Her Head in Films

In this episode, I try something new by talking about the first two episodes of the HBO limited series, "Sharp Objects." This is more than just an episode recap. It's a personal exploration of the ways in which the show represents memory, trauma, mental illness, and complicated women characters. I discuss why I can't get the show out of my system and why I felt the need to talk about it....

In this episode, I talk about Ingmar Bergman's 1951 film "Summer Interlude." It's about Marie, a young ballet dancer who receives the diary of a young man with whom she had a passionate love affair in her teens. The diary plunges her back into memories of their brief and tragic romance. I explore themes of love, loss, mourning one's childhood, how we build up walls to keep out pain, and...

In this episode, I explore the mystery and power of Jonathan Glazer's 2004 masterpiece, "Birth." This is the most important episode I've ever produced for the podcast. This is the film that defines me, that I can't get out of my system, that has haunted me for over a decade. I have never identified so profoundly with a character as I do with the woman in this film. She is Anna (played by...

In this episode, I explore Gena Rowlands's raw and uncompromising performance as Mabel Longhetti in John Cassavetes's 1974 film, "A Woman Under the Influence." Mabel is a woman struggling with mental illness and coming apart in the midst of family turmoil. I talk about why Cassavetes's work was so groundbreaking and provide details about his and Rowlands's relationship. The heart of the...

In this episode, I explore Michael Haneke's 2001 film, "The Piano Teacher." Isabelle Huppert gives one of the greatest acting performances of all time as a masochistic piano teacher who becomes involved with one of her students. If you have not seen this film, I insist that you watch it before listening to this episode. There are spoilers. This episode also contains graphic sexual conten...

In this episode, I explore Yasujiro Ozu's 1949 classic, "Late Spring." Setsuko Hara stars as 27-year-old Noriko who feels a strong bond with her widower father and prefers to live with him instead of getting married. Worried that he will doom his daughter to an unfulfilling life, Noriko's father claims that he intends to re-marry and insists that Noriko have a life of her own with a husb...

In this episode, I continue my exploration of films that helped me through my grief after my father died in 2006. "The Lives of Others" is an important film in my life. I have intense memories of watching it for the first time in a theater. It's about playwright, Georg Dreyman, and his lover, Christa-Maria Sieland, who come under surveillance in 1984 in the German Democratic Republic (GD...

After my father died in 2006, my mom and I lost ourselves in the films shown at a local discount theater. In this episode, I talk about Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth," a movie I saw in that theater and one that left a lasting impression on me. This episode is deeply personal. It's not just about "Pan's Labyrinth." It's also about grief, mental illness, my love of cinema...

In this episode, I explore Donna Deitch's 1985 cult classic, "Desert Hearts." It's about Vivian Bell, who travels to Reno, Nevada in 1959 to get a quickie divorce. While she stays at a ranch for six weeks, she meets the vivacious Cay Rivvers, and the two women fall in love. "Desert Hearts" was one of the first films to represent a lesbian relationship without it ending in trage...

For decades, the work of Kathleen Collins languished in obscurity. She was a writer, filmmaker, and professor who is considered one of the first black women to direct a feature-length film. That film is 'Losing Ground,' an extraordinary portrait of a marriage in turmoil and a complex representation of a deeply intellectual woman in search of ecstasy and magic. In this episode, I explore Collins's...

In this episode, I explore Ounie Lecomte's moving 2009 debut feature film, "A Brand New Life." The film is based on Lecomte's own life and centers around a 9-year-old girl who is abandoned by her father at an orphanage in Seoul in 1975. I discuss the film's themes of abandonment, loss, loneliness, and the marginalization of women. I also talk about more general things at the beginning of...

For the month of April, I'm focusing on debut feature films by women directors. I'm kicking off the series with Joanna Hogg's 2007 debut film, "Unrelated." The film explores the emotional crisis of a woman who escapes ostensible marriage problems by going on a vacation in Italy with a friend. It's a subtle but devastating look at loneliness, ageing, and disconnection. There are spoilers...

What happens when cinema becomes an obsession? I explore that question and many more in this episode on Abbas Kiarostami's 1990 genre-blending film, "Close-Up." It revolves around the true story of Hossein Sabzian, a passionate cinephile who deceives a family by impersonating the director, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, and is charged with fraud in an Iranian court. All the people involved in the st...

In 1960, Michelangelo Antonioni released "L'avventura," a film that would make him world-famous and that would change cinema forever. Antonioni was crucial in elevating cinema to an art form and expanding the language of film by constructing a deeply visual style that would influence filmmakers for decades to come. In this episode, I talk about the mysterious power of "L'avventura,&...

In this episode, I talk about Agnès Varda's 1962 film "Cléo from 5 to 7." It's about a French pop singer who is waiting for test results that will confirm if she has cancer. This film was my introduction to Varda and got me interested in her unique and important body of work. I talk about time, loneliness, and mortality in "Cléo from 5 to 7". I also provide a brief overview of...

In this episode, I explore all the many facets of Chris Marker's landmark and influential 1962 short film, "La Jetée." Told almost exclusively through black-and-white still photographs and set in a post-apocalyptic Paris, it tells the story of how the survivors of World War III harness the memory of one man who is haunted by a scene from his childhood. I talk about time, memory, grief, n...

I would not be a cinephile without Carl Theodor Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc." This silent film from 1928 awakened me to the power of cinema and changed my life forever. On this episode, I discuss the life and times of Joan of Arc, provide behind-the-scenes information about how the film was made, and offer my own analysis of the film itself and why it made such a monumental impa...

For thousands of years, stray cats have roamed the streets of Istanbul, becoming an integral part of the city. Ceyda Torun's extraordinary 2016 documentary, "Kedi," is not just a touching look at the cute and scrappy cats, it's also a beautiful portrait of the people of Istanbul who take care of them. Woven into my discussion of the film is my own experience of losing my beloved cat, Bel...

I saw 'Dead Poets Society' for the first time when I was a teenager. It was a revelatory film for me because of the way it celebrated the power of literature and poetry. In this episode, I talk about why the film means so much to me. I also provide behind-the-scenes information about the making of the film and even discuss criticisms that it has received over the years. Consider making this podcas...

Larisa Shepitko is one of the greatest directors that many people have never heard of. In this episode, I seek to change that. I talk about two of her greatest films: "Wings" (1966) and "The Ascent" (1977). Shepitko died early in 1979 in a car accident at the age of 41. In her brief life, she created films that were concerned with the individual psychology of her characters and...

For the final episode of 2017, I thought it would be interesting to spotlight three television shows that I loved over the year--The Keepers, Big Little Lies, and the final season of Broadchurch--and how they address violence against women, toxic masculinity, and patriarchy. Trigger warning for discussion of sexual violence. Spoiler alert for discussion of certain details in each show, though I do...

In this episode, I talk about Elem Klimov's monumental 1985 Soviet film, "Come and See," which follows a young man named Florya who witnesses atrocities and violence that happen in Nazi-occupied Belarus in 1943. The film is both personal and historical. Klimov himself experienced the Second World War as a child in Stalingrad. He was forever scarred by what he witnessed. Together with wri...

In this episode, I talk about Ettore Scola's 1977 film, "A Special Day," starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni in some of the most raw performances of their careers. The film takes place in 1938 on an important day when Hitler visits Mussolini in Rome. While much of the city attends parades and festivities to celebrate the meeting, two people remain in their apartments: Antoniet...

Released in 2001, Le Stade de Wimbledon (The Wimbledon Stage) is French actor Mathieu Amalric's second feature film, and it stars his ex-wife, the brilliant Jeanne Balibar. It is based on the Italian novel, Lo stadio di Wimbledon by Daniele Del Giudice. In Trieste, Italy a woman searches for information about Bobby Volher, a writer who never wrote a book. She wants to know why someone with so much...

It's the most ghoulish time of the year now that Halloween is here. In this episode, I explore Herk Harvey's 1962 cult horror classic "Carnival of Souls." The film tells the story of Mary Henry, a church organist who survives a car crash and is menaced by a zombie-like man. What makes "Carnival of Souls" so powerful and unforgettable for me is its narrative ambiguity, its compl...