Junior year of college, I was quite unexpectedly decided upon as a person of interest by the film department and invited to a reception and dinner at the president’s house, preceding an Antonioni film screening.

The arrival of the 50th anniversary restoration of Breathless at Film Forum left me with a distinct feeling of trepidation.

Today one cannot watch Antonioni’s Red Desert, with its ever-present smokestacks and overwhelming industrial milieu, without thinking of that underwater camera, constantly bringing us seemingly ceaseless images of oil billowing into the sea.

One simply cannot deny that Metropolis–Lang’s 1927 tale of insurrection and a maniacally sexy robot in a mechanized futuristic city–is not of our own time, and it took a helluva trip getting here.

As someone who devotes a significant chunk of her mental life to the question of women in film, the title Women Without Men intrigues, but ultimately stirs up a distinct sense of dread.

“Concerning ourselves,” Nietzsche wrote, speaking of those who engage in intellectual pursuits, “we are not seekers of knowledge.” But this statement has ramifications far beyond the blazer-with-elbow-patches-wearing crowd.

The term “consciousness raising” may rankle or alienate a contemporary audience. Perhaps it seems like a relic of a bygone age or, worse, calls to mind the worst excesses of politically correct activism.