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Aux quatre coinsOrigins in art are forever in doubt. Popular culture seems to imagine that what we now call the French New Wave emerged from thin air with François Truffaut's The 400 Blows (1959) and Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (1960), but that blinkered narrative ignores features ranging from Agnès Varda’s Le pointe courte (1955) and Claude Chabrol’s Le beau Serge (1958) to Alain Resnais and Marguerite Duras’s Hiroshima, mon amour (1959). Even before these, the filmmakers we associate—through later fame, scandal, obscurity, venerability, and legend—with the New Wave made short films, a medium encouraged by the theatrical practice, now long gone in France, of regularly exhibiting dramatic and documentary short films in cinemas. Early shorts by Jacques Demy, Chris Marker, Truffaut, Godard, and others reach back into the mid-50s, but only two of the New Wave’s anointed truly began their filmmaking at the halfway point of the 20th century: Eric Rohmer,...

On the Return to Montauk set with Volker Schlöndorff, Nina Hoss (his Barefoot Contessa), and Bronagh Gallagher at Lincoln Center Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Konrad Wolf’s I Was Nineteen (Ich War Neunzehn) co-written with Wolfgang Kohlhaase; Marlen Khutsiev’s It Was In May (Byl Mesyats May) starring Pyotr Todorovskiy; Louis Malle's The Fire Within (Le Feu Follet) based on the novel by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle with Maurice Ronet, Jeanne Moreau and Alexandra Stewart; Joseph Mankiewicz’s The Barefoot Contessa starring Ava Gardner and Humphrey Bogart; Jean-Pierre Melville's Les Enfants Terribles, adapted from Jean Cocteau’s novel with Nicole Stéphane and Édouard Dermit; and Fritz Lang's Spies (Spione) featuring Rudolf Klein-Rogge and Gerda Maurus, are the six films selected by Volker Schlöndorff as Guest Director of the 43rd Telluride Film Festival.

Michael Curtiz's The Breaking Point was one of Alexander Payne's picks in 2009 Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Alexander Payne,...

Guns! Bombs! Assassinations! Blackmail! Fritz Lang invents the escapist super-spy thriller! To seize a set of political documents the evil Haghi dispatches the seductive agents Kitty and Sonya to neutralize a Japanese security man and our own top spy No. 236. (that's 007 x 33,714.2857!) It's a top-rank silent winner from the maker of Metropolis. Spies (Spione) Blu-ray Kino Classics 1928 / B&W /1:33 Silent Aperture / 150 min. / Street Date February 23, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Gerda Maurus, Lien Deyers, Willy Fritsch, Lupu Pick, Hertha von Walther, Fritz Rasp, Craighall Sherry, Hans Heinrich von Twardowsky, Gustl Gstettenbaur. Cinematography Fritz Arno Wagner Art Directors Otto Hunte, Karl Vollbrecht Set Designer Edgar G. Ulmer (reported) Original Music Werner R. Heymann (original) Neil Brand piano score on this disc. Written by Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou from her novel Produced by Erich Pommer Directed by Fritz Lang

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

How did Fritz Lang...

Fritz Lang applies rigorous realism and excellent science in the first half of his final silent film, a treat for fantasy fans and those impressed by a Nasa-like moon rocket forty years before the reality. The action on the moon is pure green-cheese fantasy, with breathable air, deposits of gold and evidence of a human civilization. Let's go! Woman in the Moon Blu-ray Kino Classics 1929 / B&W / 1:33 flat full frame / 169 min. / Street Date February 23, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Willy Frisch, Gerda Maurus, Gustav von Wangenheim, Klaus Phol, Fritz Rasp, Gustl Gstettenbaur. Cinematography: Curt Courant, Oskar Fischinger, Konstantin Irmen-Tschet, Otto Kanturek Art Direction: Joseph Danilowitz, Emil Hasler, Otto Hunte, Karl Vollbrecht, Prof. Gustav Wolff Technical Advisors Willy Ley, Hermann Oberth Special Effects Oskar Fischinger, Konstantin Irmen-Tschet Original Music Willy Schmidt-Gentner Written by Fritz Lang, Hermann Oberth, Thea von Harbou Produced and Directed by Fritz Lang

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson...

HollywoodNews.com: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that they will explore the physical realities of science fiction movies in the three-evening series “Out of This World: The Science of Space Movies” beginning on Thursday, August 5. “Out of This World” will continue on Friday, August 6, with a presentation of Fritz Lang’s 1929 silent classic “Woman in the Moon” and conclude on Saturday, August 7, with screenings of “Project Apollo” (1968) and “For All Mankind” (1989), documentaries that focus on Nasa’s Apollo program.

All three evenings are being presented by the Academy’s Science and Technology Council. The following is information for each night:

“Out of This World: The Science of Space Movies”

Thursday, August 5, 7:30 p.m. at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater, Beverly Hills

Hosted by Adam Weiner, the program will examine the physics principles behind many science fiction movies and explore how the fictional world...