I recently received the thoughtful gift of a copy of Film Quarterly from 1977. The issue is slim—only sixty-six pages—and its small quarto size—roughly seven by ten inches—compact. The cover image, of Jeanne Dielman doing dishes in her housecoat, her back to the audience, fills the entire cover apart from the Film Quarterly logo, discreetly placed in the top right corner. In its format and presentation, Film Quarterly was very much of its time, signaling its affinity with other publications for serious cinephiles—most notably, the similarly petite Cahiers du Cinéma, whose July 1977 issue featured an interview with Chantal Akerman.

Just as Film Quarterly’s format has evolved since 1977 to include a full-size print version, downloadable PDFs, and a public-facing website, so has the journal’s content. The summer 1977 issue was exclusively focused on film, both narrative and documentary, reflecting the medium’s cultural prominence and dominance. Fast-forward to...

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