Authors — Ariston Anderson
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“I Don’t Know If Camus Would Have Approved”: Five Questions for Far From Men Director David Oelhoffen
David Oelhoffen’s latest film, Far From Men, is based on Albert Camus’ short story “The Guest.” Set during the Algerian War and shot in the manner of a Western, the film features a French and Arabic-speaking Viggo Mortensen as Daru, a schoolteacher in remote Algeria required, against his will, to transport murderous prisoner Mohamed (Reda Kateb) to meet his justice. The two men must confront their own morality and each other against a backdrop of the Atlas Mountains. The powerful film recently played at the Marrakech International Film Festival, near where the film was shot. Mortensen received a career tribute award for the […]
by Ariston Anderson on Dec 23, 2014 -
“The Last 50 Years Destroyed Our Old World”: Five Questions for Actress/Director Mélanie Laurent
French actress Mélanie Laurent may be best known to American audiences for her role as Shosanna Dreyfus in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds. But in addition to acting in over 35 international roles, Laurent has also directed two feature films. Based on the YA novel by Anne-Sophie Brasme, her latest film Breathe premiered at Cannes this year. Laurent expertly crafts the world of adolescent codependency. She claims she’s learned from every director she’s worked with: one tip she stole from Tarantino is to play music in between scenes to get people to be more comfortable on the set. Laurent served on the […]
by Ariston Anderson on Dec 15, 2014 -
“Finish Your Scene Before You Go to Lunch”: Five Questions for After the Fall Director Saar Klein
First-time director Saar Klein got his start in Hollywood as an editor, where he’s been working with top directors for the past two decades. He has two Academy Award nominations under his belt, for Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line and Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous. His feature debut After the Fall joins the strong lineup of this year’s recession-era dramas. Wes Bentley plays a mediocre insurance appraisal agent who loses his job after being too generous with payouts. He turns to a life of crime in order to make payments on his house and keep his family above water. Becoming a petty […]
by Ariston Anderson on Dec 12, 2014 -
“All Films are about the Tugging of the Heart”: 5 Questions for Jeremy Irons
After attending the inaugural edition in 2001, English actor Jeremy Irons returned to the Marrakech International Film Festival on Saturday night to receive a career tribute award. The Academy Award-winning star greeted fans at the fest’s opening film The Theory of Everything and accepted his award before the screening The Imitation Game the following night. The festival opened with two films about geniuses, and Irons himself plays a mathematician in the upcoming The Man Who Knew Infinity, across from Dev Patel as the famed Ramanujan. Irons has come a long way since his entry into the Hollywood elite with 1981’s […]
by Ariston Anderson on Dec 9, 2014 -
“Creation is Still a Great Adventure”: 5 Questions for Salt of the Earth Director Wim Wenders
Few modern photographers have covered as much of the planet as Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado. For several decades, he travelled the continents to document major events shaping history: genocide, war, starvation, and exodus. Deeply affected by the intense trauma he witnessed, he put down his camera. He picked it up again for Genesis, a hugely ambitious project dedicated to the earth’s beauty, where he photographed areas of the planet untouched by humans. Filmmaker Wim Wenders joined forces with Salgado’s son, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado to co-direct this intimate portrait of one our greatest living artists. The film won the Special Prize in the Un Certain Regard section […]
by Ariston Anderson on Dec 3, 2014 -
Ten Lessons on Filmmaking from David Lynch
After 25 years, the wait is over for Twin Peaks fans. David Lynch and Mark Frost have announced a return to the mythical town coming in 2016 to Showtime. The show is often credited for having paved the way for the golden age of television today, when many TV programs rival cinema for compelling stories. Through the episodic medium of television, Lynch was able to create a multi-layered world full of rich stories, diving deep into the lives of its characters. The season will pick up in the present day and bring back many of the show’s iconic roles. Shortly […]
by Ariston Anderson on Nov 24, 2014 -
Cannes 2014: 5 Questions for Wild Tales Director Damián Szifrón
Argentine director Damián Szifrón’s Wild Tales opens with the ultimate revenge fantasy, one that unfolds into a firestorm before the credits finish. The film’s six stories get only more wicked, quickly descending into the depths of the human psyche on the verge of imploding. There is truly never a dull moment, a rarity for the Cannes lineup. A waitress gets help paying back the loan shark who drove her father to suicide. A quick road rage incident unfolds into a searing tale that will warn anyone against yelling at another driver. An explosives engineer fires back against his city’s criminal […]
by Ariston Anderson on Jun 10, 2014 -
10 Lessons on Filmmaking from Queen and Country Director John Boorman
English filmmaker John Boorman returned to Cannes this year with Queen and Country, his autobiographical sequel to Hope and Glory. At 81 years old, Boorman claims this is his very last movie, and after such an illustrious career — with films including Point Blank, Deliverance, Excalibur, and The Emerald Forest — he ends on a very high note. In 1952, young Bill Rohan (Callum Turner) must leave his idyllic countryside home on the River Thames for two years’ Army conscription. Rather than being shipped out to fight the Chinese in the Korean War, Bill is enlisted with his friend Percy (Caleb […]
by Ariston Anderson on Jun 2, 2014 -
Cannes 2014: 5 Questions for Welcome to New York Director Abel Ferrara
It’s been the most talked about film of Cannes this year, one of the most well-reviewed yet, and it’s not even part of the competition line-up. That’s just Abel Ferrara’s style: he’s still one of the few directors who consistently manages to make films his own way, outside the typical studio system. His latest is a masterstroke of filmmaking. It’s a story that puts the fun back into cinema, a film that breathes wit, heart and imagination. The New York native returns to the Croisette with Welcome to New York, a damning film inspired by the Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal. The film […]
by Ariston Anderson on May 21, 2014 -
Cannes 2014: 5 Questions for Le Meraviglie Director Alice Rohrwacher
Following up on her 2011 debut Corpo Celeste, which premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight section, Alice Rohrwacher returns to Cannes with Le Meraviglie (The Wonders), this time as part of the main slate competition. It’s an intimate fairytale full of surreal characters and scenery, marvelously shot in Italy’s central-northern landscapes. Eldest daughter Gelsomina is the head of the family. While taking care of her three sisters, she struggles to keep the bee farm running with her stubborn German father, who opposes anything modern. The family has run out of money when the government imposes new regulations that could shut the […]
by Ariston Anderson on May 20, 2014
