Sight and Sound

Behind a painted smile : As his sociopathic antihero in Todd Phillips’s Joker confirms, right now Joaquin Phoenix is the most compelling actor in American film – a star, whether or not that’s what he wants. By Ryan Gilbey = 30 FEATURES COVER FEATURE Three and a half hours with Scorsese : While the gangland thriller The Irishman is in some ways a return to familiar territory, at 76 Martin Scorsese is – as he makes clear in this wide-ranging interview with Philip Home – as inspired as ever, still hunting for fresh ideas, fresh methods and fresh ways of telling stories = 20 Law of the jungle : Alejandro Landes’s surreal, unsettling war story Monos Follows a squad of adolescent guerrillas fighting for an unknown cause in an unnamed country. By Isabel Stevens PLUS an interview with the film’s composer, Mica Levi = 36 Deep Focus: Maurice Pialat and the New French Realism : Maurice Pialat’s raw, unsentimental cinema, often driven by on-set conflict, had an even deeper influence on French directors and actors than did the nouvelle vague. By David Thompson PLUS Ginette Vincendeau looks at the generation that followed, and Olivier Assayas tells James Bell what French cinema owes to Pialat = 42 REGULARS Editorial : A personal journey = 5 Rushes On Our Radar: We tune in to a fine season of musicals and select this month’s film highlights = 6 Dream Palaces: Richard Stanley, the cult director of Hardware, recalls taking refuge in London’s Scala cinema = 8 Rising Star: Meet Rose Glass = 8 Classical Hollywood: Pamela Hutchinson celebrates Judy and the return of ageing divas to our screens = 9 The Pictures: unseen archive images of Sharon Tate = 10 The Numbers: Charles Gant finds audiences being hooked on Bait = 11 Festivals Nick James heralds a series of great performances at Venice = 12 Tom Charity reports on Toronto’s efforts to tackle gender imbalances = 14 Wide Angle Profile: Sophia Satchell Baeza pays tribute to Shirley Clarke, avant-garde chronicler of lives at the margins = 16 Primal Screen: Bryony Dixon rejoices at the rediscovery of a film by 1920s star Betty Balfour = 18 Artists’ Moving Images: Matthew Harle considers video archives as anthropology and activism = 19 Letters = 95 Endings : John Bleasdale on Alan Parker’s hellish noir Angel Heart = 96 FILMS OF THE MONTH By the Grace of God = 53 The King = 54 Non-Fiction = 56 FILMS Ad Astra =58 After the Wedding = 59 American Woman = 59 Angel Has Fallen = 60 The Beach Bum = 61 Brittany Runs a Marathon = 62 Chained for Life = 62 The Day Shall Come = 63 Downton Abbey =64 Driven = 65 Farming = 65 The Goldfinch = 66 A Good Woman Is Hard to Find = 67 Hitsville: The Making of Motown= 68 Hustlers = 68 The Informer = 69 It: Chapter Two = 70 Joker = 70 Jonathan Agassi Saved My Life = 71 The Last Black Man in San Francisco =72 The Laundromat = 73 Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound = 74 Monos = 74 Mystify: Michael Hutchence = 75 Official Secrets = 76 The Peanut Butter Falcon = 77 Skin = 77 Sorry We Missed You = 78 Tehran: City of Love = 79 What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire? = 80 HOME CINEMA Comes a Horseman; Come Back to the Five and Dime; Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean; The Extraordinary World of Charley Bowers; Fragment of an Empire; The Incident; Pasolini’s Trilogy of Life: The Decameron/The Canterbury Tales/Arabian Nights; They Made Me a Fugitive = 83 DVD features : Nick James admires Abbas Kiarostami’s Koker Trilogy = 82 Rediscovery: Tony Rayns welcomes the first release in the West of Jissoji Akio’s Buddhist trilogy = 85 Archive Television: Robert hanks watches At Last the 1984 Show and Do Not Adjust Your Set, two comedies that geared up for Python = 86 Lost and Found: Jo Botting finds lessons for today in post-war refugee drama The Lost People = 88 BOOKS Pamela Hutchinson flicks through a treasure trove of Hollywood letters = 90 Robert hanks explores Michael Newton’s history of the film star = 91 Catherine Wheatley surveys a trio of books about Chantal Akerman = 92

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