Longform writing is the raison d'être of Animus. These free-to-access essays, by writers from around the world, cut through the noise and are guaranteed to be worth your time.
Essays
How did we get here? The trap of representation, “in cinema at large and in Hollywood in particular,” Elena Lazic wrote, “is usually understood to mean the way in which increased presence on screens does not necessarily translate into larger creative power or salaries in front of and behind the
Essays
Croatian director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović on her film Murina Over the course of a few days, existing tensions between a father and his teenage daughter escalate to a point of crisis. It sounds like a straightforward coming-of-age story, but it is not. Here, the person throwing tantrums and acting irrationally
Essays
Icelandic director Hlynur Pálmason on his film Godland Godland begins, like Fargo, with a title card announcing a spurious real-life inspiration for the film: in this case, a cache of seven wet-plate photographs, taken by a Danish priest in the 19th century, that are the first known pictures of South
Essays
Artwork by Neven Udovičić Again morning — sun-draped terrace — Sapphire sea — all the world on a holiday — Rifle Fire — Brooding doves — Brutality of man — and still the sun. Intertitle from Erich von Stroheim’s Foolish Wives (1922) Summer is here! In the Northern hemisphere, the weather is getting warmer, the sky
Essays
Billy Ray's Shattered Glass centres something more important than affability Another film could have told the story of The New Republic prodigy and serial liar Stephen Glass with bombastic, paranoia-tinged intensity, the kind that defines Alan Pakula’s trilogy of films about far-reaching corruption. Or it could have
Essays
Channel 4 faces the greatest crisis in its lifetime. Is it possible to save it? The day that it was confirmed that the UK government intends to privatise Channel 4, my Twitter feed filled up with tweets that drove me up the wall. They were mostly variations on this sort
Essays
Three artists foreground how fruitful and fun a vision of art without boundaries can be One of the richest events at this year’s Berlin Film Festival occurred on its literal fringes. In association with the festival, the Haus der Kulturen der Welt presented the second staging (since its debut
Essays
A manifesto for experimental film, inspired by the work of Light Cone seen at IndieLisboa When I studied film at university, a teacher insisted that we should write one, maybe even two, manifestos in our lives. At the time, it seemed glib, a playful roast about the passions of youth
Essays
Peter Weir's Fearless formally and narratively brings up the challenges of being a person in the world, unavoidably tangled up in the problems of other people’s lives Peter Weir’s Fearless centres on a plane crash survivor who is, indeed, fearless, because he feels himself to be
Essays
Artwork by Neven Udovičić The line that connects the idea of cinema as an empathy machine to the plague of “nicecore” kino (which Animus contributor Charles Bramesco wrote about so forcefully here) is the horizon beyond which an apparently large number of film viewers (and reviewers) are not inclined to
Essays
Isaac Butler tells us about his new book on Method acting and its history In a current film landscape where the gap between commercial blockbusters and more challenging work has only grown wider, it might seem counterintuitive to publish a book on Method acting. The style itself is more often
Essays
Vincent Price's horror persona often brought to life chillingly pathetic characters seeking hollow victories Throughout the history of horror on screen, the relationship between characters and actors’ personas has been at the forefront of the genre’s development. From the Universal movies of the 1930s, to the final