Dear Last Thing I Sawfolk,
This week I talked to John Wilson of How To with John Wilson, a show you should watch. Wilson joined the podcast to talk about the series on the occasion of its third, concluding season. I asked him about the secret to assembling the show’s serendipitous paths through New York and his own experience of the world. You might say that I wanted to learn “How to How To.” A delightful time was had by all!
Thanks as always to all the glorious supporters of The Last Thing I Saw!
Yours,
Nic
THE PODCAST
John Wilson on How To with John Wilson (Ep. 192)
John Wilson is the mastermind of How To with John Wilson. He programmed a special series at the Anthology Film Archives this month.
Episodes of The Last Thing I Saw are also available at other podcast places such as Spotify.
For more information on the podcast’s opening and closing music by The Minarets (gratefully used with permission), follow the band on Instagram:
@theminaretsmusic
RECENT WORK
For The New York Times, I wrote about the iconography of the atomic mushroom cloud, leading up to Christopher Nolan’s version in Oppenheimer.
For W Magazine, I interviewed Adèle Exarchopoulos. In Passages, she plays Agathe, who falls for Tomas (Franz Rogowski), who's married to Martin (Ben Whishaw). She was a terrific interview—full of sharp observations about her character, what she wants to do more of and what she definitely doesn't, and relationships generally.
Also for the Times, I gave a Critic’s Pick to the documentary Charm Circle, which is a touching and funny documentary about the parents of the director, Nira Burstein.
And don’t forget: at the Roxy Cinema, there will be another New Essentials screening: Headless Woman, directed by Argentine filmmaker Lucrecia Martel (Zama) and starring the late Maria Onetto. This is a movie you should see on the big screen. Tickets now available!
THIS CRITIC’S PICKS
The Skeleton of Mrs. Morales (MUBI)
Wild Style (Criterion)
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Metrograph)
Will o’ the Wisp (Criterion)
A Nightmare on Elm Street (HBO MAX)
THE END
Here I may end with a song.
ABOUT ME
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw! I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold.
Besides hosting the podcast, I’m a writer and an editor. My features, interviews, festival reports, and reviews are published in The New York Times, Screen Slate, Sight & Sound, Filmmaker, Air Mail, and W Magazine. (Plus dearly departed publications such as The Village Voice, Stop Smiling, The New York Sun, and The L Magazine.) For notes on past programming, drop me a line.
On the editorial side, I worked as editor-in-chief of Film Comment magazine, where I was in editorial for 15 years in all. There I assigned and edited both web and print, hosted The Film Comment Podcast and Talks, curated and hosted Film Comment Selects screenings, learned from brilliant writers, and wrote a lot, including interviews with Spike Lee, Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, Pedro Costa, and Frederick Wiseman. Film Comment received the Film Heritage Award from the National Society of Film Critics.
Feel free to get in touch re: writing, editing, moderating, programming, podcasting, etc.
nicolas.rapold@gmail.com