Man of the People
Sam Wasson’s new Capra biography is a welcome corrective, but it goes too easy on the director and misreads his decline.
Graham Daseler
Graham Daseler is a film editor and writer living in LA. His articles have appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, the American Conservative, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere.
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17 articles
The Limits of Perfectionism
A look back at the cinema of Stanley Kubrick on the eve of a massive new Criterion retrospective.
In Bad Faith
The US vice president’s new memoir leaves an unflattering impression of its author.
A Man for All Seasons
Susan Owens’s handsome new monograph reconsiders the life and career of the English landscape painter John Constable.
The Many Faces of Tucker Carlson
Jason Zengerle’s new book about the degradation of a once-gifted writer and broadcaster also illustrates the downward trajectory of the entire news industry during the same period.
God of the Yawning Gaps
It’s hard to believe in God when even very bright, thoughtful people can’t come up with good reasons why you should.
The Conned Artist
David Mamet’s new polemic is filled with muddled prose and muddled thought.
The Jewel in the Crown
‘The Man Who Would Be King’ turns fifty.
Out of the Past
A new book looks back on the making of Billy Wilder’s American classic.
Too Much Monkey Business
The questions at the centre of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial are still contested today.
Religious Reasoning
The first and largest mistake Douthat makes in his new book is to argue that faith and rationality are mutually supportive.
Mammy Dearest
Richard Bernstein’s new book about Al Jolson and ‘The Jazz Singer’ offers a thoughtful reconsideration of an unfairly reviled cultural landmark.