Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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The Blue Velvet Project, #16
Second #752, 12:52 1. Jeffrey has just left the Williams’s, when their daughter Sandy appears slowly out of the shadows, to the swelling of music and the sound of wind moving through the tree branches, in one of the most remarkable entrances in cinema history, asking him, “Are you the one that found the ear?” 2. “How did you know?” Jeffrey says. “I just know. That’s all,” Sandy replies, in her pink dress, with no bra. The frame is overheated with information about light, and Sandy’s face, the way it is turned to Jeffrey, it’s as if she wants him […]
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TORONTO: JOHN LYDON IS IN A BAD MOOD
John Lydon is in a bad mood. He’s hungover from partying after the premiere of the Norwegian coming-of-age drama, Sons Of Norway, here at the Toronto International Film Festival. My photographer Linda and I arrive at a stuffy, claustrophobic mezzanine at the posh Hazelton Hotel. The busy publicist warns us that Mr. Lydon is an “unpredictable” mood. Great, though I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, John Lydon is Johnny Rotten, the surly singer of The Sex Pistols and the 56-year-old godfather of punk. That’s how he’s credited in this film in a cameo appearance near the end though he’s credited […]
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BAXTER BROTHERS AND CINEMAD PARTNER IN NEW DISTRIBUTION VENTURE
Micro independent distributors the Baxter Brothers and Cinemad (run by Filmmaker contributor Mike Plante) have teamed to co-release feature films in theatrical and non-theatrical venues. The partnership is expected to yield ten to 12 releases a year, and Baxter Brothers will work with some of the filmmakers on ancillary sales, including television, VOD, DVD and digital. The companies currently have the documentary Summer Pastures (a “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You” Gotham nominee) in theaters, with Sundance 2011 premieres Jess + Moss and The Oregonian upcoming. From the press release: Baxter Brothers said “Most filmmakers don’t want […]
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FOX SEARCHLIGHT BUYS MCQUEEN’S “SHAME”
Last night Fox Searchlight announced from Toronto it has bought the U.S. rights to Steve McQueen‘s latest, Shame. Starring Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan, the drama, which is screening at the fest, follows New Yorker Brandon (Fassbender) who shuns intimacy with women but feeds his desires with a compulsive addiction to sex. However, when his wayward younger sister (Carey Mulligan) moves into his apartment stirring memories of their shared painful past, Brandon’s insular life spirals out of control. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival and according to the release Searchlight plans to open Shame before the year ends. […]
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TORONTO: THE PATRON SAINTS
The second shot of The Patron Saints is a slow pan across a wide swath of no-man’s land, the sad sound of a prairie wind reinforcing the impression of emptiness. Suddenly the camera stops moving at the sight of a building, several stories high, looking as if it were plunked down on Auntie Em’s farm in Oz after the tornado. There are no signs: This feels like the middle of nowhere. Thanks to five years of work by filmmakers Brian Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky, we are able to experience what is inside, meeting and observing the residents whose privacy, like […]
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The Blue Velvet Project, #15
Second #705, 11:45 And so here you are, lost in a movie. “It must be great,” the young man says to the older man, referring to his job as a detective. The older man replies, “It’s horrible too.” And you think: this is how life is. Great. And horrible. The detective is at work eradicating evil all the time, even at home where he has not changed out of his detective outfit, because evil does not sleep. You think about the seriousness with which Blue Velvet treats evil in a secular age, and how the most that the detective can […]
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ELISABETH SUBRIN ON THE 9/11 DECADE
The New York Times series of videos with artists discussing the effects of 9/11 continues with artist and filmmaker Elisabeth Subrin, who discusses her video installation, Lost Tribes and Promised Lands.
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TORONTO 2011 PREVIEW: CANUCK ATTACK
Are you surprised that this year, some of the most anticipated films at the Toronto International Film Festival actually are by (gulp) Canadian filmmakers? Largely known to many for their solicitousness, their skills in the rink, and their charming way of saying the letter “o,” the Canadians often inspire jealousy in their film-loving neighbors to the south because of the wide-ranging institutional support that they provide for national filmmakers. The National Film Board of Canada, for instance, both produces films and distributes them to the far reaches of the country… and has been doing so for over 7o years, when […]
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Rebirth — A Hammer to Nail Review
(Rebirth is now available on DVD through Oscilloscope Pictures. Visit the official Project Rebirth website for theatrical screening dates and to learn more, and go here to watch a startling video detailing the time-lapse project.) On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, frankly, at the moment, I’m finding it hard not to feel more hopeless than hopeful about things. It’s bad enough that it’s still frighteningly easy to recall the visceral shock of that fateful morning, watching the twin towers crumble to the ground on television before rushing to my Washington Heights fire escape to confirm that they […]
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The Blue Velvet Project, #14
Minute #658, 7:58 1. Jeffrey, entering the Williams’s home, crossing a threshold that is a doorway. This is Sandy’s castle, guarded by her father the detective, who wears his gun holstered, even at home. Or is Jeffrey the detective? Or—more radically—is Sandy? 2. “Leaving the burning theater behind one begins to ease into a new perspective. The stairway leads to a doorway, the doorway to an alleyway, the alleyway to another door, more stairs, another amber room where one can forget again” 3. “He hacks desperately at the brambles and, as the hedge closes round him like the grasping flesh-raking […]
