Writings | Nicholas Forster

top of page

Thomasine and Bushrod.jpg

“’YOU COULDN'T EVEN SEE: GENRE, THOMASINE AND BUSHROD, AND THE MATTER OF BLACK FILM

April 21, 2021
(Los Angeles Review of Books)

How does a cycle of production like Blaxploitation (1970–1976), in which Black artists often starred in films produced for the gains of white investors, promote a mattering that, well, matters?

FACES AND FINGERS (REVIEW)

Spring 2020

(Cineaste)

A review of four books about cinematic performance. Acting, like Marcel Duchamp’s urinal, is what it is in part because it announces itself as such. Each of these books, in their best moments, helps us understand the amplitude of that announcement and find both the magic and labor in it.

Eloquent Screen.jpg

EVERY SITUATION CALLS FOR ITS OWN LANGUAGE: GILBERTO PEREZ'S THE ELOQUENT SCREEN (REVIEW)

October 2019

(Brooklyn Rail)

Gilberto Perez’s The Eloquent Screen burrows itself deeply into the worlds constructed by film, extending a hand to the reader and offering a momentary escape from hot takes.

Ray+LizImage.jpg

GETTING UP AND GETTING BY: RICHARD BILLINGHAM'S RAY AND LIZ AND HONG SANG-SOO'S GRASS

November 5, 2018

(Medium)

Ray and Liz and Grass construct worlds where significance is felt when the messiness of the past meets the present.

GUNN BFCA.jpg

WHAT TOOK YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE SO LONG TO WRITE ABOUT GUNN?!

July 16, 2018

(Black Film Center/Archive)

The overwhelming, well-intentioned, and enticing story of “what could have been” has swallowed Gunn’s career and made him less an individual than an emblem.

IMPROVISATIONAL JAMMING: THE PROCESS AND PRODUCTION OF PERSONAL PROBLEMS

March 29, 2018 (Metrograph)

It all began with an idea that, to many, seemed inconceivable.

[This essay was featured in the Metrograph edition and was revised and expanded for KINO-LORBER's 2018 DVD/Blu-Ray release of Personal Problems.]

THE MAGNIFICENT CONVENTIONS: THE FAILED PROJECT OF DIVERSITY IN HOLLYWOOD'S REMAKE ERA

AL PACINO, TRUTH-SEEKER

March 23, 2018

(Village Voice)

Pacino’s allure was in his typicality. He was never as statuesque as Brando, and his characters, while not everymen, often conveyed the calculus of everyday life.

WHO CARES ABOUT A LOCATION: FUTURE AND DRAKE’S 2015 “WHERE YA AT”

December 19, 2017 (Medium)

For Future it was in the detail and certain vocal tics carried with them entire movements of an atmosphere. In those choices Future took a sound he had developed and played on it just enough so that it appeared as if he was evolving.

THE WHITE GRASP FOR A HEART ATTACK: A NON-REVIEW OF CHRIS BROWN’S HEARTBREAK ON A FULL MOON

November 8, 2017 (Medium)

April 20, 2017

(Shadow and Act)

In an era where hip hop is the dominant mode of pop music, white writers need to be especially diligent about stress-testing their own hot takes. Brown’s past and his blackness have served as a pretext for certain critics and commenters to assume license to berate and mock.

What can we ask of a remake? The Magnificent Seven, directed by Antoine Fuqua, is the latest addition to Hollywood’s attempt to make-over by making right.

bottom of page