Before David Cronenberg evolved – or rather, in keeping with Cronenberg’s preoccupations, mutated – into a respected auteur, he rose to prominence as the purveyor of a distinct subset of genre films labeled as “body horror.” At the heart of his early tales of transmogrification, decay and disease lay an innately human fear of mortality. In Cronenberg’s latest, Maps to the Stars, the director explores a uniquely post-millennial form of mortality he has christened “pre-death.” In a culture obsessed with recording and sharing, to not be photographed is in some sense to cease to exist. That existential crisis runs through […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Mar 10, 2015Early in the new film Focus, a veteran con man played by Will Smith teaches his fledgling grifter protégé (Margot Robbie) the tools of the trade: misdirection, deception, subliminal suggestion. They’re a few of the tools applied in Focus by cinematographer Xavier Grobet as well, who is tasked with not only making the New York, New Orleans and Buenos Aires locations sleek and alluring but also with pushing audiences alternately toward and away from the plot’s various double-crosses. Focus marks the second collaboration between Grobet and I Love You Phillip Morris directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. The Mexican cinematographer […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Mar 3, 2015