Volume 9, Issue 4 / April 2005

Just ahead of two thematically focused issues (on Quebec and Brazilian cinema) Offscreen presents a mixed bag of subject matter and approach which demonstrates its signature eclecticism, moving between arthouse, the Mondo film and Third World Cinema proper. The issue starts off with an essay on Tsai Ming–liang based on a recent complete retrospective of his films. This is followed by a structuralist comparison of the 18th century epistolary novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses and its fourth cinematic adaptation, Cruel Intensions. This essay welcomes writer Betty Kaklamanidou, who recently completed a PhD on film and literature at the University Aristotle of Thessaloniki, Greece. Up next is Daniel Garrett’s involved review of (mainly, though not only) Woody Allen’s recent film Melinda & Melinda, in which –among other points made– he answers the many critics who routinely, and with little critical rigor, make unfavorable comparisons between Allen’s recent and earlier work. Following Garrett’s piece is Elie Castiel’s well-researched introduction to the Mondo film. Castiel, a long-time fan and student of the Mondo film, provides a well argued justification for the Mondo’s wide-spread influence across varying forms of non-fiction cinema. The piece also marks Castiel’s Offscreen debut. Rounding out the issue is Peter Rist’s piece on classic Cuban cinema. In the mid–1980s Peter Rist and Timothy Bernard were working together on a critical filmography of Latin American cinema. Rist began his contribution by writing a number of entries on Mexican and Cuban films. Soon after the co-editors realized that the planned volume would be too long for the contracted publishers, Garland in New York, and decided to reduce the book’s scope to the South American “core.” Thus, some of Rist’s attempts at writing on Latin American cinema were never published.