Posted inNonfiction, Quotes

The Making of Citizen Kane

“I must admit that it was intended consciously as a social document. … [but] the storyteller’s first duty is to the story.” -From the 1991 documentary “The Complete Citizen Kane,” on the Orson Welles masterpiece. The film features interviews with Welles from 1960 and 1982, as well as an interview with New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael, […]

Posted inEditor's Pick

The Legend of Harvey Scissorhands

A brief history of Harvey Weinstein’s relationship with filmmakers and the editing room. Does he make movies better—or are Good Harvey and Bad Harvey working together? “Plenty of filmmakers have lambasted Weinstein for his savage butchery — Luc Besson, Mike Leigh, James Ivory — while others have praised Harvey for helping them find their film […]

Posted inEditor's Pick

Poison Tree

An open letter to Grand Theft Auto IV’s protagonist Niko Bellic about Grand Theft Auto V and video game culture: “Almost everyone I know who loves video games — myself included — is broken in some fundamental way. With their ceaseless activity and risk-reward compulsion loops, games also soothe broken people. This is not a […]

Posted inEditor's Pick

Sexting, Shame and Suicide

Fifteen-year-old Audrie Pott took her own life after nude photos of her were circulated around school by high school classmates. Three boys were later arrested and charged. It’s “a shocking tale of sexual assault in the Digital Age” that’s becoming less uncommon as a number of high-profile cases similar to Pott’s makes headlines while many […]

Posted inBooks, Member Pick, Nonfiction, Story

The Story of H.M.: The Amnesiac Who Profoundly Changed the Way We Think About Memory

Sam Kean | The Tale of Dueling Neurosurgeons | 2014 | 12 minutes (3,008 words)   For our latest Longreads Member Pick, we’re excited to share a story from The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons, a new book from science reporter Sam Kean looking at stories about the brain and the history of neuroscience. Here’s Kean: […]

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