Authors — Alicia Van Couvering
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Friend Zone: Should You Make Movies with Your Friends?
The first article I ever wrote for Filmmaker was a survey and analysis of an ascendant film movement called “mumblecore.” The label was still new enough ten years ago to get quotes around it. I interviewed Joe Swanberg, Jay and Mark Duplass, Ry Russo-Young, Aaron Katz, Matt Dentler, Greta Gerwig, Frank V. Ross, Andrew Bujalski, Anish Savjani and many more. The article was very long, and Scott put it on the cover. I have forgotten everything I wrote in the article, but I have never forgotten a post on Gothamist about it, which read, “Note to film journalists: Don’t interview […]
by Alicia Van Couvering on Sep 14, 2017 -
Human Highway: Daniels on Swiss Army Man
Some of the images and ideas that have turned up in the commercials, music videos, short films and feature films of Daniels are: A man gets his foot stuck inside another man’s ass; the more he tries to get it out, the deeper it goes. A grieving widow is relentlessly prank-called by a child. A man has bottomless pockets. A woman’s breasts begin to move and spin inside her shirt. A man dances so hard that he falls through the floor, where he meets a hard-dancing woman who crashes her ass into his face; together, they fall through the floor. […]
by Alicia Van Couvering on Apr 21, 2016 -
The Anxiety of Influence: Director James Ponsoldt on The End of the Tour
“Am I a good person? Deep down, do I even really want to be a good person, or do I only want to seem like a good person so that people (including myself) will approve of me? Is there a difference? How do I ever actually know whether I’m bullshitting myself, morally speaking?” – David Foster Wallace The new tagline for the James Ponsoldt movie The End of the Tour is, “Imagine the greatest conversation you’ve ever had.” I initially took issue with this tagline. Ponsoldt’s film is based on a book arranged around a transcript of an unpublished interview […]
by Alicia Van Couvering on Jul 23, 2015 -
Five Questions for Director Crystal Moselle of the Sundance Doc Competition Premiere, The Wolfpack
We all grow up with our own peculiar “kid logic,” a warped worldview shaped by the limits of our childhoods. We think our parents are normal. We think everyone is like us. But we know there are things beyond our own experience — countries we’ve never visited, people we’ve never met — and we build images of those places in our minds. Then, we grow up, and if we’re lucky, we get to go somewhere. We visit those countries, and meet those people. Gradually, the reality of new experience replaces the pictures we had painted with our imagination. We learn […]
by Alicia Van Couvering on Jan 25, 2015 -
Five Questions for Rick Alverson of Sundance NEXT Premiere, Entertainment
Let’s all be inspired by Rick Alverson and agree to ban the very concept of “sympathetic character” from our movie-viewing brain. We’re all fixated on this idea, that we have to “like” characters and “connect” to them. Instead, let’s just decide to be interested in watching what is put before us, and let’s let ourselves enjoy having our expectations for how we want to feel while we’re sitting in a movie theatre get subverted once in a while. Alverson — a musician as well as a filmmaker — has made three feature films before this, his latest, Entertainment. Each one […]
by Alicia Van Couvering on Jan 25, 2015 -
Giving Good Press: Advice for First-Time Interviewees
For some, it is what they’ve been waiting for, a dream come true, a chance to finally make good on years of lonely work. For others, it is a terrifying minefield of certain humiliation. It is: TALKING ABOUT YOUR FILM. A theoretical dream come true – finally, someone wants to hear me talk about my film! Giving Good Press is a fine art, and, in some cases, a blood sport. The blog machine, the Twittersphere, the critic ratings, the Gray Ladies of print reviews — at a film festival, perhaps for the first time, directors are expected to satisfy their […]
by Alicia Van Couvering on Jan 18, 2014 -
Dear Irrfan Khan, I Love You
I fell in love this week at Toronto. It started as an attraction during In Treatment, when he was depressed, and took four minutes of screen time to roll a cigarette. It grew during The Namesake. And then when I watched Life of Pi on an airplane and he made me cry – even more than how much I normally cry when watching movies on planes – I started feeling feelings. As I wiped my eyes with the sleeve of a sleeping passenger beside me, I knew what was happening: I had an actor crush. But during an 8AM screening of […]
by Alicia Van Couvering on Sep 10, 2013 -
Joe Swanberg and the “Fun” Mandate
Drinking Buddies was conceived and executed as Joe’s “bigger” film. Bigger in the sense of its intended audience — we knew we wanted to reach as large an audience as possible — and bigger in scale. Unlike his past films, which he had made largely on his own, this one had a 50-person crew, multiple investors and movie stars. It was an experiment that could have gone very badly. What if we gave Joe all this money and resources and he just shot into a corner? What if the new infrastructure crushed what was special and intimate about his films, […]
by Alicia Van Couvering on Aug 23, 2013 -
5 Lessons on Making a “Bigger” Movie
Movies come in all sizes. On one end of the spectrum, there’s the micro-micro, you-and-your-friends, five-person-crew, max-out-a-credit-card and play a festival (maybe) movie. And then there’s Spiderman. In between, there are steps — adding a more famous actor, getting slightly more money, shooting in a place that isn’t your apartment with people you’ve never met before. Below, some tips for adjusting to your “big movie” – some collected from experience, some handed down to me. YOU WILL HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE DOING. Part One: You have no idea what you’re doing… and don’t worry about it. If someone rolls […]
by Alicia Van Couvering on Aug 23, 2013 -
Secrets of the Glam Squad: Inside the World of Film Hair and Makeup Departments
You’re the producer of a low-budget movie, and, as usual, there isn’t enough money. Each department is straining against their budgets, and you don’t want the production value of the film to falter. So you are forced to prioritize. More lights? Well, that’s hard to argue with — the movie has to look good. Another van? No way around that; you have to get people to the next location in time. But makeup and hair needs a space heater? Um … can’t they just put on sweaters? “If the electric department says they need two hours, no one questions it,” […]
by Alicia Van Couvering on Apr 23, 2013
