By Maria Bregman, writer, film and literary critic By the time I reached the Royal Festival Hall, London had already come alive. The Southbank wore…
By Maria Bregman For decades, the currency of a film festival has been the rectangle. The shape of the screen, the dimensions of the poster,…
By Maria Bregman Every October, the machinery of the BFI London Film Festival whirs into life. There are the gala screenings, the red carpets, the…
By Maria Bregman To understand David Herbert Lawrence, it is perhaps best to start not with the scandal, but with the silence. Imagine a young…
By Maria Bregman There are certain books we encounter in childhood that are less like stories and more like formative experiences. They imprint themselves upon…
By Maria Bregman Every autumn, the small Ukrainian city of Uman swells, transformed by the arrival of tens of thousands of Hasidic Jews. They come…
By Maria Bregman, writer and literary critic To read John Irving is to enter a world that is at once utterly familiar and profoundly strange.…
By Maria Bregman The word “inspiration” is in trouble. It has been hollowed out, flattened by a culture that prefers its heroes simple and its…
By Maria Bregman, writer and music critic To understand the year 2000, you have to understand Fred Durst. To see him then, at the absolute…
By Maria Bregman, writer and film critic To adapt a national epic is to walk a tightrope. On one side lies the abyss of slavish…