Sight and Sound: the June 2024 issue

“It’s not difficult to map Linklater’s fascination with hustlers, fakers and forks in roads on to his own origin story and attitude to his art. The magnanimity for which he’s known is also the adaptability of someone who forged his career without much institutional backing and with no nepotistic networks. To the casual observer, he has looked like an insider ever since the time of Slacker… Linklater’s own experience, however, has always been that of an interloper. He’s not from New York or Los Angeles; not from money or arty origins; not even from film school. His identity as a Texan also remains key to his work and life.

Numerous times in our conversation, and despite a distinctly affable and open demeanour, he refers to himself as insecure or shy. Talking about his 30-year career, meanwhile, has become ‘kind of abstract. High points, low points, biographical signposts… at some point, it’s like, is that even you?‘ Well, that’s the question.”

— Hannah McGill on Richard Linklater, for this issue’s cover feature

As his blackly comic thriller Hit Man hits UK screens, Richard Linklater discusses the myth of the everyday assassin for hire and looks back over the highlights of his electrifying career, from his Sundance breakthrough Slacker and his early battles for independence from studio control in the 1990s. By Hannah McGill.

In this issue, Dr June Givanni talks to the actress Adjoa Andoh, Dr Joanna Abeyie assesses the climate for diversity and inclusion in the industry, and critics Leila Latif and Ellen E. Jones ask whether film and TV really can save the world.

The Fall Guy is a thrill-packed comic celebration of the work of stunt performers. Its director David Leitch and producer Kelly McCormick talk about the film’s origins, stuntwork’s lack of status and recognition and why, even in a CGI-dominated industry, nothing quite matches the real thing. By Lou Thomas.

Alice Rohrwacher’s enchanting tale of tomb-robbers and magic, La chimera, offers an insider’s portrait of the culture and landscape of the region in central Italy where she grew up. She talks about the unifying power of film, the importance of valuing the past and why capitalism is destined to end up in a museum. By Lee Marshall. 

Josh O’Connor, the star of Alice Rohrwacher’s La chimera, has established himself as one of the most sought-after young British actors, with a remarkable range of projects under his belt. This issue, he talks about what drew him and Rohrwacher together, what a role leaves behind, and the joy of getting filthy. By Arjun Sajip. 

In 1989, as he prepared to shoot the American TV film Glory! Glory! for HBO, his last feature, maverick British director Lindsay Anderson took time out to look back over a distinguished career, which is being showcased at BFI Southbank in London until the end of May. By Gerald Pratley.

Paola Cortellesi’s hit comedy drama There’s Still Tomorrow borrows the language and settings of 1940s neorealism – but the themes of feminism and domestic violence remain dismayingly contemporary. By Jonathan Romney.

An upcoming biopic on Franz Kafka from Agnieszka Holland plus new films from Sebastián Lelio, Peter Greenaway and Bi Gan. 

The French-Georgian director brings out an astonishing performance from a six-year-old girl in family drama Àma Gloria.

With war dragging on in Europe and the Middle East, both these nonfiction festivals found themselves dealing with conflict and atrocity, from Nagasaki to Belfast, Srebrenica to Syria, and the ways that catastrophe casts its long shadow into the present. By Nick Bradshaw. 

A new column spotlighting artificial intelligence in film and TV. By Thomas Flew. 

Each month we highlight a voter in our Greatest Films of All Time poll. Here the English screenwriter and director of Hoard, her first feature, which is out now, shares her choices. 

Robot Dreams is a silent wonder, crammed with visual references celebrating classic films. By Pamela Hutchinson.

This Town, like so many other band dramas, hits a bum note when it comes to the actual music. By Andrew Male. 

The blend of fact and fiction in Close-Up helped pave the way for modern autofiction. By Nicole Flattery. 

Why the American road movie in 1974 had begun to run on empty. By Jessica Kiang. 

Farewell, Eleanor, the heart of the Coppola dynasty. By Mike Williams. 

Part of the first wave of gangster flicks, Rowland Brown’s 1931 tale about a trucker who muscles his way to controlling a whole city is set apart from its contemporaries by cool wit, attention to the details of hoods’ lives, and a sharp critique of the way capitalism intersects with crime. By Imogen Sara Smith. 

A retrospective of almost 60 years of the multimedia artist’s fascinating, eclectic output includes a collection of moving-image work that showcases her provocative intelligence, radical optimism and experimental sensibilities. By Laura Staab. 

The giant demon that appears before the death of the sinister warlock at the close of Jacques Tourneur’s film has taken its place in the hellscape of classic horror imagery. By Anne Billson. 

Our critics review: Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger, Hit Man, La chimera, Civil War, A House in Jerusalem, Rosalie, Nezouh, Riddle of Fire, The Beast, Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg, Omen, Challengers, Here, The Fall Guy, Two Tickets to Greece, Yannick, There’s Still Tomorrow, Four Little Adults, Omen, Elaha, Challengers and Here. 

Our critics review: L’Amour fou, Raging Bull, Misunderstood, That Cold Day in the Park, Quick Millions, The Lavender Hill Mob, Patrick, Dogfight, The Shape of Night, I Was Born, But.., There was a Father and Behind Convent Walls. 

Our critics review: Screen Deep: How film and TV can solve racism and save the world by Ellen E. Jones, Kes BFI Classic by David Forrest, Erotic Vagrancy: everything about Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor by Roger Lewis.