Meet Luiz Stockler, a promising animator who’s recently graduated from the Royal College of Art. Born in Brazil, raised in Wales and now a London resident, this is his second RCA project; his first, 2012’s Home, played at Slamdance in 2012. Just under 1:30, that was a mildly stroboscopic freakout on the topic of domesticity. You can view it here (NSFW warning: contains line drawing breasts and genitalia). It’s got a definite early Don Hertzfeldt vibe, which is expanded in the much more ambitious Montenegro to include that animator’s increasing melancholy as channeled through a very British sense of humor. […]
Home to one of my favorite scenes of 2013, Nathan Silver’s Soft in the Head now has a delightfully cryptic trailer ahead of its April 18 release at New York’s Cinema Village. Roving, drunken mess Natalia (the loose-limbed Sheila Etxeberría) finds an empathetic respite from the city streets at a predominately Jewish male shelter, run by patron saint Maury (Ed Ryan.) Entirely improvised, Soft in the Head constructs its narrative from kinetic exchanges that bely the simplicity of the film’s storyline with their engrossing frenzy. More aggressive than his breakthrough Exit Elena (which will have its own run in April at Anthology), Soft in the Head teems […]
I’ve seen it over a dozen times, and Nostalghia‘s late, nine-minute shot of a homesick Russian poet carrying a candle across a pool in an Italian spa in tribute to his mad, suicided friend, still devastates. I always read the scene in Tarkovsky’s penultimate film as the poet’s final ritual, a symbolic act carrying its own final, life-or-death meaning. But the struggle to keep the flame lit while poised between wind and water is obviously a metaphor for life itself, which is how actor Oleg Yankovsky described it in a quote included in the text for a fascinating video based […]
Far more whimsical than his down-the-middle abrasive character sagas Ape and Buzzard, Joel Potrykus’s 2010 short Coyote relates an outward manifestation of inner demons. Played by regular collaborator Joshua Burge, the Coyote in question is a heroin addict who trolls downtown Grand Rapids in between binges at his rundown compound. Replacing tirades with tunes, and low-grade digital with Super 8, Coyote presents a more curious Potrykus, whose character is guided by circumstance as much as his malcontent.
We’ve been on a bit of a Kubrick kick lately, and here’s another tidbit to add to the heap. Dubbed “one-point perspective,” the above video showcases the symmetrical framing — often from a down-the-corridor POV — in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket, Barry Lyndon, Eyes Wide Shut and Paths of Glory. Set, for dramatic effect, to Clint Mansell’s “Lux Aeterna,” the collage demonstrates the versatility of the shot, as it adopts a humorous stance (Alex DeLarge slurping spaghetti) and a one filled with dread (Jack Torrance, the twins).
A few weeks out from its release, here’s the first trailer for Volume II of Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac. There not much going on here that hasn’t already been introduced, so I’ll take the opportunity to point you toward Charlotte Gainsbourg’s interview in New York Magazine. The article offers insight into her intriguing relationship with von Trier, but also gifts us this nugget: One thing she’s not entirely happy with: the casting, as Joe’s younger self, of English actress Stacy Martin. (Nymphomaniac is, for some reason, supposed to be set in the U.K., though like most of von Trier’s films it’s really set in a darkly […]
For the Society of Camera Operators 2014 Lifetime Achievement Awards Bob Joyce edited this supercut showing, in just under four minutes, the evolution of the movie camera, from the box-y instruments used by the Lumiere Brothers through massive 70mm rigs to, more recently, tiny handheld and wearable devices. Indeed, what’s fascinating here are the alternations of large and small. For much of cinema’s lifetime, there was a push-pull going on, with larger units enabling better picture quality and resolution while, simultaneously, smaller cameras were developed enabling greater mobility. But, as the piece shows, with technological developments these two trendlines may […]
(Full disclosure: Chris Bell is a friend and his feature film The Winds That Scatter, due to hit the festival circuit this year, is great, so I’m getting the word out now.) In this single-take short, Chris Bell layers on the vérité. Perched behind a bench in a transit hub, his camera watches as a crane rises to the ceiling, two men greet one another and an off-screen voice breaks the fourth wall. It’s unclear as to whether any of the action was previously orchestrated or Bell merely whipped out his camera in the moment, and it’s probably best to keep it […]
Expect to be hearing a lot more from me on Under The Skin in the ensuing weeks. The film is pretty much flawless. One of its innumerable exciting aspects extends beyond the glossy finished product, and into its production. Director Jonathan Glazer and his team rigged Scarlett Johansson’s abduction vehicle with eight cameras, allowing her to freely cruise the Glasgow streets and lure actual pedestrians to her van. They’d drop her in a mall, a busy intersection, and let the scene unfold before their very eyes. In the above featurette, Glazer, Johansson and producer James Wilson discuss the film’s guerrilla production, among […]
Opening Night of Tribeca Film Festival’s Viewpoints section, Onur Tukel’s Summer of Blood looks to be the latest entry in the genre that keeps on giving: vampires. Despite his average Joe likeness, Erik Sparrow (Tukel) seems to have a lot going for him: a good job, stable relationship, all against the thriving backdrop of New York City. Things take a sharp downturn when his girlfriend Jody (Anna Margaret Hollyman) goes out on a limb and proposes to him, and the pompous Erik rejects her offer. Drowning in a post-breakup malaise, Erik is fortuitously bitten by a vampire and revitalized in mind, […]