Sight & Sound December 2020

“These films should have been made 35 years ago,” Steve McQueen tells historian David Olusoga in our December issue cover story, a powerful conversation about McQueen’s new Small Axe collection of films about Black British history, broadcasting this month on the BBC.

To dig down even further on the this landmark of British filmmaking, we’ve recruited an ensemble of notable writers, all qualified by experience, to react personally to each of the films in Small Axe. Candice Carty-Williams writes beautifully about Lovers Rock, Kehinde Andrews gets to the heart of Mangrove, Gary Younge considers the conflicts in the John Boyega-led Red, White and Blue, Kit de Waal connects deeply with Education and Jay Bernard journeys into the soul of Alex Wheatle.

Elsewhere in this issue, Roy Andersson signs out with his magnificently droll About Endlessness; David Fincher revisits Herman J. Mankiewicz’s Hollywood in Mank; Christopher Frayling remembers his encounters with Ennio Morricone; youth worker turned director Henry Blake goes behind Britain’s cross-country drug-running gangs in County Lines; and from our archives, Louise Brooks appraises Lilian Gish and Greta Garbo.

Plus regular features:

Editorial
An axe that cuts deep

Rushes

Hope springs
As cinemas reel from the impact of Covid-19, UK industry insiders assess where we’ve got to – and what the future holds.

+ The view from Queen’s Film Theatre, Belfast

Report: Notes from the Nigerian New Wave
Nigerian films at the BFI London Film Festival and Film Africa highlight a thriving independent scene outside Nollywood. By Chrystel Oloukoï.

Dream palaces: Cinema Kiev, Krakow
Director Malgorzata Szumowska recalls the magic of the big screen during Covid, via her memories of cinema-going under communism.

Interview: Welcome to the dollhouse
Pedro Almodóvar discusses his Jean Cocteau adaptation The Human Voice, working with Tilda Swinton and shooting in a Covid world. By Mar Diestro-Dópido.

Obituary: Rhonda Fleming, 1923-2020
The ‘Queen of Technicolor’ enjoyed a more varied career in the Hollywood studio system than her moniker suggests. By Pamela Hutchinson.

Designer thinking: Mars in Total Recall
As Paul Verhoeven’s raucous sci-fi turns 30, Isabel Stevens explores the awesome production feat behind the film’s dystopian vision of Mars.

Documentary: Courage under fire
Thrilling Romanian exposé Collective uncovers a vast trail of corruption. The doc’s director reveals its universal relevance. By Nick Bradshaw.

Soundings: Byrne and the USA
With coronavirus halting live music, it’s the perfect time for a concert film from one of the giants of the genre: David Byrne. By Leonie Cooper.

+ David Byrne’s favourite film scores

Festival: Rising stars of the LFF
As every year, the 2020 BFI London Film Festival showcased some exciting new filmmakers. We list some of the names to watch.

Wide angle

In memoriam: Sarah Maldoror
Though her name remains unfamiliar to most, the French-born filmmaker’s work is central to postcolonial African cinema. By Sukhdev Sandhu.

Primal screen: Rating Nielsen
Garbo may have been divine, but the Danish actor Asta Nielsen rivalled her fame by being stunningly, captivatingly human. By Pamela Hutchinson.

London on film: Shooting the elephant
Patrick Keiller’s sly, melancholy anatomy of London is now a book. How have print and time changed the film, and the city? By Matthew Harle.

Films of the month

Dick Johnson Is Dead

Kirsten Johnson’s superbly inventive movie confronts the trauma of her father’s imminent death with multiple advance stagings of it, finds Hannah McGill.

On the Rocks

Bill Murray and Rashida Jones are on sparkling form as a father and daughter navigating the still-gendered parenthood trap, writes Nikki Baughan.

Plus reviews of:

Bird Island
Collective
I Am Woman
Looted
Lovers Rock
Luxor
Mangrove
Martin Eden
One Man and His Shoes
The Painter and the Thief
Patrick
Rebecca
Song Without a Name
Supernova
The Trial of the Chicago 7
Two of Us
WolfWalkers

Television of the month

The Comey Rule

Plus reviews of:

The Beach
Mystery Road: Series 2
Battlestar Galactica
The Undoing
Us

Home cinema features

Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits
Though Bruce Lee died young, with only a handful of starring roles under his belt, he remains the martial arts hero: a new box-set shows why. Reviewed by Tony Rayns.

Archive Television: Monkey

Plus reviews of:

Dementia
John Ford at Columbia 1935-1958
Girlfriends
The Lady Eve
I, Monster
Sweet Charity
This Gun for Hire
The Times of Harvey Milk
The Wolf House

Books

The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood – and America – Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb by Greg Mitchell (The New Press) reviewed by J. Hoberman

A Light in the Dark: A History of Movie Directors by David Thomson (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) reviewed by Nick James

Letters

Psycho’s ending: subtle or accidental?
Trevor Griffiths’s Comedians is a divine comedy
Thinking about the ending of I’m Thinking of Ending Things
Christopher Nolan’s mechanical coldness
The puzzling pleasures of Tenet

Endings

Invasion of the Body Snatchers
The devastating twist that closes the Michael Chapman-shot 1978 sci-fi/horror remake still feels scarily resonant after all these years. By Joshua Rothkopf.