David Lehman

David Lehman, a contributing editor of the Scholar, is a poet, critic, and the general editor of The Best American Poetry annual anthology and author of the book One Hundred Autobiographies. He currently writes our Talking Pictures column.

In Reprise: Next Line, Please

A new poetry prompt for players new and old

By David Lehman | Friday October 25, 2024

Tunneling to Freedom

In The Great Escape (1963), the true story of a harrowing breakout from a German POW camp

By David Lehman | Thursday June 6, 2024

Homage to the Uncanny

Dead of Night (1945), a masterpiece of horror

By David Lehman | Thursday February 29, 2024

How Well Do You Know Your Hitchcock?

A multiple-choice test for the maestro’s fans

By David Lehman | Friday January 19, 2024

“Mr. Lucky” Didn’t Know Who He Was

How Cary Grant’s magical film career paralleled a lifelong identity crisis

By David Lehman | Thursday September 28, 2023

Brilliant Carnage

Sam Peckinpah’s slow-motion bullet ballet

By David Lehman | Thursday February 23, 2023

What Hath Gable Got?

“Rhett Butler” romances Claudette Colbert in Frank Capra’s comic masterpiece It Happened One Night

By David Lehman | Monday November 28, 2022

The Allure of the Enigmatic

“Mod” London takes center stage in Michelangelo Antonioni’s mind-blowing Blow-Up

By David Lehman | Thursday August 25, 2022

Famous Last Lines

How many do you know by heart?

By David Lehman | Thursday July 21, 2022

The Last Cigarette

Cinema’s most seductive prop

By David Lehman | Saturday May 14, 2022
Gregory Peck in "Gentleman's Agreement"

A Matter of Pride

By David Lehman | Monday February 10, 2020
Don Taylor and William Holden in Stalag 17

William Holden, Model Prisoner

By David Lehman | Tuesday January 14, 2020
Still from Cape Fear

The Shadow of Evil

By David Lehman | Tuesday December 3, 2019
Harold Bloom

A Prophet of the Truly Great

By David Lehman | Monday October 21, 2019
Pencil

A Valediction, Forbidding Mourning

By David Lehman | Tuesday September 17, 2019

Poetry Noir

By David Lehman | Tuesday July 30, 2019

Get Hurt—or Go Back to Work

By David Lehman | Tuesday July 23, 2019
Chalk outline of a body

Starting With the End

By David Lehman | Tuesday July 16, 2019
Two rings

The Marriage Equation

By David Lehman | Tuesday July 9, 2019
A picture of a statue of a man standing on a globe

Patricians and Peasants

By David Lehman | Tuesday July 2, 2019

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