Authors — Scott Macaulay
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Why Kurosawa Was a Master of Movement
Here’s another masterful film essay by Tony Zhou, this time on Akira Kurosawa’s use of movement in his films. Movement, you ask? Aren’t movies motion pictures and, thus, constructed around movement? Well, as a comparison scene from The Avengers shows, there is movement in the form of listless dolly moves and diffident head tilts, and then there is movement — elegant, multi-point master shots, vibrant background elements like wind and rain, and outsized expressions from actors that can replace pedantic dialogue. I especially like Zhou’s discussion of how Kurosawa cuts from stillness to movement. His appreciation here of Kurosawa has […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 22, 2015 -
Fifteen Projects Selected for Tribeca Film Institute All Access Grants
Fifteen works — scripted, documentary and interactive — were selected today for the Tribeca Film Institute‘s All Access program, which offers grant monies and other non-monetary support to projects by creators from statistically underrepresented communities. The projects were chosen from a submission pool of 710 entries. In addition to the 15 projects, two filmmakers from the LGBT community were chosen to take part in TFI Network Market, a one-on-one industry meeting forum, with their feature films. They are Ingrid Jungermann, a 25 New Face appearing with her project Women Who Kill, and Hernando Bansuelo, with Martinez, CA. The complete list […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 19, 2015 -
Elizabeth Giamatti on her SXSW-Winning Collaboration with Alex Sichel, A Woman Like Me
Winner of a Special Jury Award for Directing at the 2015 SXSW Film Festival, Alex Sichel and Elizabeth Giamatti’s A Woman Like Me is a frankly disarming and emotionally piercing hybrid doc as well as a necessary directorial collaboration. Filmmaker Alex Sichel’s 1997 debut feature, All Over Me, was an important entry in the decade’s New Queer Cinema, a scrappy teen lesbian drama that, in the L.A. Weekly, critic Manohla Dargis wrote “comes closer to unlocking the secret lives of girls than any other recent American movie.” In the years following that film, Sichel taught directing at NYU, raised a […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 18, 2015 -
Krisha, Peace Officer Top SXSW Film Festival Awards
Krisha, Trey Edward Shults’ drama of an older alcoholic woman attempting to reconcile with her family one holiday weekend, won the Narrative Feature Grand Jury Prize last night at the 2015 SXSW Film Festival. At an awards ceremony at the Paramount Theater hosted by Trainwreck co-star Vanessa Beyer, the Documentary Grand Jury Prize went to Peace Officer, Scott Christopherson and Brad Barber’s expose of militarized police. Special Jury Prizes were given to two films. Benjamin Dickinson’s dramatic feature Creative Control — a social satire set in New York’s advertising world of the near future — was cited for “Visual Excellence.” […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 18, 2015 -
Trailer Watch: Josh and Benny Safdie’s Heaven Knows What
Timed to the SXSW debut of Josh and Benny Safdie’s Heaven Knows What is the film’s latest trailer from Radius. With stark, declarative titles attesting to the authenticity of the film’s storyline — Heaven Knows What is based on a memoir by the film’s star, Arielle Holmes, detailing her life on the streets while addicted to heroin — the trailer is a bold edit capturing the movie’s beguiling blend of underground romance and urban nightmare. Heaven Knows What opens later this Spring.
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 14, 2015 -
15 Picks for the 2015 SXSW Film Festival and Conference
The SXSW Music, Film and Interactive Festivals and Conferences haven’t even begun yet, and there’s already been one corporate contretemps (sponsor McDonald’s attempt to get bands to play for free), and the app of the festival has already been decided upon (it’s Meerkat, if the wi-fi in the Austin Convention Center holds up). As always, though, the films are mysteries. On paper the ’15 lineup looks like a good one, with several high-profile titles I’m really looking forward to, some first-time features that seem like real discoveries, and a number of returning veterans with films that seem very promising. I […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 12, 2015 -
Exclusive Clip: Adrien Brody and Kevin Ford’s SXSW-Premiering Stone Barn Castle
One of the more intriguing documentaries scheduled to premiere at SXSW is Stone Barn Castle, which depicts Academy Award-winner Adrien Brody’s restoration of a damaged stoned barn in upstate New York — “reminiscent of a European castle” — over the course of a seven-year period. As the short clip above details, the documentary appears to be as much about community, physical work and personal achievement as it is about design. The official blurb is below: In 2007, Academy Award winning actor Adrien Brody fell in love with a partially burned stone barn, reminiscent of an old European castle, hidden in […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 10, 2015 -
R.I.P., Documentary Great Albert Maysles
The legendary documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles passed away last night, reported The Criterion Collection on the day it is rereleasing one of his most indelible and influential works, Grey Gardens (co-directed with David Maysles, Ellen Hovde and Muffie Meyer). He was 88. With David, his brother, Albert Maysles made “direct cinema” documentaries that were politically and socially impactful upon release and aesthetically groundbreaking for generations of filmmakers to follow. The 1969 documentary Salesman (co-directed with Charlotte Zerin) captured the everyday sorrows of ordinary people — in this case, door-to-door Bible salesman — toiling in the shadows of both the American […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 6, 2015 -
Screwball Comedy, Marriage and Filmmaking: Lawrence Levine and Sophia Takal on Wild Canaries
A loose-limbed caper comedy that lovingly mashes Hollywood screwball conventions with Brooklyn relationship drama, Lawrence Michael Levine’s sophomore picture, Wild Canaries, tries two things most independent films don’t, and largely succeeds. It’s narratively complex — maybe not Inherent Vice-level, but this mystery thriller about an engaged pair of armchair detectives investigating a possible murder in a rent-controlled apartment is strewn with crosses, double-crosses, disguises and clues. Even more impressively, Wild Canaries shoots for a quality that is often a byproduct of independent cinema but not a goal: entertainment. Inspired, says actor/writer/director Levine, by the “Nick and Nora” Thin Man movies […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 5, 2015 -
Tribeca Film Festival Announces 2015 World Narrative, Documentary Competition and Viewpoints Selections
The Tribeca Film Festival today announced the first half of its 2015 slate — 51 of the 97 films, including both its World Narrative and Documentary competitions. Nearly one quarter of this year’s festival directors are women, including quite a few directors with titles anticipated by Filmmaker readers. These include cinematographer Reed Morano’s directorial debut, Meadowland; Pamela Romanowsky’s adaptation of Stephen Elliot’s true-crime memoir, The Adderall Diaries; Rikki Stern and Annie Sundberg’s latest, In My Father’s House; Vanessa Hope’s look at China’s role on the world stage through the story of former Utah governor Jon Huntsman and his adopted daughter, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 3, 2015
