Authors — Scott Macaulay
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Parting Shot: Chantal Akerman
In early October, the film world lost a great, challenging voice when director Chantal Akerman passed away at 65. Forty years earlier the young Belgian had altered the course of film history with her second feature, Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai de Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, a three-hour, 20-minute portrait of a middle-aged, widowed mother and sometime prostitute. Dielman’s daily chores are captured with a fixed camera in near real time, offering both a historical critique of domestic routine — “women’s work” — as well as the representational strategies of mainstream cinema. But Jeanne Dielman was only one of Akerman’s remarkable films. […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 28, 2015 -
Come to the Sound of My Voice: Laurie Anderson Talks Heart of a Dog
I remember when you started hearing that voice everywhere. Melodious, precisely phrased yet awkward in its pauses, the electronic approximation of the human voice, whether sampled, altered, or pitch-shifted, and triggered by the pound sign, or, now, simply a “Hey, Siri,” has lured human dialogue into an uncanny valley of meaning since the 1970s. And, after Kraftwerk, certainly, but long before AutoTune, 808s & Heartbreak and the Gregory Brothers there was Laurie Anderson, whose vocoderized voice forced us to try and make sense of it all. Anderson, a performance artist and composer whose early work included a piece where she played […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 28, 2015 -
Scoped Out
When filmmaker Laura Poitras joined journalists Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill to form the online news site The Intercept, it didn’t seem a certainty that she’d bring film to the site’s reporting on domestic spying, national security and foreign policy issues. After all, even before her Academy Award for documentary CITIZENFOUR, Poitras had shared a Pulitzer Prize and George Polk award for print reporting on NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden appearing in The Guardian and The Washington Post. And, after the awards, Poitras continued covering these stories in print and online — not just for The Intercept, a site owned by […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 28, 2015 -
A Real-World Look at Magic Leap’s Augmented Reality
With backing from Google, Andreessen Horowitz, Qualcom and movie studio Legendary Entertainment — and an on-staff Chief Futurist in the form of science-fiction author Neal Stephenson — the somewhat mysterious Magic Leap is one of the most fascinating tech start-ups around. For the vision — not virtual reality but augmented reality — the company is going for, check out their startling home-page. For the current reality, check out the video above, which is a real-world demo of some galaxy clusters hovering over an ordinary workspace. For an explanation of why this simple video is more impressive than the rigged concept […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 26, 2015 -
Diary of a Teenage Girl, Carol, Spotlight Top 25th Annual IFP Gotham Award Nominations
For its 25th anniversary year, the IFP Gotham Independent Film Awards served up an eclectic mix of nominees from films all over the budgetary and aesthetic map. The best picture nominees include two films budgeted well under $1 million — with one of them shot on an iPhone — and are split between titles consisting of star-driven casts and casts comprised of total newcomers. The Best Feature nominees announced today are Todd Haynes’s Carol; Marielle Heller’s The Diary of a Teenage Girl; Josh and Benny Safdie’s Heaven Knows What; Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight; and Sean Baker’s Tangerine. Heller’s film, in addition, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 22, 2015 -
Short Film: Dustin Guy Defa’s Review
Any filmmaker who has been around the block knows something about reactions to films — when you’re first praised for the cinematography, something has gone wrong. And when a critic spends more time on plot description than on analysis or commentary, well, then, he or she is just aiming to hit their word count. I thought of these two truisms while watching Review, the latest short from Filmmaker 25 New Face Dustin Guy Defa. Watch it above.
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 21, 2015 -
Filmmaker Seeks Contributing Web Editor
Are you a good writer, knowledgeable about new developments in film and new media, and a reader of Filmmaker? Filmmaker is currently seeking a Contributing Web Editor. This is a paid, part-time position, averaging 10 hours per week, and it involves daily writing and posting to this site. In addition to possessing strong writing, reporting and editing skills, our ideal candidate will have experience with filmmaking itself, including production, post-production and business issues. Our Contributing Web Editor will report on developments of interest to our filmmaking audience, including reports on new equipment and technologies, software and events as well as […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 21, 2015 -
Carla Forte’s Ann on Indiegogo
Miami-based filmmaker Carla Forte is one of the three filmmakers I’ll be speaking to tomorrow night at the Miami Beach Cinematheque, and our talk sits right in the middle of the Indiegogo campaign for her latest feature, Ann. Forte is a performer, screenwriter and director, as well as Executive Director of Bistoury Physical Theatre and Film. Read the information below, check out the video above and consider donating to her campaign. From Forte’s Indiegogo page: Ann is a feature film narrating the story of Ruben, a lower-class visual artist who has decided to abandon his tormented life by taking refuge […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 21, 2015 -
Miami Female Filmmakers: Three Points of View on Thursday, October 22
I’ll be moderating a Q&A tomorrow night, Thursday, October 22, in Miami with three of the city’s most compelling and original filmmakers: Jillian Mayer, Monica Pena and Carla Forte. It’s the closing night of this edition of the Miami Beach Cinematheque’s “Speaking in Cinema” series, and we’ll be discussing the individual works by these directors that have played at this series as well as the filmmakers’ general practice and thoughts on the Miami scene. Filmmaker readers will be familiar with Jillian Mayer’s work as she, along with partner Lucas Leyva, were selected for our 25 New Faces list in 2012. […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 21, 2015 -
A Master Class on Filmmaking with Gaspar Noé
On Wednesday, October 28, Filmmaker Magazine will be presenting at the IFP’s Made in New York Media Center a Master Class on filmmaking with the provocative Paris-based, Argentinian auteur Gaspar Noé. As his latest film, Love, a romantic melodrama with hardcore sex and shot in 3D, prepares to hit American screens, we’ll be screening Noé‘s first, rarely-screened picture, Carne, and then discussing his subsequent work. With its widescreen cinematography, William Castle-ish flourishes and spasms of ultra-violence, Carne, a tale of a racist horse-meat butcher in the South of France bent on avenging what he believes to be the rape of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 20, 2015
