Authors — Vadim Rizov
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Canon Reformation (3): Adaptation.
So far in this column I’ve written about movies I’ve seen multiple times, but I hadn’t rewatched Adaptation. since December 2002. Regardless, for nearly two decades hence I’ve regularly heard Brian Cox-as-Robert-McKee bellowing “and god help you if you use voiceover!” I don’t think I was actively aware of McKee’s Story before seeing Adaptation. The spine, with its title in distinct marquee lettering, was familiar—I have vague memories of seeing it in the aisles of the film section of the Barnes & Noble I haunted way too much as a kid—but it would never have occurred to me to open it up, so my true […]
by Vadim Rizov on May 4, 2020 -
Visions du Réel 2020 (1): Intimate Distances, On a Clear Day You Can See the Revolution From Here, An Ordinary Country
Visions du Réel’s pivot to online-only festival has given me an unexpected new pool of films to sift through. Nearly everything that was supposed to be on the ground at a fest I’d normally never have the resources to attend is accessible online, and the streaming technology is holding up excellently. (AirDropping from laptop to TV, if you have that option, eliminates the watermark, so it’s about as good as online streaming gets.) On the public-facing side (I have no idea how that’s going), the festival went “live” on Saturday the 25th and wraps up on May 2nd. For those […]
by Vadim Rizov on Apr 28, 2020 -
Online Premiere: Sofia Bohdanowicz’s The Hardest Working Cat in Showbiz
In work like her narrative feature MS Slavic 7 (titled after a library call number) and nonfiction short Veslemoy’s Song, Toronto-based filmmaker Sofia Bohdanowicz has dived into archives, examining their possibilities as a path to various revelations and/or frustrations. Both are encountered in this short film, in which Bohdanowicz adapts Dan Sallitt’s essay “The Hardest Work Cat in Show Biz,” expanding the text with illustrations of feline actor Orangey in action across his career. It begins with Sallitt and his cat Jasper at home before diving into the main line of argument, connecting many dots along the way while finding an entirely […]
by Vadim Rizov on Apr 27, 2020 -
“I Don’t Want to Work in a Place Where I Can’t Touch the Camera”: Gerardo Naranjo on Tribeca 2020 Premiere Kokoloko
A girl, a number of guns, also some cars: recombining knowingly archetypal elements from Gerardo Naranjo’s first two features, Drama/Mex and I’m Gonna Explode, Kokoloko is delightfully loose and unconstrained. In Oaxaca, Marisol (Alejandra Herrera) loves Mundo (Noé Hernández), much to the disapproval of her thuggish cousin Mauro (Eduardo Mendizábal), who literally picks her up and throws her in his car to separate the two. The not-quite-love-triangle unfolds in a larger, equally unsettled arena: road blockades are plotted, cartels are in orbit, and violence erupts at every level. The beachside backdrop recalls the Acapulco setting of Drama/Mex, Marisol and Mundo’s lovers-on-the-run arc I’m […]
by Vadim Rizov on Apr 23, 2020 -
Canon Reformation (2): New Commercials, 12 Monkeys, Mysterious Skin
Along with getting re-accustomed to watching movies at home, I’m also relearning the rhythms of having TV in my life on a regular basis, which hasn’t been the case for a good while. My preferred choice for some daily structure and accompanying info drip is local news via two easily streamable options, ABC and CBS. The former’s preferable because they almost never cut away to, or acknowledge, the daily presidential press conference. Anchor Bill Ritter was temporarily home with COVID-19 before returning to the studio, while weatherman Lee Goldberg was for a while doing the forecast from what looked like […]
by Vadim Rizov on Apr 15, 2020 -
“We’re Definitely Not ‘Social Distancing’ Distance”: Zia Anger on Performing My First Film Online
After nearly two years of performing My First Film live in theaters, Zia Anger has reconfigured her piece for livestreaming. Currently being streamed to small groups in preview mode, each performance is announced on Anger’s Twitter the morning of; capacity is small and quickly filled on a first come, first served email RSVP basis. The middle core of the show—Anger’s story about her never-premiered first feature, told via a mix of video footage and select online browsing, narrated via TextEdit narration typed out in real time—has remained essentially the same. The beginning and ending have been necessarily rethought: where a key […]
by Vadim Rizov on Apr 8, 2020 -
Quarantine Reading: W. K.-L. Dickson’s The Biograph in Battle
As a publication about film, we find ourselves in the peculiar position of publishing during a moment when theatrical access to movies, and their ongoing future, is as much in question as everything else. During this suspension of normal filmwatching habits, we’ve reached out to contributors, filmmakers and friends, inviting them to find an alternate path to the movies by participating in a writing exercise engaging with any book about or lightly intersecting with film, in whatever way makes sense to them. Today: hello, it’s me. — Vadim Rizov Last January, I went to MoMA to see British silent film […]
by Vadim Rizov on Apr 7, 2020 -
Canon Reformation (1): Yi Yi, Ghost World
I’ll keep the establishing premise brief: all articles on every platform are coronavirus-predicated for the unforeseeable future, so no need to belabor that prompt. I almost never watch movies at home: with a tiny attention span, I need the screen to be bigger than me and erase peripheral vision—and in NYC, until very recently, I had the unbelievable luxury of a plethora of big-screen rep viewing to choose from. Now I’m bunkered in a roommate-emptied apartment, pursuing my chosen viewing path for maximal self-soothing distraction: rewatching a personal canon of (mostly) obvious titles I haven’t seen in ten to 20 […]
by Vadim Rizov on Apr 1, 2020 -
True/False Film Fest 2020: The Value of the Theatrical Experience (Coronavirus Remix)
“You guys are going to spend the next year stuck quarantined with buskers,” a friend wrote on my way to True/False, which seemed to be sliding just under the wire of possibility even before I got there–a foreboding confirmed by day two, when SXSW became the first film festival to cancel. Onscreen, every handshake and hug was charged with an unintended jolt; in the theaters, elbow bumps were exchanged, nervous jokes made and telltale pools of soapy foam collected at the bottom of bathroom sinks. On its last day, True/False added one of SXSW’s now-homeless premieres, a special by (noted […]
by Vadim Rizov on Mar 25, 2020 -
Incendiary: Director Alexander Nanau on His Explosive Investigative Documentary, Collective
On October 30, 2015, at the Bucharest venue Colectiv, metalcore headliner Goodbye to Gravity bellowed lyrics denouncing widespread Romanian corruption, inadvertently foreshadowing what happened next. Fireworks were released, the highly combustible club went up in flames and people stampeded for the only, half-closed exit—Colectiv had received an operating license without also obtaining a permit from the fire department. Responsibility lay in part with the mayor of Section 4, the administrative district governing Bucharest, and protesters quickly called for his resignation, as well as that of the prime minister and minister. Inspections of more than 1,000 venues resulted in excess of […]
by Vadim Rizov on Mar 17, 2020
