Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story The most tenacious of all clichés about Los Angeles is that it is a place with no past. Bernard-Henri Lévy, in his 2006 travelogue, “American Vertigo,” called L.A. a “city without…
Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story This past fall, the artist FKA Twigs promoted her then forthcoming album, “Eusexua,” with a series of international raves. Londoners were told to meet her at the Cause, Angelenos at the…
Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story The effort to yoke radical politics to radical aesthetics—to make art that’s revolutionary both in content and form—is as central to modernity as revolution itself is. The Cuban director Sara Gómez,…
Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story The first episode of Netflix’s larkish dramedy “Mo” reveals exactly what its title character, Mohammed Najjar, is capable of. He’s camped out in a parking lot, peddling “authentic bootlegs”—faux designer sunglasses,…
Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story Richard BrodyStaff writer You’re reading the Goings On newsletter, a guide to what we’re watching, listening to, and doing this week. Sign up to receive it in your in-box. Frederick Wiseman…
Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story In 1970, six years into Brazil’s military dictatorship, Rubens Paiva, a civil engineer and a former left-wing politician, returned to the country after years of self-imposed exile. Not long after setting…
Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story Simplicity can prove as enigmatic as complexity. The new Chinese film “This Woman” (which opens Friday at Metrograph), the first feature by Alan Zhang, offers a straightforward story that’s made intricate…
Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story For this week’s Infinite Scroll column, Cal Newport is filling in for Kyle Chayka. In 1968, a young Michael Crichton, still a student at Harvard Medical School, sent a manuscript to…
Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story Watch “Rizoo.” When the filmmaker Azadeh Navai was five years old, her mother took her to have her photo taken for an I.D. And, before she knew it, a scarf was…
Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story In the French director Catherine Breillat’s film “Fat Girl,” from 2001, two adolescent sisters go on summer holiday with their parents near the seaside. The older sister, Elena, is thin, beautiful,…