SUSANNAH GRUDER
Journalist + Copywriter
November 13, 2020
Processing Podcast: Food and Grief in Film
Appeared on Heritage Radio’s Processing podcast, hosted by chef Zahra Tangorra and her mom Bobbie Comforto, a grief counselor, to discuss the intersection of food and grief on film. We discussed Jeanne Dielman, Still Walking, and Dick Johnson Is Dead, among many other things.
October 12, 2020
Podcast: The Last Thing I Saw with Nicolas Rapold
Appeared on Nic Rapold’s podcast The Last Thing I Saw with critic Beatrice Loayza to discuss NYFF and other new and old releases. We chatted about Beginning, Smooth Talk, Dick Johnson Is Dead, Daughters of Darkness and more.
October 9, 2020
Reverse Shot: NYFF 2020: Review of Beginning (Dea Kulumbegashvili, 2020)
While her emotional world remains hidden to us, we nonetheless feel an intimacy with Yana as she nestles herself into the vastness of her environment.
October 6, 2020
I did an interview with the RS editors about my start in criticism, the last movie I saw in a theater, and movies I think more people should see, for their Reverse Shotter Spotlight, which highlights a frequent contributor in each of their bi-weekly newsletters.
October 2, 2020
Reverse Shot: Review of Dick Johnson Is Dead (Kirsten Johnson, 2020)
In the spirit of films like the Chantal Akerman documentary No Home Movie and I Go Gaga, My Dear, by Naoko Nobutomo, Johnson tries to capture him on camera to come to terms with his eventual disappearance, while also somehow keeping him alive.
September 29, 2020
Catalyst and Witness Podcast: NYFF 2020 Dispatch
Discussed the first week of the 2020 New York Film Festival along with critics Forrest Cardamenis, Max Carpenter, Jeva Lange, Chloe Lizotte, and C.J. Prince on Ryan Swen’s Catalyst and Witness podcast.
September 23, 2020
Bright Wall/Dark Room: Unhappy Accidents: Insurance and the Business of Living in Double Indemnity and The Apartment
Wilder makes a huge jump in genre between these films—from an existential noir to an off-beat romantic comedy—but the two share a kinship; both can be read as cautionary tales for what happens when you mix business with pleasure.
September 9, 2020
Reverse Shot Happy Hour: Feel-Bad Feel-Good Movies
Discussed the movies I return to for comfort despite the fact that they're not remotely comfortable with Reverse Shot editors Michael Koresky and Jeff Reichert, along with programmer and critic Ashley Clark.
August 5, 2020
Reverse Shot: Review of Sunless Shadows (Mehrdad Oskouei, 2019)
Oskouei slowly chips away at any sense of calm on the surface of life at a female juvenile corrections center in Iran, spending the majority of the film listening to each woman’s inner struggles, as they wrestle with the crimes they’ve committed and the prospect of life after prison.
May 29, 2020
Reverse Shot: Our House: Intermission
Wrote a dispatch for Reverse Shot’s “Our House” Column, which asks contributors to reflect on their relationship to movie-going. Here, I wrote about my very personal connection to BAM, and the power of watching movies in a theater alone.
May 11, 2020
Screen Slate: Paris qui dort (René Clair, 1925)
René Clair's 1925 film depicts a surreal adventure through a Paris whose inhabitants have been frozen in time. I wrote about it after a newly restored version was made available to stream via the Cinémathèque Française.
May 4, 2020
Reverse Shot: Connected: Gilda/Pakeezah
Reverse Shot’s Connected column has one writer send another a new piece of writing about a film they have been watching and pondering over, in the hopes that this will prompt a connection—emotional, thematic, historical, or analytical—to a different film the other has been watching or is inspired to rewatch. I wrote a dispatch to the critic Devika Girish about Rita Hayworth’s performance in Gilda, to which she responded with a piece about Meena Kumari in Pakeezah.
April 20, 2020
Reverse Shot: Interview and Essay on Transnistra (Anna Eborn, 2019)
As a Reverse Shot Creative Correspondent for the Museum of the Moving Image’s First Look Festival, I spoke with Swedish filmmaker Anna Eborn about her hybrid doc.
April 13, 2020
The Letterboxd Show: Big Cities, Empty Streets
I discussed some of my favorite city films that I’m watching during quarantine with Editior-in-Chief Gemma Gracewood and West Coast Editor Dominic Corry on Letterboxd’s podcast.
February 15, 2020
Screen Slate: The Big Blue (Andrew Horn, 1988)
The Big Blue re-ups tried-and-true noir storylines populated by double-crossings and double-entendres, adding a healthy dose of Horn’s sensibility, at once stark and surreal.
February 4, 2020
Reverse Shot: Best of the Decade Symposium: Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017)
The revolt that Alma initiates can be read as Anderson’s response to cinematic texts like Rebecca and Vertigo—what might have transpired if Madeleine hadn’t let Scottie use clothing as a weapon to exert control. Phantom Thread is what happens when the mannequin comes to life.
January 31, 2020
Hyperallergic: Review of The Assistant (Kitty Green, 2020)
Kitty Green’s latest film is as much about societal acceptance of sexual misconduct as it is about the indignities that many workers face in the office, especially younger women.
January 29, 2020
Reverse Shot: Sundance Film Festival 2020
Wrote about highlights of the festival, including Janicza Bravo’s Zola, Eliza Hittman’s Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always and Miranda July’s Kajillionaire.
January 23, 2020
Hyperallergic: Sundance’s Documentary Shorts Offer Brief but Powerful Glimpses Around the World
The festival’s program is especially robust this year, featuring films about the Hong Kong protests, abortion helpline volunteers, and more.
January 14, 2020
Reverse Shot: 2019: Two Cents
Wrote about Luke Lorentzen’s Midnight Family for Reverse Shot’s annual “Two Cents” list — in which critics air their thoughts on anything that they loved, hated, or believe might have been overlooked in the year’s “best of” round-ups.
January 3, 2020
Reverse Shot’s Best of 2019: Parasite
Wrote about Bong Joon' Ho’s Parasite for Reverse Shot’s best of the year round-up.
December 17, 2019
Hyperallergic: Best of 2019: Our Top 12 Documentaries and Experimental Films
Wrote about Garrett Bradley’s America for Hyperallergic’s Best of the Year round-up.
December 16, 2019
Hyperallergic: Best of 2019: Our Top 15 Feature Films
Wrote about Mariano Llinás’s La Flor for Hyperallergic’s Best of 2019 round-up.
November 27, 2019
Hyperallergic: The Documentary Project That’s Followed the Same Subjects for Over 50 Years
63 Up is the latest installment in the Up series, which has revisited a set of British people every seven years since they were children, tracking their lives and development.
November 8, 2019
Hyperallergic: The Artful Amateurism of Home Movies
In MoMA’s first exhibition composed entirely of home movies, visitors are placed into the perspective of these amateur filmmakers, ever so often stumbling upon a choice moment of intimacy.
October 16, 2019
Reverse Shot: NYFF 2019: Review of Motherless Brooklyn (Edward Norton, 2019)
In attempting to say something meaningful about race and politics in the city’s biggest borough, Norton has fallen into the same pattern as many real-life real-estate developers and city planners, getting rid of what made the source material so compelling in the first place, and adding his own personally convenient plotlines in the process.
October 9, 2019
Reverse Shot: NYFF 2019: Review of Varda by Agnès (Agnès Varda, 2019)
Throughout, in the manner of The Beaches of Agnès (2008), Varda looks back at her work, attempting to connect the dots both for herself, and for her audience. Knowing she can no longer be with us, the ever benevolent Varda has left us with the next best thing.
October 3, 2019
Reverse Shot: NYFF 2019: Review of Oh Mercy! (Arnaud Desplechin, 2019)
By doing away with narrative tricks or genre bending, Desplechin puts the focus on the performances, which provide a multifaceted and devastating study of urban desperation.
September 12, 2019
Reverse Shot: Review of Chained for Life (Aaron Schimberg, 2019)
Like Rod Serling, director Aaron Schimberg is eager to expose our own biases, and here he thrills at luring us into a vertiginous series of alternate dimensions, seeking to unravel our ideas about the nature of beauty captured on camera.
August 30, 2019
Hyperallergic: Grappling With the Final Stages of a Father’s Life
Aneta Bartos seeks to capture the surreal space of memory, blurring real and imagined worlds in order to represent that which is beyond fact or fiction.
July 22, 2019
Reverse Shot: On Let the Sunshine In, for the Reverse Shot Symposium Binoche Auteur
In this, their first collaboration, Denis and Binoche explore the reality of what it means for an older woman, and an older actress, to be so consistently, unapologetically open.
July 19, 2019
Hyperallergic: Exploring the Isolations of Age, Disability, and Depression in Japan
A trio of documentaries playing at this year’s Japan Cuts festival tackle different facets of social alienation.
May 23, 2019
Hyperallergic: How a Great American Fashion Designer Rose and Fell Along with Disco
A documentary tracks the life and work of superstar designer Halston.
May 3, 2019
Hyperallergic: Other Music Remembers a Beloved New York Record Store
The documentary tells the story of the music institution’s life — and death.
March 29, 2019
MUBI Notebook: Do You Speak Kaurismäki?
The Finnish director has made his own world over his long career, complete with a universal language of beer, cigarettes, and rock n’ roll.
March 29, 2019
Reverse Shot: Review of Diane (Kent Jones, 2019)
Diane asks what it means to build your life around other people, and what happens when those people begin to slowly disappear.
December 23, 2018
MUBI Notebook: Doomed Love: The Coen Brothers’ “Blood Simple” and Zhang Yimou’s Remake
In the Coen brothers’ debut and a Chinese remake two decades later, two films show the convoluted aftermath of relationships gone south.
November 21, 2018
Bright Wall/Dark Room: Three’s a Crowd: On the twisted war of influence in Yorgos Lanthimos' The Favourite
October 28, 2018
IndieWire: How ‘Happy as Lazzaro’ and ‘In My Room’ Breathe New Life Into the Time Travel Trope
A pair of inventive films twist the time travel trope into compelling new shapes that turn a classic storyline into something revelatory.
June 8, 2018
Bright Wall/Dark Room: Someone Else’s Shoes: Collaboration and Control in The Red Shoes
Throughout their body of work, Powell and Pressburger return to the question of whether life and art can co-exist, and if the urge to live or the urge to create will win out in the end.