Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel White Noise was for years considered too difficult to bring to the screen. With its jaundiced view of academia, intimate domestic melodrama, obsessions with cults and an eerily prescient pandemic, the novel spans genres and styles. Working for the first time in his career on an adaptation, writer and director Noah Baumbach started shooting primarily in the Midwest in June 2021. Starring Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, and Don Cheadle, White Noise premiered at Venice and opened this year’s New York Film Festival. This is the first collaboration between Baumbach and cinematographer Lol Crawley, BSC. They faced enormous […]
by Daniel Eagan on Dec 9, 2022In Maria Schrader’s She Said, two New York Times reporters investigate allegations of sexual misconduct against Hollywood producer Harvey Weintstein. Their work not only leads to a measure of justice for victims, but helps inspire #MeToo, an ongoing effort to improve professional practices for women in a male-dominated industry. Schrader and her crew shot largely on location, including inside the New York Times headquarters near Times Square. The heavyweight cast includes Carey Mulligan (Megan Twohey), Zoe Kazan (Jodi Kantor), Patricia Clarkson (Rebecca Corbett), Jennifer Ehle (Laura Madden) and Samantha Morton (Zelda Perkins). Director of photography Natasha Braier has worked on […]
by Daniel Eagan on Nov 17, 2022Frustrated by her marriage, Sophia Tolstoy addresses her husband Leo in a series of letters that veer from bitter to defiant to pleading. Delivered by the French performer Nathalie Boutefeu, the letters and diary entries detail years of resentment and misunderstandings. A Couple marks a rare turn to narrative filmmaking by Frederick Wiseman, one of the world’s great documentarians. Shot over 17 days by Wiseman’s longtime collaborator John Davey—largely on Belle Ile, an island off the coast of Brittany—the film sets Sophia’s turmoil against the plants and animals that form a seaside garden. Wiseman spoke with Filmmaker before a screening […]
by Daniel Eagan on Nov 10, 2022The past haunts Marie, a chef in a retirement home in the small French village of Luchon. An exile from violence in Africa, she has closed herself off to all but a handful of friends. Then, a new arrival forces Marie to confront a world she has tried to forget. Written and directed by Ellie Foumbi, Our Father, The Devil was shot on a 20-day schedule. It was developed in part through Venice’s Biennale College Cinema. The film screened at the Venice Film Festival and recently at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it won the Best Narrative Feature Audience Award. […]
by Daniel Eagan on Jul 19, 2022In Pachinko, a Korean family struggles for a place in a hostile world. Born into poverty on occupied land, Sunja (played at different ages by Minha Kim and Yuh-Jung Youn) emigrates from Busan to Osaka just before World War II. Trying to keep her family together, she faces relentless bigotry, as well as the pressure to succumb to a criminal gang led by Hansu (Lee Minho). Stretching over several decades, with scenes set in Korea, Japan, and the United States, Pachinko was a gigantic production sidelined for a time by COVID. Based on the bestselling novel by Min Jin Lee, […]
by Daniel Eagan on Mar 25, 2022The multiverse threatens to swallow up Evelyn, a wife, mother, and laundromat owner in Everything Everywhere All At Once. Written and directed by The Daniels (Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan), the film is a spectacular showcase for Michelle Yeoh, one of the great icons of Asian cinema. Like their earlier feature Swiss Army Man, EEAAO is by turns experimental and defiantly audacious. But it also taps into a commercial sensibility that finds a way to combine social media supercuts, Russo brothers spectacle, and old school Hong Kong filmmaking. In addition to Yeoh, the cast includes Jamie Lee Curtis, Stephanie Hsu, […]
by Daniel Eagan on Mar 24, 2022Not even an extinction level event can upset the ruling elite in Don’t Look Up, an apocalyptic sci-fi comedy drama from writer and director Adam McKay. Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Meryl Streep, the movie examines how scientists, politicians, journalists, and the public at large react to news of a catastrophe about to strike. This is the third collaboration between McKay and editor Hank Corwin, ACE, after The Big Short and Vice. A BAFTA Award-winner, Corwin has worked with Oliver Stone, Terrence Malick, Robert Redford, and other directors. He spoke with Filmmaker on Zoom. Filmmaker: When did you start […]
by Daniel Eagan on Dec 22, 2021For 36 years documentarian Jon Alpert followed three friends—Rob Steffey, Freddie Rodriguez, and Deliris Vasquez—through a Newark underground of drugs and poverty. We see them getting into trouble with the law, undergoing prison and rehab and reintegrating into society. Alpert, a recipient of DOC NYC’s Lifetime Achievement Award, gained remarkable access to a closed-off world. Filming under a variety of conditions and on several formats, he gives a first-person account of our failed war on drugs. It is an unbearably sad look at lives falling apart. Alpert also captures moments of success, of uplift, of reconciliation and forgiveness. The film […]
by Daniel Eagan on Dec 21, 2021Originally released in 1978 as a three-part, five-hour series, The Energy War follows the passage of a key piece of President Jimmy Carter’s energy bill. Directed by D.A. Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus, and Pat Powell, the series provided an unprecedented look at the inner workings of government. One segment, Part 2: Filibuster, focuses on Part D of Statute 1469, which would end government regulation of natural gas prices. It passed by a vote of 52–48, thanks largely to votes from representatives of energy-producing states like Louisiana. Two Senators, Howard Metzenbaum and James Abourezk, announce a filibuster to overturn the results. Over the following […]
by Daniel Eagan on Nov 11, 2021Oscar-winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler (Medium Cool, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf) is the subject of Shoot from the Heart, a new documentary short by Joan Churchill and Alan Barker. Shot over a ten-year period, it follows Wexler as he works on a music video, interacts with film students, and accompanies Jane Fonda to a festival screening of Coming Home. A highlight of Shoot from the Heart is a dinner Wexler shares with documentarian D.A. Pennebaker. The meal extends over hours, with additional footage supplied by Chris Hegedus. As the two reminisce about Sally Rand and […]
by Daniel Eagan on Nov 9, 2021