This volume records an ardent three-decades-plus love affair with the movies by one of the essential American essayists, Phillip Lopate. Artfully braiding emotional and intellectual autobiography with critical and historical commentary, these essays evaluate the filmmakers who have most affected the author—including Antonioni, Godard, Bresson, Mizoguchi, Fassbinder, Ozu, and Visconti—while offering a passionate engagement with film criticism and the allure of cinema.