Notebook #9
210 x 274 mm, 144 pages
New York, US
Biannual
First published in 2022
Editor-in-chief: Daniel Kasman
Creative director: Pablo Martín
Notebook is a publication dedicated to cinema, art, and culture, created as an extension of indie cinema streaming platform, MUBI. Physically, it’s a beautiful thing: with its Swiss open binding, mixed paper stock, expressive typography and plenty of colourful stills. The team behind Notebook hope to celebrate, explore, appreciate and analyse the beauty of film. It’s a lovely addition to our film mag selection.
‘Smoke and Mirrors’ is the theme of this witchy ninth edition, which delves into the overlapping lineage of magic and cinema. Opening the issue, readers will find an editorial outlining the distinction between ‘spiritual’ and ‘secular’ magic—the former concerned with the supernatural; the latter pertaining to illusion—with both categories explored inside. ‘Investigating the magic of the movies is a balancing act,’ the team elaborate, ‘Sometimes it’s exciting to be privy to the inner workings of a trick, to see what lies behind the curtain, but at other times, you just don’t want to break the spell.’
Inside, discover Orson Welles’ foreword for magician Bruce Elliott’s 1948 hobbyist manual; 2008 Turner Prize winner Mark Leckey and academic Stephen Ryley lift the veil on ‘Pepper’s Ghost’, a nineteenth-century illusion they recreate at the Regent Street Cinema where it was first staged; and, four female filmmakers, dubbed ‘The Notebook Coven’, discuss how magic permeates their work. Elsewhere, Adam Nayman investigates Canadian comedian and filmmaker Nathan Fielder’s penchant for letting his audience in on his tricks, ahead of a new documentary on Theranos tech fraud Elizabeth Holmes; plus, a trio of experts muse on the relationship between identity and genre cinema.