Jonathan Rosenbaum

A portrait of the influential American film critic.

The extraordinary life of Orson Welles (1915-85), an enigma of Hollywood, an irreducible independent creator: a musical prodigy, an excellent painter, a master of theater and radio, a modern Shakespeare, a magician who was always searching for a new trick to surprise his audience, a romantic and legendary figure who lived only for cinema.

En véritable artisan, il a écrit, réalisé et joué dans ses propres films, des oeuvres désormais classiques comme Le Zinzin d'Hollywood ou Dr. Jerry et Mister Love. Bousculant les conventions, il est devenu une valeur sûre à Hollywood. Mais alors que les Américains ne voient en lui que le clown, les Européens et plus particulièrement les Français, le considèrent comme un auteur. À travers des archives rares, extraits, témoignages d’amis, critiques et artistes comme Jonathan Rosenbaum ou Martin Scorsese, redécouverte du parcours de ce clown philanthrope et hors du commun.

A comedy about New York and its eccentric inhabitants. A French filmmaker comes to New York to show her film at MOMA. Fascinated by the city, she decides to stay.

This film discusses the effect on how major American films in Hollywood were influenced by the Eastern European Jewish culture that most of the major movie moguls who controlled the studios shared. Through clips of various films, the filmmakers illustrate the dominant themes like that of the outsider, the outspoken American patriotism, and rooting for the underdog in society.

"This intimate saga links the filmmaker's long-lost family home in Tehran, a historic Frank Lloyd Wright house in Alabama, and the formative years of renowned film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum. Rosenbaum, son of a family of movie-theatre owners, grew up in the Wright house, now a museum. Documenting the home over a period of years, Saeed-Vafa finds parallels between Wright's design eccentricities and the twisting course of dysfunctional family histories." —Barbara Scharres

A “Cinéma, de notre temps” series episode directed by french filmmaker Jackie Raynal, originally aired 29 May 2016.

The Midnight Sun Film Festival is held every June in the Finnish village of Sodankylä beyond the arctic circle — where the sun never sets. Founded by Aki and Mika Kaurismäki along with Anssi Mänttäri and Peter von Bagh in 1985, the festival has played host to an international who’s who of directors and each day begins with a two-hour discussion. To mark the festival’s silver anniversary, festival director Peter von Bagh edited together highlights from these dialogues to create an epic four-part choral history of cinema drawn from the anecdotes, insights, and wisdom of his all-star cast: Coppola, Fuller, Forman, Chabrol, Corman, Demy, Kieslowski, Kiarostami, Varda, Oliveira, Erice, Rouch, Gilliam, Jancso — and 64 more. Ranging across innumerable topics (war, censorship, movie stars, formative influences, America, neorealism) these voices, many now passed away, engage in a personal dialogue across the years that’s by turns charming, profound, hilarious and moving.

Un documentaire inspiré des mémoires éponymes du critique de cinéma américain et chroniqueur social mondialement connu : Roger Ebert. Lauréat du Prix Pulitzer pour ses critiques publiées dans le Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert est devenu l’une des personnalités les plus influentes du monde de la culture aux États-Unis.

An experimental short film that finds film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum playing himself, being interviewed about a film that doesn’t exist. Director Peter Bull proceeds to create the film that Rosenbaum describes. The alternating footage provides insight into these two different modes of representation.

A video essay collaboration on Jacques Rivette's Out 1, produced by Kevin B. Lee using messages received by film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum.

In Sarajevo, in a cinema’s projection booth, lives Sena; a woman who in daily solitude repeats the projection of the few Yugoslavian films of which there are copies. Through a combination of silence, the everyday gestures of this woman and the films that are projected from her living room, comes a film built like a day in Sena’s life. Through the films that Sena projects, we are taken on a journey in both collective and personal memory. The film offers a portrait of intimacy crossed with a history witnessed by cinema; a history which Sena has conserved.