Authors — Daniel Eagan
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“We Don’t Do Pickups, It’s Not Fair to the Actors”: Ritesh Batra on Photograph
Two strangers from different classes meet in Mumbai by accident in Photograph, an Amazon Studios release opening theatrically May 17. Rafi (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) scrapes along by selling snapshots of tourists. The middle-class Miloni (Sanya Malhotra) has her life planned for her: a course in accounting, followed by an arranged marriage. Through a familiar screwball-comedy twist, she agrees to pose as Rafi’s betrothed when his grandmother Didi (Farrukh Jaffar) visits. Photograph is not strictly a comedy, but more a study of two deeply unhappy people taking tentative steps out of isolation. Writer and director Ritesh Batra explores his characters with an […]
by Daniel Eagan on May 16, 2019 -
“This Movie’s Explicitly Nonvisual”: Olivier Assayas on Non-Fiction
Writers and publishers, politicians and performers deal with a changing cultural landscape in Non-Fiction, the latest feature from writer and director Olivier Assayas. A snapshot of Parisian society about to succumb to the digital generation, it’s also a surprisingly supple romantic comedy in which couples form and dissolve with distinctively French sangfroid. Alain (Guillaume Canet), a publisher of “quality” literature, is facing the takeover of his house by a digital entrepreneur. His assistant Laure (Christa Théret) argues that books are obsolete anyway. Alain’s wife Selena (Juliette Binoche) feels trapped in her role as a “crisis management expert” (read: “cop”) in […]
by Daniel Eagan on May 1, 2019 -
“This Will Be the Final Version If the Authorities Have No Objections”: Qiu Sheng on Suburban Birds, New Chinese Censorship Laws and Filming with Children
While trying to explain a reality that is shifting in front of him, a surveyor looks into the past in Qiu Sheng’s feature debut Suburban Birds. A moody, seductive drama that stubbornly refuses explication, the story takes place in Qiu’s hometown of Hangzhou. Loosely based on a real-life 2009 building collapse, Suburban Birds is also a coming-of-age story about school friends whose lives are disrupted by urban renewal. Filmmaker spoke with Qiu Sheng during this year’s annual New Directors/New Films series. Suburban Birds screened without incident at the 2018 Locarno Film Festival, but when Qiu was faced with new regulations, […]
by Daniel Eagan on Apr 4, 2019 -
A Dream Within A Dream: Bi Gan on Long Day’s Journey Into Night
After his road movie Kaili Blues became an international success, writer and director Bi Gan turned to the film noir genre for his follow up, Long Day’s Journey into Night. The layered, dreamlike plot follows Luo Hongwu (played by Huang Jue) as he returns to his hometown, looking into the past for clues about what happened to Wildcat (Lee Hong), a lost love he last saw more than a decade ago. Set in the bars, alleys and seedy hotels of Gan’s home province, the film is divided into two parts. Elliptical scenes and a fractured timeline give the first half […]
by Daniel Eagan on Mar 14, 2019 -
Jia Zhangke on Ash is Purest White, Deconstructing Genre and Learning Masculinity from John Woo Movies
The latest film from writer and director Jia Zhangke adds new insights to his previous titles like Still Life and A Touch of Sin. Again starring his wife Zhao Tao, Ash Is Purest White follows two outsiders for some twenty years as their fortunes flow and ebb in China’s new economy. Set partly in a gritty coal-mining town and partly on the Yangtze River at the moment when the then-under-contruction Three Gorges Dam was about to forever change the landscape, the film resembles the structure of Mountains May Depart in its use of three time periods and chapters. But, as Jia explains, what starts […]
by Daniel Eagan on Mar 13, 2019 -
“It’s Inspirational That He Creates a Language to Tell a Story That’s His Own”: Hu Bo’s An Elephant Sitting Still Discussed by DPs Ed Lachman and Philippe Rousselot and Critic Adriana Prodeus
The debut feature from writer and director Hu Bo, An Elephant Sitting Still, caused a sensation when it screened at the 2018 Berlinale. Nearly four hours long, the movie unfolds over the course of a day in and around a blue-collar housing development in a third-tier Chinese town. Interlocking narratives follow a bullied high school student, an elderly parent pressured to move into a nursing home, a gangster who must avenge an attack on his brother and a girl’s illicit relationship with a married teacher. The movie’s running time, difficult subject matter and troubled production have left an air of […]
by Daniel Eagan on Mar 8, 2019 -
“It is One Film, Which is Called Your Life”: Christopher Doyle, with Jasper Spanning, at Camerimage
For several years Christopher Doyle has been a fixture at Camerimage, the annual festival in Bydgoszcz, Poland, devoted to cinematography. This past November he was especially busy, hosting two panels called “The Language of Cinema Is Images” with his friend and colleague Ed Lachman. Extending over six hours, these were a chance for Doyle, Lachman, and their guests to share stories, give advice, and question each other about style and technique. The panels were also an opportunity for Doyle to screen some examples of his work. Leslie Cheung dancing to “Perfidia” in Wong Kar Wai’s Days of Being Wild. A […]
by Daniel Eagan on Mar 4, 2019 -
“It’s Always Very Troubling to See How Evil Can Seem So Convincing by the Good Manners of Who’s Explaining It to You”: Barbet Schroeder on his “Trilogy of Evil”
Four feature documentaries directed by Barbet Schroeder form the centerpiece of this year’s To Save and Project series at the Museum of Modern Art. Schroeder’s documentaries, some screened here in newly restored versions, have been difficult to see, especially three short ethnographic films scheduled for January 4 and 9. The Venerable W, his latest feature, will receive a week-long run from January 4–10. An actor and producer as well as director, Schroeder was an influential figure in the French New Wave, particularly as a producer for Eric Rohmer. He has directed several fiction features, including the Oscar-winning Reversal of Fortune […]
by Daniel Eagan on Jan 3, 2019 -
Destroyer DP Julie Kirkwood on Working with Karyn Kusama, Nicole Kidman and the Blinding L.A. Sun
A gritty crime story set in Los Angeles, Destroyer finds Nicole Kidman in an unexpected role as Erin Bell, a cop at the end of her rope. Directed by Karyn Kusama, the movie was shot by Julie Kirkwood (Hello, I Must Be Going; I Am the Pretty Thing that Lives in the House). During a whirlwind visit to Camerimage, Kirkwood took time out to discuss with Filmmaker how to shoot action and violence, how to cram 38 locations into 33 shooting days, and how to make a glamorous Oscar-winner look as dissolute as possible. Filmmaker: Why did you decide to […]
by Daniel Eagan on Dec 25, 2018 -
Finding the Perfect Angle, Shooting Academy Ratio and Collaborating with Pawel Palikowski: DP Lukasz Żal on Shooting Cold War
Cinematographer Łukasz Żal’s first feature, Ida, won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Collaborating with director and co-writer Paweł Pawlikowski, Żal devised a distinctive visual approach that used black-and-white camerawork in the 1.37 Academy aspect ratio. Żal worked with Pawlikowski again on Cold War, another film using black-and-white and the Academy aspect ratio. He spoke with Filmmaker about the film at the recent Camerimage festival in Bydgoszcz, where he was awarded the Silver Frog for cinematography. Filmmaker: Pawlikowski took an “Image” credit for Cold War. What does that mean? Zal: You should ask Paweł. Filmmaker: He has said that […]
by Daniel Eagan on Dec 24, 2018
