Timecodes – serie

A minute-by-minute analysis of Gus Van Sant film, Gerry (2002). Blending film criticism with creative nonfiction, each book in the Timecodes series focuses on one film, exploring it minute by minute beginning with minute one, and ending with the final minute before the closing credits.In the canon of director Gus Van Sant’s films, Gerry (2002) stands out as a singular work, a boldly experimental film that nonetheless is accessible, darkly humorous, and profound. Gerry: Minute by Minute is a non-traditional critical study of this film, a bold, impressionistic series of vignettes that circle around questions which are highly specific to Gerry itself but which are also universal: what is it about certain works of art—films, books, paintings, music—that attach themselves to us so that we carry them with us on our journey through life? What does it mean to walk with these works inside us, as if they are a part of us? The book’s structure unfolds chronologically along with the film, with one moment from each of the film’s 100 minutes serving as the basis for the chapters. Each of the 100 vignette chapters takes on topics ranging from the particulars of the film itself, including: the inventive use of camera movement and sound; the productive nature of collaboration; the driving themes and philosophies that inform the film; the blistering heat, in Death Valley, of its production; the place of Gerry in American cinema and its European influences, especially Béla Tarr; the impact of 9-11 on the cultural landscape of 2001-02, when Gerry was filmed and released; and what it means to “walk” with a film or a book, carrying it our heads as it informs who we are, often in subtle ways invisible to those around us.

A minute-by-minute analysis of Gus Van Sant film, Gerry (2002). Blending film criticism with creative nonfiction, each book in the Timecodes series focuses on one film, exploring it minute by minute beginning with minute one, and ending with the final minute before the closing credits.In the canon of director Gus Van Sant’s films, Gerry (2002) stands out as a singular work, a boldly experimental film that nonetheless is accessible, darkly humorous, and profound. Gerry: Minute by Minute is a non-traditional critical study of this film, a bold, impressionistic series of vignettes that circle around questions which are highly specific to Gerry itself but which are also universal: what is it about certain works of art—films, books, paintings, music—that attach themselves to us so that we carry them with us on our journey through life? What does it mean to walk with these works inside us, as if they are a part of us? The book’s structure unfolds chronologically along with the film, with one moment from each of the film’s 100 minutes serving as the basis for the chapters. Each of the 100 vignette chapters takes on topics ranging from the particulars of the film itself, including: the inventive use of camera movement and sound; the productive nature of collaboration; the driving themes and philosophies that inform the film; the blistering heat, in Death Valley, of its production; the place of Gerry in American cinema and its European influences, especially Béla Tarr; the impact of 9-11 on the cultural landscape of 2001-02, when Gerry was filmed and released; and what it means to “walk” with a film or a book, carrying it our heads as it informs who we are, often in subtle ways invisible to those around us.

A minute-by-minute analysis of Brian De Palma’s 1972 horror film, Sisters, weaving in Marxist feminist theory to foreground an appreciation of the film and bid for its enduring relevance for feminists, despite controversy surrounding its director.Sisters is one of De Palma’s most extraordinary and important films, and yet it is often disregarded, misunderstood, or underestimated. The two main characters, Grace and Danielle, represent the second-wave feminist desire for professional autonomy and women’s psychosexual oppression, respectively. Yet, this reading seems at odds with the abundant accusations of misogyny and transphobia De Palma has drawn throughout his directing career. Each of this book’s 100 vignette chapters makes the case that whatever De Palma’s attitudes and intents, Sisters is a revelatory film for feminists, both for its formal diagnosis and estrangement of conventional gendered relationships under capitalism and for its absorption and reflection of the social contradictions of its moment.The book also asks important, related questions, including: How does Sisters mark the transition from De Palma’s earlier “Godardian” phase to his signature “Hitchcockian” style? How does De Palma’s Hitchcockian phase inaugurated in Sisters intertwine with 1970s’ psychoanalytic feminist theory? How do the contributions of women both as performers and behind the scenes decenter the auteurist rhetoric that is so frequently applied to De Palma’s work? This book is a means to appreciate and understand one of the most important films of the 1970s while reassessing the assumptions at the heart of contemporary feminist evaluations.

A minute-by-minute analysis of Brian De Palma’s 1972 horror film, Sisters, weaving in Marxist feminist theory to foreground an appreciation of the film and bid for its enduring relevance for feminists, despite controversy surrounding its director.Sisters is one of De Palma’s most extraordinary and important films, and yet it is often disregarded, misunderstood, or underestimated. The two main characters, Grace and Danielle, represent the second-wave feminist desire for professional autonomy and women’s psychosexual oppression, respectively. Yet, this reading seems at odds with the abundant accusations of misogyny and transphobia De Palma has drawn throughout his directing career. Each of this book’s 100 vignette chapters makes the case that whatever De Palma’s attitudes and intents, Sisters is a revelatory film for feminists, both for its formal diagnosis and estrangement of conventional gendered relationships under capitalism and for its absorption and reflection of the social contradictions of its moment.The book also asks important, related questions, including: How does Sisters mark the transition from De Palma’s earlier “Godardian” phase to his signature “Hitchcockian” style? How does De Palma’s Hitchcockian phase inaugurated in Sisters intertwine with 1970s’ psychoanalytic feminist theory? How do the contributions of women both as performers and behind the scenes decenter the auteurist rhetoric that is so frequently applied to De Palma’s work? This book is a means to appreciate and understand one of the most important films of the 1970s while reassessing the assumptions at the heart of contemporary feminist evaluations.

Point Break, in Bloomsbury's Timecodes Series, is a detailed, minute-by-minute critical exploration of Kathryn Bigelow’s 1991 action film Point Break. Moving sequentially through the film’s two-hour runtime, the book blends formal analysis, cultural history and theory, action genre study, and personal reflection and interpretation. It positions Point Break as both a quintessential action spectacle and a film layered with thematic tensions: masculinity, spirituality, individual risk, personal freedom, environmental awareness, and the search for one’s identity. Each minute of the film is treated as a self-contained unit. The cinematography, editing, sound design, performances, and narrative beats are discussed in relation to broader social contexts including surfing subculture, mid-to-late-20th-century American politics, post-Vietnam War attitudes, and the evolving media images of Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze.Drawing on a wide array of sources, such as film theory, cultural criticism, and surf memoirs, the bookreframes Point Break as not merely an adrenaline-driven thriller, but as a work rich in symbolism, mythology, homoerotic desires, and philosophical inquiry. This approach reveals how Bigelow crafts a kinetic, expressive cinema where bodies, landscapes, and motion collide, and how the film's characters operate within intersecting personal, cultural, and ideological currents. The result is a hybrid of scholarship and creative writing that reanimates the film by slowing it down, revealing layers of meaning often obscured by its velocity.

Point Break, in Bloomsbury's Timecodes Series, is a detailed, minute-by-minute critical exploration of Kathryn Bigelow’s 1991 action film Point Break. Moving sequentially through the film’s two-hour runtime, the book blends formal analysis, cultural history and theory, action genre study, and personal reflection and interpretation. It positions Point Break as both a quintessential action spectacle and a film layered with thematic tensions: masculinity, spirituality, individual risk, personal freedom, environmental awareness, and the search for one’s identity. Each minute of the film is treated as a self-contained unit. The cinematography, editing, sound design, performances, and narrative beats are discussed in relation to broader social contexts including surfing subculture, mid-to-late-20th-century American politics, post-Vietnam War attitudes, and the evolving media images of Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze.Drawing on a wide array of sources, such as film theory, cultural criticism, and surf memoirs, the bookreframes Point Break as not merely an adrenaline-driven thriller, but as a work rich in symbolism, mythology, homoerotic desires, and philosophical inquiry. This approach reveals how Bigelow crafts a kinetic, expressive cinema where bodies, landscapes, and motion collide, and how the film's characters operate within intersecting personal, cultural, and ideological currents. The result is a hybrid of scholarship and creative writing that reanimates the film by slowing it down, revealing layers of meaning often obscured by its velocity.

A minute-by-minute analysis of Steven Soderbergh's film The Limey (1999), examining its innovative narrative and editing techniques, as well as its thematic explorations of revenge, regret, and memory.This book provides a nuanced and insightful exploration of this all-too-overlooked film in the career of one of contemporary American cinema’s most ubiquitous and indefatigable directors. Delving into Soderbergh's groundbreaking narrative style, which seamlessly intertwines past and present, it illuminates the film’s meticulous editing and groundbreaking storytelling techniques. Central to the discussion is the portrayal of revenge and regret, explored through the film’s distinctive structure, and its meditation on aging - of the actors in the film, the archetypes they represent, and American Cinema itself. Brandon Harris contextualizes The Limey within Soderbergh's broader oeuvre and its unique position in late-1990s American cinema, offering readers a compelling interpretation that underscores the film’s enduring impact and critical significance. The Limey: Movies Minute by Minute not only sheds new light on a deserving film but also provokes a wider conversation about an under-appreciated work from one of the modern masters of American Cinema. It is a book for cinephiles, for those fascinated by the craft of filmmaking, and for anyone who believes that some of the most profound artistic statements are often found in the most unexpected places.

A minute-by-minute analysis of Steven Soderbergh's film The Limey (1999), examining its innovative narrative and editing techniques, as well as its thematic explorations of revenge, regret, and memory.This book provides a nuanced and insightful exploration of this all-too-overlooked film in the career of one of contemporary American cinema’s most ubiquitous and indefatigable directors. Delving into Soderbergh's groundbreaking narrative style, which seamlessly intertwines past and present, it illuminates the film’s meticulous editing and groundbreaking storytelling techniques. Central to the discussion is the portrayal of revenge and regret, explored through the film’s distinctive structure, and its meditation on aging - of the actors in the film, the archetypes they represent, and American Cinema itself. Brandon Harris contextualizes The Limey within Soderbergh's broader oeuvre and its unique position in late-1990s American cinema, offering readers a compelling interpretation that underscores the film’s enduring impact and critical significance. The Limey: Movies Minute by Minute not only sheds new light on a deserving film but also provokes a wider conversation about an under-appreciated work from one of the modern masters of American Cinema. It is a book for cinephiles, for those fascinated by the craft of filmmaking, and for anyone who believes that some of the most profound artistic statements are often found in the most unexpected places.

A minute-by-minute analysis of Spike Lee's infamous film, BlacKkKlansman.Blending film criticism with creative nonfiction, each book in the Timecodes series focuses on one film, exploring it minute by minute beginning with minute one, and ending with the final minute before the closing credits.Film scholars have examined Spike Lee’s inventive visual style, didactic argumentative structure, use of music, and cinematic movement, but his film, BlacKkKlansman, is also a meditation on questions of perennial concern to political theorists: what is the meaning of freedom under social constraint? How does racism and anti-Blackness structure the parameters of conversation and belonging? Is redistribution or recognition crucial for justice? Alex Zamalin takes up these questions by examining the dynamics of race and politics as presented in the film. Through dissecting themes of law and order, white supremacy, police brutality, Black rebellion, and intersectionality, Zamalin invites readers to draw connections to the present political consciousness of the Black Lives Matter movement. The creative and thorough analysis presented in this book translates just how pressing social and cultural insights can be glimpsed through popular media.

A minute-by-minute analysis of Spike Lee's infamous film, BlacKkKlansman.Blending film criticism with creative nonfiction, each book in the Timecodes series focuses on one film, exploring it minute by minute beginning with minute one, and ending with the final minute before the closing credits.Film scholars have examined Spike Lee’s inventive visual style, didactic argumentative structure, use of music, and cinematic movement, but his film, BlacKkKlansman, is also a meditation on questions of perennial concern to political theorists: what is the meaning of freedom under social constraint? How does racism and anti-Blackness structure the parameters of conversation and belonging? Is redistribution or recognition crucial for justice? Alex Zamalin takes up these questions by examining the dynamics of race and politics as presented in the film. Through dissecting themes of law and order, white supremacy, police brutality, Black rebellion, and intersectionality, Zamalin invites readers to draw connections to the present political consciousness of the Black Lives Matter movement. The creative and thorough analysis presented in this book translates just how pressing social and cultural insights can be glimpsed through popular media.

A minute-by-minute analysis of George Miller's film, Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).Blending film criticism with creative nonfiction, each book in the Timecodes series focuses on one film, exploring it minute by minute beginning with minute one, and ending with the final minute before the closing credits.Mad Max: Fury Road: Movies Minute by Minute is the first book-length analysis of George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, which reads the film as an anti-capitalist, feminist manifesto. In this interdisciplinary text, Alix Olson mobilizes an unconventional and eclectic archive of radical democratic, ecofeminist and queer theory, feminist poetry, and Afro-futurist literature in order to elicit the film’s relevance as a guide for radical political struggle. The book is particularly attuned to Mad Max’s depiction of “another world as possible,” a slogan which serves as an aspirational impetus for activism and to the nature of radical social change more broadly. Through close analysis, the book weaves together “thought-bites” in order to track pressing questions about power relations within neoliberal capitalism: How might reading the film through contemporary queer and feminist thinkers and activist movements teach us about the possibilities and limitations of resistance? How do utopia and dystopia (pre)figure and interact as post-capitalist horizons? Should we understand ecofeminism as a liberatory or essentializing force? What might the temporality of “slow critique,” performed by a minute-by-minute textual reading, expose about our approach to political life more generally? How can popular art uproot the common-sense nature of everyday life under neoliberal capitalism and render taken-for-granted logics irrational or dystopian?

A minute-by-minute analysis of George Miller's film, Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).Blending film criticism with creative nonfiction, each book in the Timecodes series focuses on one film, exploring it minute by minute beginning with minute one, and ending with the final minute before the closing credits.Mad Max: Fury Road: Movies Minute by Minute is the first book-length analysis of George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, which reads the film as an anti-capitalist, feminist manifesto. In this interdisciplinary text, Alix Olson mobilizes an unconventional and eclectic archive of radical democratic, ecofeminist and queer theory, feminist poetry, and Afro-futurist literature in order to elicit the film’s relevance as a guide for radical political struggle. The book is particularly attuned to Mad Max’s depiction of “another world as possible,” a slogan which serves as an aspirational impetus for activism and to the nature of radical social change more broadly. Through close analysis, the book weaves together “thought-bites” in order to track pressing questions about power relations within neoliberal capitalism: How might reading the film through contemporary queer and feminist thinkers and activist movements teach us about the possibilities and limitations of resistance? How do utopia and dystopia (pre)figure and interact as post-capitalist horizons? Should we understand ecofeminism as a liberatory or essentializing force? What might the temporality of “slow critique,” performed by a minute-by-minute textual reading, expose about our approach to political life more generally? How can popular art uproot the common-sense nature of everyday life under neoliberal capitalism and render taken-for-granted logics irrational or dystopian?

A minute-by-minute analysis of Greta Gerwig’s Little Women.Blending film criticism with creative nonfiction, each book in the Timecodes series focuses on one film, exploring it minute by minute beginning with minute one, and ending with the final minute before the closing credits. In 1868, Louisa May Alcott published the literary masterpiece, Little Women. Written in a heartfelt style that combines the Timecodes series’ dedication to close analysis alongside theoretical, cultural, social and personal reflection, Boljkovac intimately and thoroughly reveals how Alcott’s book and most recent screen adaptation, directed by Greta Gerwig (2019), is more than just a classic literary story. Gerwig’s Little Women releases – for the first time onscreen – Jo’s potential and the feminist queer resistance latent in the novel. This book furthers the momentum of the 2019 film in embracing Alcott’s 21st century thought. Eschewing theories of (auto-)biography, Boljkovac advances, via Gerwig, instances of feminist moving image (self-)portraiture that celebrate open-ended possibilities for women of any time.

A minute-by-minute analysis of Greta Gerwig’s Little Women.Blending film criticism with creative nonfiction, each book in the Timecodes series focuses on one film, exploring it minute by minute beginning with minute one, and ending with the final minute before the closing credits. In 1868, Louisa May Alcott published the literary masterpiece, Little Women. Written in a heartfelt style that combines the Timecodes series’ dedication to close analysis alongside theoretical, cultural, social and personal reflection, Boljkovac intimately and thoroughly reveals how Alcott’s book and most recent screen adaptation, directed by Greta Gerwig (2019), is more than just a classic literary story. Gerwig’s Little Women releases – for the first time onscreen – Jo’s potential and the feminist queer resistance latent in the novel. This book furthers the momentum of the 2019 film in embracing Alcott’s 21st century thought. Eschewing theories of (auto-)biography, Boljkovac advances, via Gerwig, instances of feminist moving image (self-)portraiture that celebrate open-ended possibilities for women of any time.

A minute-by-minute analysis of one episode (Part 8) of David Lynch's Twin Peaks: The Return (2017).Much has been written about the work of David Lynch and existential fear in relation to Americana and the American Dream-as-American Nightmare in terms that are circular and artistically self-referential—or Lynchian. But with Part 8 of his most recent work, the 2017 series Twin Peaks: The Return, Lynch locates his singular and unsettling visual vocabulary within an epic historical context: the world’s first atomic explosion, the Trinity Test. With reference to the 1983 television phenomenon The Day After, Lynch’s work is newly situated in a resurgence of works reassessing the legacy of Trinity. Among them: HBO’s Chernobyl, Trevor Paglen’s Trinity Cube, Cormac McCarthy’s The Passenger and Stella Maris, and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. With David Lynch’s Part 8, a cultural circuit is completed, from the idiosyncratic and personal—or Lynchian—to the shared space of what theorist Paul Virilio describes as “cosmic fear”—or an emergency of social media.After placing the work in this specific context, this book examines every minute of Lynch’s Part 8 from Twin Peaks: The Return, minute by minute—a thrilling endeavor due to the radical landscape that Lynch sets forth: a landscape of astonishing cinematic extremities, from the maddeningly abstract, absurd, and meticulous, to the lush, and terrifying. The director presents an uncanny intimacy that is an achievement even among the most critically lauded works in Lynch’s catalog.

A minute-by-minute analysis of one episode (Part 8) of David Lynch's Twin Peaks: The Return (2017).Much has been written about the work of David Lynch and existential fear in relation to Americana and the American Dream-as-American Nightmare in terms that are circular and artistically self-referential—or Lynchian. But with Part 8 of his most recent work, the 2017 series Twin Peaks: The Return, Lynch locates his singular and unsettling visual vocabulary within an epic historical context: the world’s first atomic explosion, the Trinity Test. With reference to the 1983 television phenomenon The Day After, Lynch’s work is newly situated in a resurgence of works reassessing the legacy of Trinity. Among them: HBO’s Chernobyl, Trevor Paglen’s Trinity Cube, Cormac McCarthy’s The Passenger and Stella Maris, and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. With David Lynch’s Part 8, a cultural circuit is completed, from the idiosyncratic and personal—or Lynchian—to the shared space of what theorist Paul Virilio describes as “cosmic fear”—or an emergency of social media.After placing the work in this specific context, this book examines every minute of Lynch’s Part 8 from Twin Peaks: The Return, minute by minute—a thrilling endeavor due to the radical landscape that Lynch sets forth: a landscape of astonishing cinematic extremities, from the maddeningly abstract, absurd, and meticulous, to the lush, and terrifying. The director presents an uncanny intimacy that is an achievement even among the most critically lauded works in Lynch’s catalog.

A minute-by-minute analysis of Richard Linklater’s 1993 film, Dazed and Confused.Blending film criticism with creative nonfiction, each book in the Timecodes series focuses on one film, exploring it minute by minute beginning with minute one, and ending with the final minute before the closing credits.This book uses a close study of Dazed and Confused to tell three interrelated stories of adolescent development: the filmmaker’s, the film’s characters, and the author’s own. The film’s unconventional approach to character and plot mirrors the author’s own structureless and energetic childhood, while also having a profound impact on his artistic development, as the film revealed that bending traditional narrative rules could make a story feel more honest and precise. The film also marked a kind of artistic coming-of-age for Linklater himself, as he transitioned from his self-financed indie infancy into his first studio film.The structure of Dazed and Confused mirrors the roving momentum of a youthful night, moving fluidly between characters, incidents, conversations, and what can only loosely be called “set pieces”, while never feeling aimless. Each moment moves the night forward, revealing more of our characters as we slowly form a sense of what the rest of their summer might look like, and how the rest of their lives might go (though we’re also reminded there’ll be surprises along the way). As these moments accumulate, viewers are invited to reflect on their own lives, their own friends, their own easy nights of highs and lows, boredom and elation, danger and congress. Adopting the formal conceit of the Timecodes’ series, this book accepts the film’s invitation to live moment by moment, taking each discrete minute as an opportunity to reorient and explore new vantages on both the movie and the author’s own life.

A minute-by-minute analysis of Richard Linklater’s 1993 film, Dazed and Confused.Blending film criticism with creative nonfiction, each book in the Timecodes series focuses on one film, exploring it minute by minute beginning with minute one, and ending with the final minute before the closing credits.This book uses a close study of Dazed and Confused to tell three interrelated stories of adolescent development: the filmmaker’s, the film’s characters, and the author’s own. The film’s unconventional approach to character and plot mirrors the author’s own structureless and energetic childhood, while also having a profound impact on his artistic development, as the film revealed that bending traditional narrative rules could make a story feel more honest and precise. The film also marked a kind of artistic coming-of-age for Linklater himself, as he transitioned from his self-financed indie infancy into his first studio film.The structure of Dazed and Confused mirrors the roving momentum of a youthful night, moving fluidly between characters, incidents, conversations, and what can only loosely be called “set pieces”, while never feeling aimless. Each moment moves the night forward, revealing more of our characters as we slowly form a sense of what the rest of their summer might look like, and how the rest of their lives might go (though we’re also reminded there’ll be surprises along the way). As these moments accumulate, viewers are invited to reflect on their own lives, their own friends, their own easy nights of highs and lows, boredom and elation, danger and congress. Adopting the formal conceit of the Timecodes’ series, this book accepts the film’s invitation to live moment by moment, taking each discrete minute as an opportunity to reorient and explore new vantages on both the movie and the author’s own life.

A minute-by-minute analysis of Ben Wheatley's film, Kill List (2011).2011’s Kill List, directed by Ben Wheatley and written by Wheatley and Amy Jump, provides an almost alchemical space by which audiences can watch as one genre transforms into another - from crime drama to paranoid thriller to terrifying folk horror - before our eyes. Narrative misdirection abounds in this film, but Wheatley and Jump are after something more than simple narrative cleverness. This film encompasses supernatural conspiracies and shocking acts of violence, but at its heart it’s a story of a man trying to be a good husband and father — and failing comprehensively at both tasks. It’s also a story of the larger forces that can govern most people’s lives, whether the economic impact of a recession or the strategic deployment of rituals and magic.Taking readers through the events of Kill List minute by minute, this book explores the dense plotting and overlapping threads of this film, the thematic anxieties that plague its characters, and the allusions to heroes and conflicts that bolster its storytelling. Kill List is both a visceral trip into one man’s waking nightmare and a haunting exploration of moral ruin. This book is a rigorous guide to the cinematic landmarks found along the way.

A minute-by-minute analysis of Ben Wheatley's film, Kill List (2011).2011’s Kill List, directed by Ben Wheatley and written by Wheatley and Amy Jump, provides an almost alchemical space by which audiences can watch as one genre transforms into another - from crime drama to paranoid thriller to terrifying folk horror - before our eyes. Narrative misdirection abounds in this film, but Wheatley and Jump are after something more than simple narrative cleverness. This film encompasses supernatural conspiracies and shocking acts of violence, but at its heart it’s a story of a man trying to be a good husband and father — and failing comprehensively at both tasks. It’s also a story of the larger forces that can govern most people’s lives, whether the economic impact of a recession or the strategic deployment of rituals and magic.Taking readers through the events of Kill List minute by minute, this book explores the dense plotting and overlapping threads of this film, the thematic anxieties that plague its characters, and the allusions to heroes and conflicts that bolster its storytelling. Kill List is both a visceral trip into one man’s waking nightmare and a haunting exploration of moral ruin. This book is a rigorous guide to the cinematic landmarks found along the way.

A minute-by-minute analysis of Francis Ford Coppola’s paranoid thriller The Conversation (1974). Blending film criticism with creative nonfiction, each book in the Timecodes series focuses on one film, exploring it minute by minute beginning with minute one, and ending with the final minute before the closing credits.When it was released, The Conversation depicted the isolation and loneliness caused by a surveillance state we ourselves, unwittingly or not, are agents in. It examined the ways in which technological progress can outpace the culture it ostensibly aids, and how our increased awareness of these increasingly undetectable innovations doesn’t necessarily help us avoid their lenses. Harry Caul, in an underrated performance by Gene Hackman, is the best in the bugging business, and yet, by the end, even he can’t figure out how he himself has been surveilled. It is a potent parable of Nixon’s America.50 years later, Coppola’s masterpiece didn’t just record the spirit of the age, he also had an ear toward the future, as The Conversation also managed to prefigure the isolated reactionaries of the internet, with Gene Hackman’s Harry Caul as a kind of pre-digital online troll whose self-righteousness and interpersonal failings shape his reactionary interpretation of events in which he’s only a peripheral participant. Harry both predicts the behavior of social media bullies and bots but also definitively shows that the internet did not create these characters; it merely amplifies them.Ultimately, The Conversation: Movies Minute by Minute shows how Coppola’s taut narrative of ambiguity, paranoia, and subjectivity is utterly a movie of its moment and yet has reverberated long after its release in a way few films ever do.

A minute-by-minute analysis of Francis Ford Coppola’s paranoid thriller The Conversation (1974). Blending film criticism with creative nonfiction, each book in the Timecodes series focuses on one film, exploring it minute by minute beginning with minute one, and ending with the final minute before the closing credits.When it was released, The Conversation depicted the isolation and loneliness caused by a surveillance state we ourselves, unwittingly or not, are agents in. It examined the ways in which technological progress can outpace the culture it ostensibly aids, and how our increased awareness of these increasingly undetectable innovations doesn’t necessarily help us avoid their lenses. Harry Caul, in an underrated performance by Gene Hackman, is the best in the bugging business, and yet, by the end, even he can’t figure out how he himself has been surveilled. It is a potent parable of Nixon’s America.50 years later, Coppola’s masterpiece didn’t just record the spirit of the age, he also had an ear toward the future, as The Conversation also managed to prefigure the isolated reactionaries of the internet, with Gene Hackman’s Harry Caul as a kind of pre-digital online troll whose self-righteousness and interpersonal failings shape his reactionary interpretation of events in which he’s only a peripheral participant. Harry both predicts the behavior of social media bullies and bots but also definitively shows that the internet did not create these characters; it merely amplifies them.Ultimately, The Conversation: Movies Minute by Minute shows how Coppola’s taut narrative of ambiguity, paranoia, and subjectivity is utterly a movie of its moment and yet has reverberated long after its release in a way few films ever do.

A minute-by-minute analysis of Anisia Uzeyman’s and Saul Williams’ film, Neptune Frost (2021).This book traces the complex structure of the film, working through its rich tapestry of images and sounds while exploring its dual themes of resource exploitation and extraction and gender oppression. Neptune Frost shows how Africa stands at both ends of the production cycle: minerals are mined from the soil and sent to the West to make electronic devices, and the detritus of broken and obsolete devices is ultimately sent back to Africa to be abandoned in waste dumps. An indigenous community of hackers establishes a utopian community in the midst of these wastes and seeks to seize power over the network. At the same time, the movie centers upon a trans character, who starts out as a man and then transitions into a woman. She flees patriarchal domination and abuse and, almost magically, embodies the counter-power of resistance. This is all conveyed in the unusual form of a science fiction musical. Visions of altered technology are extrapolated ever so slightly beyond what actually exists while song and dance convey the desires, dreams, and solidarities of characters who are rarely given voice in more mainstream cinema. The movie gives accessible human and more-than-human expression to the usually hidden forces that lie beneath the world we take for granted.

A minute-by-minute analysis of Anisia Uzeyman’s and Saul Williams’ film, Neptune Frost (2021).This book traces the complex structure of the film, working through its rich tapestry of images and sounds while exploring its dual themes of resource exploitation and extraction and gender oppression. Neptune Frost shows how Africa stands at both ends of the production cycle: minerals are mined from the soil and sent to the West to make electronic devices, and the detritus of broken and obsolete devices is ultimately sent back to Africa to be abandoned in waste dumps. An indigenous community of hackers establishes a utopian community in the midst of these wastes and seeks to seize power over the network. At the same time, the movie centers upon a trans character, who starts out as a man and then transitions into a woman. She flees patriarchal domination and abuse and, almost magically, embodies the counter-power of resistance. This is all conveyed in the unusual form of a science fiction musical. Visions of altered technology are extrapolated ever so slightly beyond what actually exists while song and dance convey the desires, dreams, and solidarities of characters who are rarely given voice in more mainstream cinema. The movie gives accessible human and more-than-human expression to the usually hidden forces that lie beneath the world we take for granted.

A minute-by-minute analysis of Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York (2008).Blending film criticism with creative nonfiction, each book in the Timecodes series focuses on one film, exploring it minute by minute beginning with minute one, and ending with the final minute before the closing credits. In the canon of Charlie Kaufman written/directed films, which include Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Synecdoche, New York is perhaps the purest distillation of his aesthetics as it follows the protagonist, Caden Cotard, a theater director who struggles with his work and women as he creates a life-size replica of New York City inside a warehouse as part of his new play. This book elevates this signature film to a higher place in the pantheon of Kaufman films with a nuanced, compassionate reading of a film that has a reputation for being removed and cold.