Authors — Scott Macaulay

PAUL NEWMAN, R.I.P.

With so many great performances to choose from, I’m selecting this late-career classic: The Verdict, written by David Mamet and directed by Sidney Lumet.
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 27, 2008
DECONSTRUCTING THE POLITICAL AD…

… or, what you hear in the political ad.
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 26, 2008
BUSH’S DARK NIGHT

Here’s mash-up commentary on last night’s Bush speech titled “The Dark Bailout.” Nolan’s The Dark Knight continues to resonate. Hat tip: Hollywood Elsewhere. Source: Matthew Belinkie at Overthinking It.
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 25, 2008
SILENT LIGHT OPENS IN NEW YORK

I completely missed notice that Carlos Reygados’s third feature, Silent Light, is opening today in New York. I think this film is a flat-out masterpiece, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Manohla Dargis writes about the film in today’s New York Times. An excerpt: I’ve seen Silent Light three times — it had its premiere at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival — and find it more pleasurable and touching with each viewing. After having wowed and appalled international audiences with bravura technique in his first feature, Japón (2002), and assaultive provocations in his second, Battle in Heaven (2005), which […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 23, 2008
HOW MANY JAMIE STUARTS ARE THERE?

In addition to all the press screenings and the opening night bash, one New York Film Festival-related thing we at Filmmaker look forward to each year is Jamie Stuart’s series of NYFF videos. (For a good recap of Jamie’s work, check out Karina Longworth’s piece here.) You see, even though we host and exec produce these pieces, they remain somewhat mysterious to us, arriving in the middle of the night with a handy promo image attached, and usually warping some kind of previously stated concept to a creatively unexpected degree. Without having gone in-depth about this with Stuart, it looks […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 23, 2008
ECONOMIC SHOCK

From Screen Daily comes the news that Michael Winterbottom will work again with Mat Whitecross, his collaborator on The Road to Guantanamo, on a feature film adaptation of Naomi Klein’s book, The Shock Doctrine. Winterbottom says he’s already begun filming, and Klein will narrate the film. He should maybe take a breather while Klein appends a new chapter to her book. Her thesis — that late-stage capitalism is reliant on “shocks” that, by dizzying the populace, enable privatization and massive transference of public wealth into private hands by anti-democratic means — is astoundingly relevant to the Wall Street bail-out being […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 22, 2008
WRAPPING UP INDEPENDENT FILM WEEK

I’m sure there will be a few blog stragglers over the next few days as our guest posters gather their thoughts on the just concluded Independent Film Week. For now, though, thanks to all the filmmakers who joined our blog and took the time to relate their experiences. If you haven’t read their posts, scroll below and check out their first-hand accounts of trying to launch new projects at the IFP’s various programs this past week. I also recommend you click over to Hammer to Nail, where filmmaker David Lowery posted his own diary about his experiences in the Narrative […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 20, 2008
CLICKING TO UTOPIA

Peter Aspden has a provocative piece about the consciousness-changing aspects of the internet at the Financial Times today. Whereas many who discuss this issue come off as techno-Luddites, Aspden seems to both welcome and slightly fear the inevitable future. There’s a bit of Cronenberg’s “Long Live the New Flesh” here. An excerpt: The hyperlink syndrome, the way our minds copy the workings of the internet and flit sharply from one idea to another, means that we have become addicted to the breadth of everything rather than the depth of something. The contemporary mind needs to be elastic and happy to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 19, 2008
TED HOPE AT INDEPENDENT FILM WEEK

As the IFP’s Independent Film Week rolls along, there has been quite a lot of discussion around the streets of Chelsea of new paradigms, the role of the independent filmmaker, and creative strategies to reach audiences. I’ve been wearing my producer hat this week, taking meetings at the IFP’s No Borders program. I’ll write a bit more about this experience when it’s all over, but suffice to say for now that it’s been an excellent couple of days filled with energetic and surprising meetings that stand in stark contrast to the torrent of bad news coming from Wall Street and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 17, 2008
REMEMBERING DAVID FOSTER WALLACE

I started to write more about David Foster Wallace but scrapped it. For all of its celebrated intellectual brilliance, Wallace’s writing always resolved itself on the simplest, most human terms while still vigilantly guarding itself against the ever present threats of lazy thinking, sentimentality and, as he discusses in the Kenyon address linked to below, our “default thinking.” I can’t summon up anything profound or summarizing about him or the news that he killed himself. I simply direct you to his own writings. There is much on the web today about Wallace, including this round-up of links from GreenCine, that […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 14, 2008

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