What are humans truly capable of at their best? Gary Marcus looks at studies on human resilience, or what one psychologist calls, “ordinary magic”: http://nyr.kr/Z8jPEG

(Source: newyorker.com)

McElwee challenges his viewers to respect his privacy, and in return his films never have a dynamic of unearned disclosure.

Jessica Weisberg on the autobiographical documentary filmmaker Ross McElwee: http://nyr.kr/X2FMEY

Look at Marilyn Monroe, about twenty seconds into the clip, when a journalist “asks,” without a question mark at the end of the sentence, “You’re a happy girl now.” The infinitesimal silence that goes with her dubious glance—a tightly controlled eye-roll—away from the interviewer, followed by her ironic verbal shrug (a melodic “uh-h” with a subtly derisive smile), suggests the equivalent of, “You have no idea.” It’s in that sudden abyss of true and horrific emotion in the midst of the most conventionally candied context that encapsulates Monroe’s art—and art it is…

Richard Brody on Lindsay Lohan and Marilyn Monroe, “happy girls”: http://nyr.kr/V98boa

(Source: newyorker.com)

“The Gatekeepers” was made by the Israeli filmmaker Dror Moreh, with French backing, and it is obviously intended, among other things, as a challenge to the Netanyahu regime. The movie is built around interviews with six men who pretty much consecutively ran the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal-security intelligence operation, from 1980 to 2011
…

These insiders reported directly to the Prime Ministers they served. They are all hyper-patriots who would do anything to save Israeli lives and to preserve the Jewish state. And they are convinced that Israel is on the wrong track—that the future is “dark,” as Shalom puts it; that Israel is turning into a colonial power policing a rapidly increasing population of Arabs within its borders.

David Denby reviews “The Gatekeepers”: http://nyr.kr/YaWPr7

(Source: newyorker.com)

Hendrik Hertzberg on “Crossfire Hurricane,” a new documentary directed by Brett Morgen:

If you watch it, and you ought to if you have any interest in or curiosity about the Stones, by all means crank up the volume—spouses, roommates, and neighbors permitting, all the way to eleven.

Continue reading.

Photograph: Rolling Stones Archive/HBO.

Also read: Richard Brody on “Charlie is my Darling,” a documentary about the Stones in 1965.

Ben Greenman: 

The long, hilarious career of the filmmaker, comedian, actor, and performer Mel Brooks has been documented before, but never quite like it has been on the new box set “The Incredible Mel Brooks: An Irresistible Collection of Unhinged Comedy.” While previous career retrospectives have focussed on Brooks’s films, this collection assembles odds and ends from around the margins of his career, ranging from classic inteviews with Dick Cavett and Johnny Carson to sitcom appearances on shows such as “Mad About You” to rarities such as the 1978 parody newsmagazine “Peeping Times” and Brooks’s teaser trailer for the 1962 Italian film “My Son, the Hero.”
 

The set will be released today. While we are pleased to offer the exclusive clip above—it’s a snippet from a 1981 British documentary in which Brooks reflects on his early years, explains his relationship with his mother, and generally acts the tummler—we are doubly pleased that Brooks agreed to discuss the new collection with us. Click-through to read the conversation.

(Source: newyorker.com)

Since “The Exonerated” premièred, in 2002, Jacobs has been played by a number of actors, including Jill Clayburgh, Mia Farrow, Susan Sarandon, Brooke Shields, Marlo Thomas, and Amy Irving. This week, she steps into the role herself, for the play’s tenth-anniversary production, at the Bleecker Theatre. Jacobs answered our questions about capital punishment, the difficulties of playing herself, and finding love with another death-row survivor…

Michael Schulman interviews Sunny Jacobs: http://nyr.kr/QedmoJ

Anticolonial Dreams: Kelefa Sanneh on Dinesh D’Souza’s documentary “2016: Obama’s America” http://nyr.kr/POJ63g

For the past ten years, the photographer Stephen Ferry has working on what he calls a “collective photographic record of the Colombian conflict.” The long-running internal unrest in Colombia, he warns, isn’t just a product of the drug wars, but “involves a baffling array of actors: The Colombian Armed Forces, supported by the United States, two guerrilla armies, and a host of right-wing paramilitary militias and criminal gangs.” Ferry’s project, which brings historical information and images together with his own landscapes of Colombia and portraits of its people, is currently on display at Umbrage gallery, and will be the focus of his upcoming book, “Violentology.” Click-through for a look at Ferry’s photographs: http://nyr.kr/OHS0Qn

(Source: newyorker.com)