Filmmaker Videos
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Watch: Dutch Angles, Measured by Degree
In his latest video essay, the prolific Jacob T. Swinney pulls off a nifty trick in assembling a variety of dutch angles from film history. Instead of just stringing them together, he measures the angle of the camera by degree, quantifying extremity of effect in numbers.
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Watch: Shapes of Rage in The Birds and The Brood
Want to start your day by seeing some enlighteningly disturbing parallels between The Birds and The Brood? This video by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin connects the dots between late Hitchcock and early Cronenberg; over at MUBI, there’s an essay to go along with it. If you’re familiar with both films, you’ll know this is probably not something to watch first thing in the morning — it’s strong fare.
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Watch: Red Lighting in the Films of Martin Scorsese
A new site called Film Scalpel is devoted to not just the production of video essays, but also understanding their grammar and exemplary practitioners. Among their first handful of videos are four takes on different motifs in the work of Martin Scorsese, with a thoughtful look at his use of red as it historically relates to tinting and black and white compositions. Check that out above, and read below for some context. Just as silent movies were rarely silent, black-and-white films were not often simply black and white. In the silent era, the techniques of tinting and toning were commonly used to add a dash of […]
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Watch: A Centenary Tribute to Ingrid Bergman
In honor of Ingrid Bergman’s centenary, Criterion has posted this tribute video cut together by Jonathan Keogh. For more reading, head over to Keyframe Daily, where David Hudson has rounded up some recent writing on the actress and the many retros of her films currently taking place.
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Watch (and Listen): Hearing A Nightmare on Elm Street
In our second Jacob T. Swinney video post of the day, here’s the critic and filmmaker’s tribute to the late Wes Craven, in the form of an analysis of the director’s use of sound in his horror classic. From the video’s notes: The first horror movie I ever watched was Wes Craven’s “A Nightmare on Elm Street”. Being a child, the film frightened me so badly that I didn’t view another horror film until my teen years. Despite the obvious tormentors of a man with a burned face, gravity defying whirlpools of blood, and a dying teen being dragged around […]
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Trailer Watch: Alexander Sokurov’s Francofonia
Peppered with documentary elements, Alexander Sokurov’s Francofonia returns the director to similar territory of his much heralded Russian Ark, this time among the hallowed halls of Paris’ Louvre. The film will explore the relationships between art and culture, war and power, throughout the centuries of the museum. Francofonia premieres in competition at Venice and will be shown in the Masters program at TIFF. Check out the first trailer above.
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Watch: POV Shots in the Coen Brothers’ Films
Here’s another nifty video from Jacob T. Swinney, this time bookending an assembly of the Coen brothers’ numerous POV with montages of their many dashboard-driving shots.
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Trailer Watch: Zia Anger’s My Last Film
Disconcerting: Zia Anger appeared on our beginning-of-career 25 New Faces list just this year, but she’s already titling her latest short, My Last Film. Clarification should come shortly; the film, which stars Lola Kirke, Kelly Rohrback and Rosanna Arquette, premieres at the New York Film Festival as part a New York-centric shorts program alongside other favorites including Dustin Guy Defa, Nathan Silver, Pacho Velez & Daniel Claridge and Joanna Arnow. In the meantime, a short, foreboding trailer, above, offers few clues.
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Trailer Watch: Jonas Carpignano’s Mediterranea
Jonas Carpignano made Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces list in 2012 on the basis of his astonishing short, A Chjàna, about violence between African immigrants and police in Rosarno, Italy. His debut feature, Mediterranea, develops a similar storyline and premiered in Cannes this year. Check out the film’s foreign trailer, which just dropped.
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Watch: Behind-the-Scenes at Burning Man in As the Dust Settles
With the annual Burning Man conference underway, now is a good time to revisit what producer and editor Mike Hedge calls a “participatory documentary,” As the Dust Settles. Shot at the festival, the doc uses a number of collaborating directors (Roger Ingraham, Katheryn McGaffigan, Jamie Dee, Jeremy Lubman, and Tarynn Wiehahn) and generally superb cinematography to capture, says Hedge, “an intimate glimpse of what we discovered about love, the environment, the gift economy, reality, art, creativity, and ourselves.” As the Dust Settles is available on a wide variety of streaming and download platforms. As a special bonus, Hedge has provided […]
