A Man of his Time, a film by Emmanuel Marre

This 2026 biography tells the story of the filmmaker’s grandfather, who worked under Marshal Petain’s Vichy government in France during Nazi occupation. Henri Marre (Swann Arlaud, flawlessly portraying not a “collaborator” but a person) is an efficiency maven, and when we first see him he’s pushing his management book Notre Salut (Our Salvation) into the hands of leaders in the Vichy government. An ardent nationalist, Marre wants to see his systems in place so the country will be well-managed, not only during the occupation but afterwards, when he envisions return of an emperor, not the chaos of a democratic system. 

He doesn’t get much traction as long as the departments are staffed with his more socially-adept rivals, but as the Nazis tighten their grip, taking laborers to Germany and requisitioning petrol and other supplies, these other men are either dismissed, or quit the regime of their own accord. Soon he is taking orders from, and having cordial lunches with, his Nazi supervisors. Before his wife and children join him in southern France, through voiceover exchange of letters between Marre and Paulette, we learn that he burned through her large inheritance in pursuit of his schemes. His marriage, already rocky, grows fraught as she watches his service to the occupation deepen. 

Use of language is chilling: he dictates a telegram to his assistant, including the "removal of 835 Jews." She pushes back: "Removal"? He tries "Relocation" but again she resists. "Transfer," he decides, as though this is nothing but a shipment of goods. He's already been made aware of transport of Jews in cattle cars - he challenged a clerk's requisition of straw and chamber pots, and the young man informs him the Jews are packed in so tight in cattle cars, they need these items for sanitation. Knowing his bosses will not approve this expenditure, Marre agrees to call it something else.

We see him outlining the importance of obedience and duty, respect for one’s superiors, and the value of propaganda as a tool for unity. He coaches a group who will be positioned along the parade route as Marshal Petain attends a ceremony in their city. They are told to shout, “Long live the Marshal!” but he continues to urge, “Louder!” 

And yet, we see the whole man – how deeply he believes in what he’s doing, his sincere admiration for efficiency, and how collaboration and ambition gradually corrupt him – when he underpays for a shipment of food he then resells, he instructs that his 15% fee is part of the price. This film offers a clear-eyed look at why people worked with their occupiers, and one cannot help noticing parallels to the present day.

Sheep in a Box, a film by Hirokazu Kore-eda

I hesitated to see this film – the trailer showed robot children. But I trust Kore-eda, maker of Shoplifters (story of a makeshift family supporting each other in their poverty), La Verite (in which Catherine Deneuve plays an aging movie star, Juliette Binoche her neglected daughter, and Ethan Hawks as Binoche’s husband), and Broker (in which a black-market adoption broker hosts a family of orphans) – Kore-eda is a kindly and astute portrayer particularly of children, respecting their perceptions and needs and honesty. So I saw it, and I’m glad I did. 

A couple – she an architect, he a building contractor, suffered the accidental death of their 5-year-old son, Kakeru, two years earlier, and his absence has left a hole in their lives nothing can fill. They visit a company called ReBirth, which rents humanoid robots made to resemble the dead, programmed with their family memories, to ease the grief of bereft parents. They agree to a trial, and bring home the robot. It cannot eat, nor get wet, can’t smell or taste – her husband, skeptical, calls it a Roomba. 

But this Kakeru simulacrum, now apparently seven, with a sweet calm nature, a child’s curiosity, and snuggles with his “Mama,” charms them despite their misgivings. Over time, both parents fall under its spell – it’s comforting to believe this so-familiar robot child is their son. The film’s title comes from Antoine de Saint-Exupery's children’s book The Little Prince, in which he demands the aviator draw him a sheep. It’s too old. Draw me a sheep! The next is another failure. Then the aviator draws a large box, with air-holes, and tells the youth his sheep is inside. The Prince is delighted – this sheep is exactly what he wanted. 

I won’t spoil your viewing by telling you more, beyond observing that once again, Kore-eda displays his great love for children. And as I’ve come to expect (well, not find surprising), the film-maker shifts narrative scope midway through – after we’ve settled in with these characters, he puts them at the center of a larger picture. Resolution at this higher level challenges them, and us, to a different world-view.

RIP John Crowley

I discovered the novels of John Crowley, starting with  Ægypt, probably 30 years ago. Once I read Little, Big, it became my all-time favorite novel. I have given copies to many people, friends and family, over the years. To my knowledge none have read it. The Crowley portal doesn't admit everyone. Those who enter find a space between the known and the imagined, where much more is possible. We don't want to leave, to return to a more limited more mundane world, after what we've seen, and sensed, and felt. 

John Drinkwater, builder of a model house in the country with five facades, five front doors, and familiar interiors along with places that didn't properly, or sometimes, connect, powered by an orrery (a brass model of our solar system) in the attic, made his living publishing animal stories marketed to children. He explained to a grandson that writing them was easy - he just copied conversations he overheard among the small creatures - the mice, the little birds, the fish.

His wife, Violet Bramble, was a scion of Theosophists. What she believed he didn't need to. She had an unusual ancient Tarot deck she consulted the way you might read a newspaper. Their daughter Daily Alice married a man who walked to the house: Stormy Barnable. Like his father-in-law he didn't have any interest in - nor hostility toward - the women's way of understanding the world.

One of their sons photographed fairies who were attracted by a pair of small granddaughters. His name was Auberon (Oberon: King of the Fairies, Titania his Queen).

Little, Big is full of joys and sorrows, wonderfully apt names and a multitude of small brilliant observations. One could read it a hundred times and find new connections, new notions, surprises and satisfactions. Like the greatest fictions of invented places, it has unerring internal consistency, integrity. We are the playthings of time and space, and other worlds interweave with the one we’re accustomed to, in ways we might glimpse or may never be capable of acknowledging. If you find “the world is too much with us,” as William Wordsworth’s poem says, take respite. Dig into this Tale, reimagine life.

The third volume of Crowley's trilogy (Ægypt; Love and Sleep; Dæmonomania), set in Blackbury Jambs in the Faraway Hills, begins with the arrival of Pierce Moffett: "The Houses of the Zodiac are not the Signs... Suppose, at your birth, a line were to be drawn across the eastern sky right at the horizon out beyond where you lie. Then up the sky were drawn eleven more lines, equally spaced, going up over your head, down around behind you, and into the nether sky below, coming back around to where you started, dividing the blue ball of the heavens around you (pretend it's really a ball) into twelve equal orange-slice sections, with your little self at the center. Then suppose the sections are numbered, starting with the one just at the eastern horizon. That section's the first House, Vita, the House of Life; the eighth House, Mars, House of Death, is over your head and to the west. Interesting? Now look out the windows of these houses - they are nothing but windows - and see what stars are caught in each just at the moment you appear bare and wailing on the earth. Say for instance Saturn, so heavy and cold, is out there in your first house, the House of Life; and say the sign Capricorn or part of it is just behind him, which is one of his favorite signs, and there you are, a lot of Saturn in your horoscope, in a House where it counts too. and though Val [the astrologer] would never say that this street of houses on which you find yourself will make you what you are, what you do make of yourself has got to be made here."

Thank you, John Crowley, for seeing far and recording it to share with us! I hope your next iteration is wonderful - you've surely earned it!

Buffalo for the Broken Heart, by Dan O'Brien

This excellent 2001 memoir chronicles the author’s years as a rancher in South Dakota, restoring a badly-degraded grassland ecosystem into prairie more like the original – before the buffalo were slaughtered, land was fenced off by homesteaders, and cattle pushed out whatever other means of making a living there could have been. O’Brien’s understanding of biology leads him to rotate a small herd of cattle through his pastures, giving the native grasses a chance to grow. But the more he works the herd, the more convinced he becomes that cattle don’t belong on the Great Plains. 

A neighbor raises buffalo, and after assisting in a roundup he impulsively buys thirteen orphaned calves. They’re likely to die, and yet they thrive, teaching him how buffalo live where they have for millennia. They do not hide from the wind. They create seeps by wallowing and digging into low ground with their horns. They play. They belong on this land. 

Even as O’Brien fearfully calculates how much money he’ll have to make selling calves, and how much he’ll have to borrow to buy pregnant mothers, he loves these animals more deeply. Cattle are stupid. Buffalo are wily and wild. Cattle are destructive, trampling streams and denuding the land. Buffalo thrive on prairie they nourish, and in their presence a multitude of other species return – birds, deer, coyotes, cottonwood groves. 

Along with his love of this harsh landscape, O’Brien sketches his fellow inhabitants – ranchers on the edge of failure year after year, mechanics and fence contractors, veterinarians and real estate agents. We laugh along as this fifty-something bachelor hosts a pair of 14-year-old boys for a summer, clueless about how to get work out of them. And as we weep over the tragedies of his neighbors, we watch people pull together. 

He observes the value of a place where old-timers set in their ways clash with newcomers’ dreams and illusions that still manage to introduce enough new ideas to keep the culture alive. He admits how many years it took to cultivate a speaking relationship with a neighbor, and demonstrates that kind of patience in most of his dealings. 

They mostly think he’s crazy to ranch buffalo, and not to sell them to a feedlot their last few months to fatten them up like cattle. After bringing them so far, he can’t do it – it would violate their dignity. He finds a solution in keeping with his deep desire to restore this whole ecosystem to what it was. 

He gives us a taste of hard work in nasty weather, observing that a rancher or farmer spends much of his life acquiring skills he won’t need again for long enough to have forgotten them. It’s Sisyphean. You can buy this book, and bison meat, through Wild Idea Buffalo.

Il Cinema Ritrovato XL, Bologna June 2026

I was fortunate to attend this year’s 40th Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna – so many films (over 400!), screened in 6 theaters and 2 piazzas. A theme of celebrating strong women ran through the festival: one featured actor was Barbara Stanwyck, in Double Indemnity, Forty Guns, Clash by Night, and Ball of Fire. Films of Josephine Baker were also celebrated: Princesse Tam Tam, Fausse Alerte – in which she plays a sly amused match-maker between a man and woman who’ve been cultivating enmity for generations, and La Sirene de Tropique, along with numerous short clips of her performances. An extensive exhibit was devoted to the lifework of Agnes Varda, and her film Vagabond screened at Piazza Maggiore, introduced by her daughter Rosalie for a crowd of thousands as the evening sky darkened. 

Also on hand were Isabella Rossellini, Wim Wenders, Irene Jacob. A special video appearance by Mel Brooks helped us all to celebrate his 100th birthday – the crowd sang the Italian version of Happy Birthday, which he gladly acknowledged – prior to a screening of Young Frankenstein in the Piazza Maggiore. 

Given the centrality of film restoration, one of the festival highlights was Beyond Zero: 1914-1918, assembled by Bill Morrison in 2024 from fragments of nitrate stock from the US National Archives. These fleeting and damaged images show soldiers digging trenches, moving artillery piece by piece through snow, a horse corps, tanks, biplanes in combat, a zeppelin launched, and at the end a lone parachutist descending slowly to earth. The holes and discolorations in the film stock make the age of this footage more poignant – here is what remains of a record of war. In a time when we can no longer trust the images presented to us, these deteriorated clips are a testament to the importance of authenticity, of recording events. The Kronos Quartet contributed the score. 

Another treat was films of Daisuke Ito, a Japanese director who made samurai films, silent and sound, notably Five Men of Edo, and Osho, a gentle story about a chess-obsessed husband/ father who cannot stop himself from pawning household goods to pay admission to chess tournaments. I was also introduced to the work of Mitchell Leisen, a maker of light fare with matinee idols. We saw his 1941 film Hold Back the Dawn about immigrants cooling their heels in a Mexico border town while trying increasingly-desperate ways to enter the US. 

During Wim Wenders’ conversation with cinema savant Gianluca Farinelli about his career and the making of his first (student) film, Summer in the City, still unreleased, he reflected on the difference between scripted stories and his naturalistic camera work: it was hard to know when to “Cut!” As the actors continued, something surprising could arise at any time: “Who am I to interrupt this?” he asked. Having blown his full budget on filming, he had nothing left for post-production, where editing, soundtrack, and organization of footage take place. He used music from the Kinks, the Troggs, and Bob Dylan without securing the rights. His sound engineer, admonished to avoid the hiss of too-loud audio, turned conversation sound so low the actors are barely audible. 

Wenders also made the point that it was only after coming to Hollywood that he encountered his German predecessors: Fritz Lang, F.W. Murnau, Ernst Lubitsch, and became aware of his lineage as a filmmaker. Wenders remarked that when he feels safe in a film – when he trusts the director to be honest – he often sleeps. He long felt apologetic about this, but finally came around to accept this as a valid response to the comfort of being in a safe place. 

Scorsese was featured with The Color of Money, 20-year-old Tom Cruise lighting up the screen with flamboyant pool-playing and the sheer joy of being so good at something. Paul Newman and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio do their utmost to bring him around to the strategies of the hustler’s game, but they have a tough job – his exuberance just won’t cool off. A less-characteristic film was Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, in which Ellen Burstyn plays the abruptly-widowed mother of an 11-year-old son, scrambling to make a living as a singer and finally a waitress. Mother and son’s free-wheeling banter gives the film buoyancy. Scorsese rounded out his part in the festival with a Piazza Maggiore screening of New York, New York, a flop at the time but an over-the-top evocation of lives and places dear to him. 

Many of these films were made in the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s, a useful reminder of the richness of cinematic history. Viewing Luchino Visconti’s sumptuous 1963 epic Il Gattopardo (starring Burt Lancaster and Claudia Cardinale) was a treat, on the big screen it deserves. 

For me, the finest point in the festival was Krysztof Kieslowski’s Trois Couleurs: Rouge, his final film, from 1994. A conversation with Irene Jacob preceded it, and her moving performance as a woman leading with love and kindness, matched against Jean-Louis Trintignant’s jaded cynic, proved yet again for this viewer Kieslowski’s insight into human emotion and connection, with his fearless use of parallel experiences, repeated images, and how the heart may challenge the mind and prevail. He is the filmmaker of our highest potential, his creative approach to human relationships opening our eyes and hearts.

The Christophers, a film by Stephen Soderbergh

This 2026 film starring Ian McKellan and Michaela Coel examines art, fame, legacy and greed in an insightful way. McKellan plays Julian Sklar, a top-tier artist in his waning years. He hasn’t painted in a decade or more, and keeps money coming in by doing a version of Cameo recordings (as a famous person, recording a scripted message). His pair of adjoining London townhouses are crammed with art and memorabilia from a long career in the limelight. One of his gigs was a TV show called Art Fight, where, led on by the host, he eviscerated some young artist’s work for laughs. 

Into his life come his estranged children, Barnaby and Sallie, out to make money on a set of 8 paintings he made decades earlier then refused to complete, show, or even discuss. These paintings, the Christophers, are portraits of a lover. They’re stored in a bathtub on his third floor. Barnaby and Sallie are desperate to get their hands on those paintings – at £3.5 - £5 million apiece they’ll compensate for failed careers. Julian, no fool, won’t even admit the pair to his home. So they hire Lori Butler (Michaela Coel), an artist with a reputation as a forger. Ostensibly Julian’s assistant, she’ll get her hands on the Christophers, finish them, and spirit them out of his house. “He never goes up there,” Sallie and Barnaby assure her. 

Lori and Julian have some history, that she has more cause to remember than he. She wants the money, a chance to humiliate him, and maybe convince him that she’s a real artist. In one wonderful scene, after she’s considered then copied the Christophers, she tells Julian what they reveal about the progress of that love affair. The self-regarding cynic tries to dismiss her analysis, but viewers know she’s right, and that he knows it too. 

Their battle of wits, complicated by Barnaby and Sallie’s underhanded ways, comes alive through crackling dialogue and sharp visuals. Ed Solomon, who scripted the film, and Soderbergh, who shot and edited it, have made a compelling statement about art and artists. 

I was reminded of La Verite, Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s 2019 film starring Catherine Deneuve as an aging diva who brings her star power to even a bit part. She’s recently published a memoir, and her daughter Juliette Binoche, son-in-law Ethan Hawke, and granddaughter Clementine Grenier, have come to visit her in Paris. Binoche, who played second fiddle to her mother’s career, reads the memoir and finds no trace of herself. Deneuve without apology admits her vanity, touting its importance in her ascent. She, like McKellan’s character, used egotism to great effect. 

From their lofty perches at the top of their professions, they don’t want to hear about those they trampled. They’ve achieved greatness, as their adoring public affirms. Whether the pressure of age can knock a chink in their armor, or teach them something new, remains to be seen.

RIP TIM