Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Sound Design and Silence in the Work of Martin Scorsese
This effectively concise visual essay from Tony Zhou examines the significance of silence in the films of Martin Scorsese and modern cinema at large. From Raging Bull, in which Scorsese combines a dolly zoom with a hollowing “numbing effect, as if you’re hit in the ear too many times,” to the iconic Goodfellas scene where Joe Pesci comically dupes Ray Liotta, Zhou considers how silence is consistently “derived from character…[which] lets the director build a full cinematic structure around sound.” Sound, for Scorsese, is no mere secondary player but rather a device to develop thematic and situational texture, like how the violence in Raging Bull‘s ring is […]
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Watch: 45 Minutes of Jean-Luc Godard on Goodbye to Language
Canon Europe recently conducted a 45 minute interview with Jean-Luc Godard on Goodbye to Language and the resulting conversation is pretty incredible. One could parse through the exchange for hours, but it’s best to watch for yourself and hear Godard on the everything from the melancholic underpinnings of “SMS,” the boundary-less nature of 3D, the fickle ways of language (“montage” vs. “editing”) and exploiting spatial imbalances (the creation of reverse shots). The interview also features a few short clips from Goodbye to Language and the following comment on its title: “When I say ‘farewell’ to language, it really means ‘farewell,’ meaning to say goodbye to […]
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Scenes of a Crime Subject Adrian Thomas Found Not Guilty, Released From Jail
In the activist vein of The Thin Blue Line and the Paradise Lost trilogy, documentarians Grover Babcock and Blue Hadaegh’s Scenes of a Crime investigated the coerced confession of Adrian Thomas, a father convicted of killing his infant son after ten hours of rough interrogation. The evidence pointed to the baby dying of sepsis (a full-body bacterial blood infection), but Thomas was convicted and incarcerated regardless. The film played in theaters in 2012 after winning the Filmmaker-sponsored Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You IFP Gotham Award. “We’ve all heard stories about false confessions and those triggered us […]
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Give the People What They Want: Niche Web Series as Sustainable Filmmaking
Like many filmmakers, early in our career we were seduced by dreams of showing our first feature at Sundance or SXSW; rubbing elbows with Debra Granik, Lena Dunham, or maybe even Michel Gondry; and, soon after, signing on for our very own series with HBO (or a three-picture deal with Magnolia…we weren’t picky). But while waiting for the acceptance letters that would change our lives forever, we decided to dive into Web 2.0 and became our own homegrown social media marketing machine, the digital version of a mom-n-pop gas station, complete with the perfect snacks, a foreboding bathroom with surprisingly […]
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Five Questions for Recommended by Enrique‘s Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia
Director Rania Attieh was born in Tripoli, Lebanon, and her partner Daniel Garcia grew up in South Texas. Their first feature together, Okay, Enough, Goodbye crisscrossed Attieh’s hometown, canvassing 30 locations in 40 days to create a story, they say, that is a “love/hate relationship with the city itself.” So, after that feature won plaudits on the festival circuit — and landed the two on Filmmaker‘s 2011 25 New Faces list — it seems only appropriate that they head to Texas for their follow-up. Premiering tonight at the Los Angeles Film Festival, Recommended by Enrique is described as “a tale […]
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RIP Ruby Dee (1922-2014)
Iconic actress Ruby Dee died yesterday at age 91 in her home at New Rochelle, New York. For a comprehensive overview of her life and work, start with Sarah Halzack’s obituary in the Washington Post. Her achievements on stage, TV and movie screens were inseparable from her political work alongside late husband Ossie Davis. The couple were famously friends with Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., and politics were a non-negotiable constant in their lives. “We believe in honesty,” Davis explained in 1988. “We believe in simplicity. We believe in a good breakfast when we can get it. We […]
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Trailer Watch: Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman
Alejandro González Iñárritu last film Biutiful was so relentlessly depressing its body count nearly totalled that of an apocalyptic blockbuster, so it’s nice to see him swinging in the other direction with what looks to be a high-concept, gonzo comedy with Birdman. Starring Michael Keaton as an over-the-hill superhero actor struggling to mount a Broadway comeback, the film, which is shot by the inimitable Emmanuel Lubezki, boasts an eclectic ensemble in Naomi Watts, Michael Keaton, Zach Galifianakis, Amy Ryan and Emma Stone. What piques my interest, however, is the fact that the Broadway play is an adaptation of Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When […]
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Acts of Rebellion: The Dialectical Cinema of Nadav Lapid
In Sergei Eisenstein’s seminal essay “A Dialectic Approach to Film Form,” the Russian filmmaker lays out the foundational theories for his radical political cinema. “Art is always conflict,” he famously writes. “(1) according to its social mission, (2) according to its nature, (3) according to its methodology. According to its social mission because: It is art’s task to make manifest the contradictions of Being.” Israeli auteur Nadav Lapid may not adhere to Eisenstein’s aesthetics of montage, but he appears to be directly influenced by the Russian’s dialectical philosophy of art. Lapid’s astoundingly assured two feature films, 2011’s Policeman (opening this […]
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James Franco, Vince Jolivette Launch Online Screenwriting Class
Continuing to disprove the assertion that there are 24 hours in a day, prodigious multi-hyphenate James Franco, who has taught at USC, UCLA, CalArts and NYU, and his Rabbit Bandini producing partner Vince Jolivette are launching another new venture: an online course, “Introduction to Screenwriting for Short Films,” on the Skillshare site. Over 30 short video lessons beginning screenwriters will learn the craft by penning an eight-page adaptation of one of three texts: John Steinbeck’s Pastures of Heaven, a story from The Spoon River Anthology, or Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small-Town Life. Right now […]
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Nigeria Turns Out Two Boko Haram Movies
For even casual observers of the Nigerian film industry, it’s not surprising news that the nation’s second largest-employer (behind agriculture) has already churned out two films about the April kidnapping of 276 girls by Boko Haram: at an average of 50 movies a week, the industry makes a routine point of speedily incorporating topical concerns. Last year’s Boko Haram: The Movie (understandably retitled Nation Under Siege at home) is far from unique, with a particularly high-profile example in 2012’s Last Flight to Abuja, a plane crash drama inspired by the nation’s spate of air disasters that coincidentally premiered just after […]
