It began with Begotten, filmmaker E. Elias Merhige’s 1989 black-and-white allegory about death and transformation. Championing the film were people like multimedia artist Chris Marker and author Susan Sontag who held private screenings in her living room. At one such screening Merhige met Dennis Jakob, Francis Ford Coppola’s script consultant on Apocalypse Now, who said to
Jordan Riefe
Jordan Riefe has been covering the film business since the late ’90s for outlets like Reuters, THR.com, and the Wrap, and he wrote a movie that was produced in China in 2007. He currently serves as West Coast theatre critic for the Hollywood Reporter, while also covering fine arts for Truthdig.com, LA Weekly, and OC Register.
Bestiaries, allegorical texts with pages of illuminated animals—some real, like the lion, some mythical, like the griffin—were the bestsellers of their day. Until now, there has been no more comprehensive look at this medieval megahit than Book of Beasts: The Bestiary in the Medieval
