Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Jealousy or, What Does Philippe Garrel Want?
Jealousy’s first view is from a keyhole. Daughter Charlotte (Olga Milshtein) peeps through, watching mother Clothilde (Rebecca Covenant) weep and beg actor husband Louis (played by Philippe Garrel’s son of the same name) not to leave. The film doesn’t primarily concern her feelings, nor necessarily Charlotte’s reaction to the split, though both are foregrounded in passing; as in i.e. recently Boyhood, a primary focus does not preclude space for alternate POVs. The main trajectory is Louis’ short, tumultuous relationship with his new partner Claudia (Anna Mouglalis), someone not nearly as in love with shabby-comfortable apartment life; the movie’s narrative is […]
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Trailer Watch: David Wnendt’s Wetlands
Perhaps I’m being contrarian, jaded and/or anti-clickbait, but David Wnendt’s Wetlands isn’t as wildly gross out as it’s cracked up to be. I have a harder time digesting, say, Pink Flamingos. There’s substance behind the film’s good humored gags, coalescing as they do around the liberated but fundamentally unhappy protagonist, Helen. Which brings me to another bargaining chip amongst all its provocations: one of the most enjoyable performances of late, courtesy of the emotionally acrobatic Carla Juri. Brandon Harris and I at least agreed on that in our respective takes from Treefort and SXSW. In any event, Strand Releasing has the film slated for a September 5 release […]
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Stray Links, 8/11-8/14: Film Preservation in China, Ferguson, and the Weight Watchers Recipes of 1974
Here’s this week’s round-up of reading, film-related and otherwise: • “Trying to make a film in Sub-Saharan Africa can be a financial and logistical feat, but getting it to audiences can be an even bigger task. A networking event at the Locarno Film Festival is a chance for African film-makers to make their project come to life.” Jo Fahy reports from Locarno on the Open Doors Lab, which brings 12 filmmakers from continental Africa to the festival to receive script mentoring, apply for Swiss funding and more. • Peter Greenaway has completed shooting one film about Sergei Eisenstein, which he’s […]
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IndieCollect, a Film Preservation Initiative, Receives $200,000 Challenge Grant from Ford Foundation
IndieCollect, a film documentation and preservation initiative, has received a $200,000 challenge grant from the Ford Foundation to set them on their goal of archiving 6,000 films in the next three years. With digital as the new standard, many filmmakers are leaving their prints to rust, but IndieCollect aims to foster preservation threefold by, “creating a comprehensive, searchable, IndieCollect Index of American independent film, video and digital titles; developing an IndieCollect Encyclopedia for scholars, programmers and cinephiles; and doing outreach to hundreds of filmmakers and film advocacy organizations to Identify and Collect the works that need archival repositories.” From the press […]
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Watch: David Lynch and Mark Frost’s On the Air
Following the warm reception of Twin Peaks (1990-1991), ABC commissioned a little seen follow-up from Lynch/Frost Productions in 1992 called On the Air. The series was a characteristically off-kilter sitcom about a ’50s television network struggling to rejuvenate their variety spot, The Lester Guy Show. What sounds like a quixotic collision of Network and 30 Rock instead turned out to be an unmitigated disaster: ABC put the ax on On the Air after only three episodes. Still, as cult followings are want to do, the series attracted a cluster of devotees when it screened in its entirety in the UK and Australia. The first (and only) season is now available on YouTube, […]
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BuzzFeed: The Next Netflix?
The New York Times broke the news this Sunday that BuzzFeed received $50 million in funding for their Los Angeles-based Motion Pictures arm. Recognizing the massive revenue generated by the company’s video content, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti hired Ze Frank, “web video pioneer,” to produce a “rapid-fire” stream of everything from “six second clips made for social media to more traditional 22-minute shows” under the new banner. Eventually, the company will look to produce feature-length films and TV series, not unlike Netflix. Another thing BuzzFeed Motion Pictures has in common with the online streaming paradigm is an unsurprising affinity for data science. In […]
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Seattle’s Scarecrow Video Raising Funds to Transition to Non-Profit
Seattle’s legendary Scarecrow Video houses some 120,000 titles on VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray, VCD and laserdisc. The store was the brainchild of the late George Latsios, whose compulsive purchasing of ever more and more titles (documented in this affectionate obituary from 2003) provided the base foundation for the store’s current inventory. With rentals decreasing 40 percent in the last six years, current owners Carl Tostevin and Mickey McDonough have come up with a viable strategy to try to keep the store’s formidable collection intact. A Kickstarter has launched to help Scarecrow complete a planned conversion to non-profit status, a move necessary […]
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Watch: Cassavetes Between Takes of Love Streams
“If our films are supposed to be something like life is…then how can you determine what’s going to happen tomorrow?” That’s John Cassavetes from the set of Love Streams on the importance of surrendering to the unpredictability of filmmaking. Excerpted from the film’s on-set documentary I’m Almost Not Crazy…–John Cassavetes: The Man and His Work, this short clip provides a glimpse of Cassavetes’ ethic between takes. The full behind-the-scenes exposé is available in Criterion’s just released edition of Love Streams, and you can read Dennis Lim’s supplemental essay over at the site, which examines the film as a brilliant collision of Cassavetes’ (and Rowlands’ and […]
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Revisiting Robin Williams in The Birdcage
I didn’t particularly intend (or want) to contribute to the inevitable avalanche of Robin Williams memorial writing online today, but I dropped by last night to visit a friend who’d just put on The Birdcage, which seemed the most appealing of the instant tribute options on Netflix Instant, so here we are. The bedrock tools powering Williams’ patented babble of voices were his formidable mimicry skills and the kind of physical dexterity great athletes have that makes the extremely difficult look very simple. His capacity to assimilate dozens of disconnected reference points and appearances was favorably comparable to Peter Sellers, […]
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Old, Faded Pictures: Vilmos Zsigmond on McCabe & Mrs. Miller
“We didn’t want it to look good. The whole idea was to make some old, faded pictures.” Master cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond was talking about McCabe & Mrs. Miller, the 1971 anti-Western he shot under Robert Altman’s direction. Speaking in a thick Hungarian accent, the 84-year-old had just watched a rare 35mm screening with a packed audience at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox, which is hosting an Altman retrospective. “That is an amazing print,” he declared. For 30 minutes after the screening, Zsigmond candidly recalled shooting the film, which almost didn’t get released. Now it’s considered a classic, perhaps Altman’s best. “The […]
