Author

Martha Bayles

Martha Bayles is the film and TV critic for The Claremont Review of Books and the author of two books: Through a Screen Darkly: Popular Culture, Public Diplomacy, and America’s Image Abroad, and Hole in Our Soul: The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music; and a regular columnist for The American Interest. Since 2003 she has taught in the Arts & Sciences Honors Program at Boston College.

Articles by Martha Bayles

The Prism of Art

The Prism of Art

Hidden signs of faith and redemption in two notable films from Europe.
Ancestry.Comics

Ancestry.Comics

The uninspiring side of Marvel Studio’s Afro-futurist utopia.
Horror Show

Horror Show

What does The Walking Dead say about American anxieties?
In Our Guts

In Our Guts

Two television shows' very different outlooks on war and prisoners of war.
What Makes Gatsby Great?

What Makes Gatsby Great?

A test of this insight is The Great Gatsby, the latest screen adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan and co-written and directed by the Australian filmmaker Baz Luhrmann.
The Hollywood Dialectic

The Hollywood Dialectic

Lincoln and Django Unchained represent what passes for artistic sensibility in today’s Hollywood.
The Ultimate Social Network

The Ultimate Social Network

Cambridge, MA, March 15, 2014—Noh Hao, at 25 the social media’s youngest—and first female—multibillionaire, explains her meteoric success in an exclusive interview with Martha Bayles.
Unfinished Work

Unfinished Work

Can any film do justice to the political genius of Abraham Lincoln?
Out of Focus

Out of Focus

Martin Scorsese's The Departed is a blurry copy of the Hong Kong original.
Reel Queens

Reel Queens

The Queen and Marie Antoinette ask whether the modern world can understand monarchy anymore.
Free 2020 Spring Issue

With so many here and around the world still confined to quarters, the CRB editors have decided to brighten your detention by making our new Spring issue available free to readers everywhere. No masks required.