Filmmaking
Filmmaking
-
When Should You Give Up?
Over at the literary site The Millions, Edan Lepucki had a post yesterday entitled “Shutting the Drawer: What Happens When a Book Doesn’t Sell?” After receiving rejections from multiple publishers, she writes about her first novel: The truth is, my novel isn’t selling, and it probably won’t. There, I’ve said it. Eventually, a writer must accept rejection, accept the death of her first true darling, and move on. Can I face that sobering reality? Can I put my first book into the drawer, and shut it? Oh, you say, what about self-publishing? DIY? Connecting directly to fans? Bypassing the gatekeepers, […]
-
The Cinema is a Train: On Steven McQueen’s Hunger
The Cinema is the Train: Part One Economy of Narrative + Abundance of Truth = Poetry in Cinema In an earlier essay for Filmmaker, I argued that “…cinema’s ‘vocabulary of forms’ is typically under-utilized… While there are any number of cinematic languages that could exist, most of the time films tend to rely heavily upon what we could call the basics of film grammar – shot/counter-shot, close-ups, wide shots, over-the-shoulders and reverses, as well as certain editing paces and conventions of lighting and score,” and went on to praise Enter The Void for its progressive formalism. In keeping with Jean-Luc […]
-
FOCUS LAUNCHES VOD ARM
You may have noticed over on our VOD Calendar the last few months the emergence of Focus Features titles. Though they’ve been quiet about it, Dana Harris at indieWIRE posted yesterday that Focus has in fact started a VOD division called Focus World. The most recent title is the Sundance doc Resurrect Dead. Focus plans to release 8 to 15 straight-to-VOD titles a year. We’ll begin including the Focus World titles in our VOD calendar so be sure to keep an eye out for that.
-
The Blue Velvet Project, #8
Second # 376 (6:16) In his 1932 essay “A Course in Treatment,” Sergei Eisenstein wrote that “only the sound-film is capable of reconstructing all phases of the course of thought” in the mind of a character. In many ways, Blue Velvet’s most radical experiments are in the realm of sound. In this frame, Jeffrey, having just discovered the severed ear, absorbs this fact, the fact of sound. And so: *During the 5:50s, as Jeffrey walks home through the field after visiting his ailing father, the noise is diagetic: the sound of Jeffrey walking, the birds, the insects—all these sounds seem […]
-
KICKSTARTER: “PARIAH” PRODUCER NEKISA COOPER’S “FIVE NIGHTS IN MAINE”
Though her Sundance hit Pariah opens through Focus in the winter, producer Nekisa Cooper hasn’t slowed down as she reached out to us about a project she’s currently getting off the ground through Kickstarter, Five Nights In Maine, directed by Bay Area filmmaker Maris Curran. They are currently trying to raise $40,000. Here’s the synopsis: Sherwin and Fiona are at a crossroads. As an interracial couple living in the south, they seem to have created an idyllic bubble for their love. But after a recent visit to her ailing and prickly mother, Fiona is changed. Suddenly, their relationship is contentious […]
-
TORONTO FEST UNVEILS COMPLETE LINEUP
After multiple announcements of films screening at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival that spanned over several weeks, this morning TIFF completed their 2011 lineup by unveiling the titles in its Masters section, participants in its Maverick series and the works in the Discovery and free sections. See the complete list of films and fest schedule at the TIFF website. Totaling 268 features and 68 shorts, TIFF 2011 will have 123 world debuts from 65 countries. 13 films will screen in the Masters section, including Wim Wenders‘ Pina and Jafar Panahi‘s This is Not a Film. TIFF’s Maverick series, which […]
-
RYAN GOSLING BREAKS UP EAST VILLAGE FIGHT
Forgive my brief step into celebrity stalkerville, but via my favorite neighborhood blog, EV Grieve, comes this video showing, apparently, Ryan Gosling stepping into some rather low-key fisticuffs at Astor Place in the East Village. What’s great here is the soundtrack as the shooter slowly realizes that she’s got a celeb in her iPhone sights. (“That’s the guy from the movie!”)
-
GUS VAN SANT RETROSPECTIVE AT MUSEUM OF MOVING IMAGE
With his 14th feature, Restless, slated for release on Sept. 16, the Museum of the Moving Image in NYC has announced a retrospective of Gus Van Sant‘s work running Sept. 9-30 with the director on hand for a screening of Restless on Sept. 14. Everything from his debut feature, Mala Noche, to his experimental “Death Trilogy” (Gerry, Elephant and Last Days) to his more commercial successes like Good Will Hunting and Milk (even his less successful shot-for-shot remake of Psycho) will be screened. This is certainly a can’t miss for Van Sant fans and film lovers alike. Most screenings are […]
-
JACK FERVER PRESENTS FASSBINDER’S “BITTER TEARS…”
Because Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra Van Kant is one of my favorites by the late German director, I’m reprinting here this email from Ira Sachs, whose IFC Center Queer/Art/Film series is screening the film tonight at 8:00 PM. It’s being presented by choreographer Jack Ferver, who has written a fantastic intro to the film. Dear Friends of Queer/Art/Film, “That little girl’s finger is worth more than the lot of you.” For this month’s August screening, we’re thrilled to finally be able to present a film by the visionary gay German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder, especially one […]
-
The Blue Velvet Project, #7
Second #329 Jeffrey’s father is in the hospital, from a scene whose unstable tone is a microcosm of the movie itself. On one level, this moment is almost painfully tender. Jeffrey’s father struggles to speak with him as Jeffrey looks on, helpless. Yet on another level, the scene feels almost like a parody of an As The World Turns hospital scene*, with the overdetermined nurse and doctor, who ushers Jeffrey into the room by the elbow. It’s as if Lynch stuffed every hospital-like contraption into the frame; Jeffrey’s father seems beset by many illnesses. Lynch holds the shot of the […]
