Summer 2013

The Day Before: Ryan Coogler on Fruitvale Station

On Jan. 1, 2009, two hours after the New Year’s stroke of midnight, a Bay Area Rapid Transit officer fired upon and killed an unarmed Oscar Grant on the platform at Oakland’s Fruitvale Station. Grant had been returning home to East Bay from San Francisco with friends when a fight broke out in the subway car. Cops pulled a number of people off the train, and with Grant face down and restrained, an officer named Johannes Mehserle shot him in the back. Later, Mehserle would say he meant to draw his Taser instead of his pistol. The incident was recorded […]

By Ava DuVernay

Features

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Outlaw Country

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By David Barker

Do No Harm: Lana Wilson and Martha Shane on After Tiller
While making After Tiller, Lana Wilson and Martha Shane struggled to get support from granting agencies cautious about supporting a film about such a hot-button topic as third-trimester abortion. In response to the pair’s bid for support, one major film grant organization said, “We’re waiting to see where this movie comes down.” Or, in other words, “We can’t support the film unless we support the way you depict this contentious issue.” The genius of After Tiller is that it doesn’t “come down” anywhere. It doesn’t make a case or take sides. At a time when documentaries about major political and […]
by Nick Dawson
Subscribers Present Imperfect
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by Craig Zobel
L.A. Unplugged: Director Paul Schrader on The Canyons
Stunning black-and-white photos of movie theaters — old-style palaces and tacky multiplexes alike — sit underneath the credits of The Canyons, the 18th feature from veteran director and screenwriter Paul Schrader. Except rather than evoke the majesty of the 20th century’s dominant art form, they depict its collapse. These theaters are guttered, wrecked, their seats torn out, signage empty, neon fixtures torn and dangling from the ceilings. Some of these theaters — vintage single-screen Art Deco houses — are surely no longer viable in the modern era. The demise of the pictured strip-mall multiplexes, however, is most likely the product […]
by Scott Macaulay