This collection of reviews and essays focuses on the political and social dynamics of the contemporary movie scene. It explores the many links between film and our ideological identities as individuals and as society.

Acknowledgments How to Live in Air Conditioning One  The Politics of Form Language, Representation, Narrative Say the Right Thing (DO THE RIGHT THING) Interruption as Style: Bufiuel's THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE Polanski and the American Experiment (BITTER MOON) Utopian Space and Urban Encounters Tati's Democracy His Mistress's Voice: Akerman's NIGHT AND DAY Seen and Unseen Encounters: Kieslowski's RED Chance and Control Altman and the Spirit of Improvisation (CALIFORNIA SPLIT) Lies of the Mind (TALKING TO STRANGERS) Classification and Genre: Musical Ghettos On LATCHO DROM Four Books on the Hollywood Musical Two  Entertainment as Oppression: The Hollywood Apparatus Entertainment as Oppression Missing the Target Spielberg's Gentiles (SCHINDLER's LIST) The Solitary Pleasures of STAR WARS Jack Reed's Christmas Puppy: Reflections on REDS A Perversion of the Past (MISSISSIPPI BURNING) Circle of Pain: The Cinema of Nicholas Ray Vietnam, the Theme Park (HEARTS OF DARKNESS: A FILMMAKER'S APOCALYPSE) Sexual Discourse (THE PIANO) Hollywood Radical (MALCOLM X) ACE VENTURA Reconsidered The World According to Harvey and Bob (SMOKE, THE GLASS SHIELD) Stupidity as Redemption (FORREST GUMP) Allusion Profusion (ED WOOD, PULP FICTION) Three I Issues of Ideology Alternatives The Problem with Poetry: Leos Carax No Stars, a Must-See (THE PLOT AGAINST HARRY) The Rattle of Armor, the Softness of Flesh: Bresson's LANCELOT DULAC The Functions of a Disease (SAFE) England on the Inside: The Films of Mike Leigh Political Subjects The Significance of Sniggering: Zwigoff's CRUMB Jean Eustache's LA MAMAN ET LA PUTAIN Film Writing Degree Zero: The Marketplace and the University Tribal Trouble (Atom Egoyan's CALENDAR) Us and Them (BLOOD IN THE FACE) Other Cinemas Feudal Attraction (JU DOU) The Vision of the Conquered (Kurosawa's RHAPSODY IN AUGUST) Searching for Taiwan (THE PUPPET MASTER) Inner Space (Tarkovsky's SOLARIS) Tribal Scars (Sembene's BLACK GIRL) Alternate Histories The Seven ARKADINS TIH-MINH, OUT I: On the Nonreception of Two French Serials His Twentieth Century: Godard's HISTOIRE(S) DU CINEMA Pages from the Endfield File On Second Thoughts (Marker's THE LAST BOLSHEVIK) Index

"I think there is a very good film critic in the United States today, a successor of James Agee, and that is Jonathan Rosenbaum. He's one of the best; we don't have writers like him in France today. He's like André Bazin."—Jean-Luc Godard"Rosenbaum is unusually at home in the worlds of both academic film study and weekly film reviewing. There is great sophisticated intelligence without impenetrable high theory, and there is wonderful accessibility without cheerleading. This voice belongs to a true cosmopolitan, who makes movies matter on aesthetic and political grounds, who attends to major non-American films neglected in this country, and whose growing impatience with the contemporary Hollywood product retains a sense of humor."—Michael Rogin, author of Blackface, White Noise"Rosenbaum is one of the few film reviewers with a deep understanding of film form, its sources in film history and theory, and even more its place as a twentieth-century art form. He refuses to embrace high-art intellectualism or pop-art fun exclusively and likewise refuses to forgo either. The unique quality of his reviews is their immediacy. He engages and argues with film audiences, filmmakers, and distributors, demanding a response to the standards he sets. It is in this sense that this collection is profoundly political."—Tom Gunning, author of D. W. Griffith and the Origins of American Narrative Film