Mark Krotov

In defense of Sofia Coppola:

America's most unfairly maligned director has more to say than she is given credit for.

Bio: Mark Krotov is an assistant editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

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In defense of Sofia Coppola

defense-sofia-coppola

Somewhere, released just before the holiday, is the third movie in what might be called Coppola's Hermetic Trilogy, following Lost in Translation (2003) and Marie Antoinette (2006). (Though her first feature, 1999's The Virgin Suicides, has similarities to her later films, its concerns are radically different.)

Like those movies, Somewhere explores, in extraordinary detail, a life of unbelievable decadence and deep ennui.

But compared to Lost in Translation, which had an expansive romantic vision, and Marie Antoinette, one of the more gleefully revisionist works of pop art of the last decade, Somewhere is supposed by some to be limited in scope and lacking imagination. More

Posted on January 3rd, 2011 9:28am

 
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The New York subway-map wars, continued

new-york-subway-map-wars-continued

“The New York City Subway Map: Form v. Function in the Public Realm” was the official title of a panel discussion last night at the Museum of the City of New York, but The New York City Subway Map as Ideological Battleground was the implicit subject. Legendary graphic designer Massimo Vignelli was the black-clad spokesperson for pristine, beleaguered modernism; cartographer John Tauranac was the rumpled hero of populist readability. Paul Shaw (author of Helvetica and the New York City Subway System: The True (Maybe) Story) and Eddie Jabbour (creator of the modernist-populist hybrid Kick Map and its attendant iPhone app) represented practical criticism and homespun creativity, respectively. More

Posted on December 8th, 2010 12:53pm

 
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Mark Krotov commented on The 'Empire' state of mind

Dear Jed, Thank you so much for your comment--and for the technical details, which are illuminating! And thank you, as well, for screening EMPIRE--I can't imagine a better way to spend seven (or eight) hours. Best, Mark

Posted on July 27th, 2010 2:43pm

 
Article

The 'Empire' state of mind

empire-state-mind

About 25 brave, possibly foolish people had gathered there to watch Empire, Andy Warhol's rarely shown, stubbornly meditative eight-hour mindfuck: a single, silent shot of the Empire State Building, filmed in black and white almost exactly 36 years ago and lasting—well, we'll get to that, but, several hours at least. (Here is a trailer, of sorts.) The screening kicked off Anthology artistic director Jonas Mekas' new series, "Boring Masterpieces," which continues in August with The Human Condition, the nearly 10-hour Japanese epic, and what Mekas refers to as Robert Kramer's "hypnotically boring" Ice in September.

Mekas isn't exactly a detached curator—he was the madman whose newsreel camera shot Empire—but Anthology's programming notes preempted any claims about conflict of interest: "Who could argue that it doesn't belong here?"

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Posted on July 26th, 2010 6:20am

 

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