Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Director Catherine Breillat on Sleeping Beauty
For many adults, The Sleeping Beauty, whether in Charles Perrault’s original telling or the Brothers Grimm’s, is the quintessential fairy tale. It has spawned countless retellings in the form of animated films, ballets, and children’s book adaptations. Now, iconoclastic director Catherine Breillat tackles the tale but on her own terms. For Breillat, The Sleeping Beauty is a doorway into the world of childhood fantasy in general as her young princess, cursed to die on her 16th birthday, travels through time and space, going on a series of adventures that underscore the fearlessness of a child’s imagination — and the adult […]
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Project Nim: An Interview with Director James Marsh
James Marsh first became a household name in the States after winning the 2009 Oscar for Best Documentary for his film Man on Wire, a “heist” picture about the French tightrope walker, Philippe Petit, who traversed a line between the twin towers in 1974. That film’s use of genre, its stylistic flair, and its fusion of fiction and documentary elements can be witnessed as early as Marsh’s 1999 film Wisconsin Death Trip, about the tragedies that befell a small town of Wisconsin at the turn of the 20th century. Marsh stays true to form in his latest documentary Project Nim […]
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Project Nim — A Hammer to Nail Review
(Project Nim is being distributed theatrically by Roadside Attractions. It opens in theaters July 8, 2011. Visit the film’s official website to learn more.) In December of 1973, a two-week old chimpanzee named Nim Chimpsky was taken from the arms of his mother and given to a human family in the hopes of settling a raging intellectual debate. In a famous study, the linguist (and now-famous political philosopher) Noam Chomsky had asserted that language acquisition was solely the domain of human beings, an innate quality existing within and discovered by humans through experience and exposure to language, which combined to […]
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JULY VOD CALENDAR
Now up on our VOD Calendar are titles available for the month of July. Some of the highlights: Duncan Jones‘ fantastic thriller Source Code, Cannes winner Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, David Robert Mitchell‘s impressive debut The Myth of the American Sleepover and Michael Tully‘s Southern Gothic tale Septien. For titles from previous months go to our VOD Calendar homepage.
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Dark Days — A Hammer to Nail Review
(The 10th anniversary of Dark Days will be re-released through Oscilloscope Laboratories beginning Friday.) Things keep happening that make me feel old. No I don’t have any major age-related illnesses. I haven’t been getting copies of AARP magazine in the mail. “Are you even 30 yet?” is still a legitimate question to ask me upon any encounter. For the record, I’m not (yet) 30, but still I can’t help getting the creeping sense that, in the words of LCD Soundsystem, “I’m losing my edge.” Upon learning that the Cinema Village was going to open British documentarian Marc Singer’s seminal 2000 […]
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SUNDANCE DIRECTOR’S LAB BLOG: KASI LEMMONS, PART 2
Filmmaker Kasi Lemmons (Talk to Me, The Caveman’s Valentine, Eve’s Bayou) attended this year’s Sundance Director’s Lab as an advisor, and here is a blog report about her experience. I’ve been back in Manhattan for a few days, but my head is still on the Mountain. I’m thinking about the fellows, who are shooting and editing their final scenes. The progress and maturity of vision that I witnessed while I was there was incredible. I saw the filmmakers grow and stretch and discover themselves in the process. The rigorous shooting schedule taught them how to organize their day so that […]
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TIM HETHERINGTON TRIBUTE AT HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FESTIVAL
I didn’t know Tim Hetherington very well, but like everyone who had encountered the critically acclaimed photojournalist, either in person or through his incredible work, I was stunned when I heard about his death while covering the uprisings in Libya. Last summer I had the great privilege of interviewing Hetherington and his co-director Sebastian Junger for Filmmaker magazine prior to the release of their Academy Award-nominated Restrepo, and the two struck me as polar opposites. Whereas bestselling author and journalist Junger seemed cut from the same passionate, gung-ho cloth as many of the patriotic men and women who serve in […]
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Director Robert Persons on General Orders No. 9
Much can be made of duration. The long stretches of time presaging the releases of Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut or, more recently, Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, lent each film a preordained measure of value. Yet, those films were helmed by directors with celebrated careers and reputations for being perfectionists. So it comes as an anomaly that General Orders No. 9, premiering at the reRun Gastropub Theater on June 24th, took first-time filmmaker Robert Persons 11 years to make. General Orders No. 9 is a person-less documentary about Georgia’s ongoing process of urbanization. A synthesis of voiceover, music, […]
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General Orders No. 9 — A Hammer to Nail Review
(General Orders No. 9 is being distributed theatrically by Variance Films. It opens at the reRun Gastropub in New York City on June 24, 2011. Visit the film’s official website to learn more.) Deer trail becomes Indian trail becomes County road. General Orders No. 9 is one of those films where the adjectives used to describe it—dense, meditative, reflective, confounding—are intended as compliments, yet they will be mistaken by many for pejoratives. And while it would be stubborn and ignorant to think that everyone will respond to it with open arms, its refusal to speak to anyone except itself is […]
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FCP X – First Musings
Final Cut Pro X (version 10.0) arrived 8:30 a.m. yesterday morning at the App Store for $299, unleashing torrents of criticism about missing features and a perceived drift from professional product to one that consumers might find friendlier. So far, so good. Let me explain. I, too, had an advance copy (version 9.9.1.77) and wrestled to overcome personal expectations of what a 64-bit next-gen Final Cut should be, given the countless hours of my life spent in front of this revolutionary NLE since it first introduced us to FireWire and DV editing back in 1999. As I wrote last night […]
