySometimes, you read a book that changes or regularly weaves its way into your life, but you don’t actually know that until years later. That’s the …
The Return of “My Favorite Season,” a Great Modern Melodrama

2 weeks ago | newyorker.com | Richard Brody

Melodrama isn’t central to modern French cinema, because melodrama is rooted in irony, whereas one could hardly slip a playing card between most great French directors’ intentions and results. But, in 1975, a thirtysomething former Cahiers du Cinéma critic, André Téchiné, pressed the wide purview of historical reflection into the exaggerations of romantic passion in a film called “Souvenirs d’en France” (here, “French Provincial”) and found a distinctive melodramatic voice.
“Drop Dead City” Spotlights a Lost Era of Liberal Government

3 weeks ago | newyorker.com | Richard Brody

At a time when the very function of government is being destroyed from within, an extraordinary historical documentary, “Drop Dead City,” puts the workings and responsibilities of government front and center, in a meticulous reconstruction of New York City’s fiscal crisis of the mid-nineteen-seventies.
Hands Off Our Social Security!

3 weeks ago | medium.com | Richard Brody

With all the daily chaos, diversions, and attacks on so many traditional rights and freedoms, and, in-fact, on our national principles including Constitutional guarantees, the apparent intention of President Donald J.
Goings On Newsletter

3 weeks ago | link.newyorker.com | Richard Brody |Helen Shaw |Amanda Petrusich

Plus: schmaltzing up Sondheim; Marisa Tomei in a show about Sisyphus as a pregnant artist; and Michael Hersch’s twenty-nine-piece song cycle. View in browser | What we’re watching, listening to, and doing this week. You’re on the free list. New Yorker subscribers get our book picks in their inbox weekly, plus unlimited access to our seasonal culture previews, commentary, and criticism.