Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Why I Will Not Put My Film Online: A Filmmaker’s Response to Covid-19
Back in the days when I used to distribute avant-garde cinema on home video, I asked my friend George Kuchar about releasing Hold Me While I’m Naked and a few other of his classic films on DVD. “I can’t let you do that, Noel!” he explained. “You see, my films are legendary because nobody can see them. If someone could just go out and rent one, they’d find out they stink. I’ve got to maintain the legend!” George was sort of joking. But there was a kernel of truth in his statement. Kuchar might have been wrong that his films […]
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The Imperative to Hire Black and POC Filmmakers within the Documentary Community: A Conversation with Brown Girls Doc Mafia Founder Iyabo Boyd
Alongside the current Black Lives Matter protests following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and others has come renewed acknowledgement that in the documentary and media worlds Black and POC voices and points of view have been historically underrepresented — a lack that has resulted often in skewed, racially biased or simply misinformed coverage. So, as media outlets, mainstream and alternative, cover the protests and their political and social impact, it’s critical that these voices are included behind the camera, in the form of directors, cinematographers, producers, reporters and in decision making roles as executives, funders and […]
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An Unmarried Woman, Urban Cowboy and Pretty in Pink: Jim Hemphill’s Home Video Recommendations
The best films of writer-director Paul Mazursky feel like small miracles, movies that are carefully crafted yet give the impression of life caught on the fly; they have the enthusiasm and audacity of Mazursky’s idol Fellini, but their subjects are almost entirely, gloriously American and their harsh truths are presented in a warm comic voice that is as accessible to mainstream audiences as it is sophisticated. His 1978 dramedy An Unmarried Woman is a case in point, a picture that was a box office smash (after being turned down by financiers all over Hollywood) yet still manages to deliver the […]
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War of the Worlds, Time after Time and Legacies: Jim Hemphill’s Home Video Recommendations
In the 19 years since 9/11, no American director has responded to and examined the causes, impact, and aftermath of that day as rigorously and repeatedly as Steven Spielberg, which is ironic given how rarely his films are actually set in the present day. With a couple notable exceptions, all of Spielberg’s films since 9/11 take place in either the future (Minority Report, Ready Player One) or the past (Munich, Lincoln, Bridge of Spies, etc.). Yet his work couldn’t be more relevant or engaged with contemporary social and political issues; every single one of Spielberg’s post-A.I. movies is as much […]
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Maniac, Flashdance and Fatal Attraction: Jim Hemphill’s Home Video Picks
In late 1979, Joe Spinell was a successful character actor who had appeared in major films by Coppola, Friedkin, Scorsese and Mazursky, but he wanted to go beyond supporting work to make a name for himself as a horror icon. His friend William Lustig was a 24-year old movie fanatic who had directed a couple of adult films and was hungry to graduate to mainstream features. Joining forces with producer Andrew Garroni, Lustig and Spinell scraped together $48,000 and started making Maniac, an extremely unpleasant – and extremely effective – study of a psychotic loner on a killing spree. They […]
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Canon Reformation (4): Vanilla Sky, Dig!
Low on the list of “unexpected things in the last two months that wouldn’t have occurred under pre-pandemic circumstances” but still notable: Rachel Handler publishing a long interview on Vulture with Cameron Crowe about Vanilla Sky. This is an infamously unloved movie, the beginning of Crowe’s decadent phase when he (unjustly) became something of a punchline, and regardless any retrospective defense/look back would logically happen next December, in time for the 20th anniversary. The current prompt, of course, is the eerie opening of Tom Cruise running through a totally empty Times Square, which, as they say, hits different now: “We were […]
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The Great Escape, “Tell Me” on Criterion Channel, and More: Jim Hemphill’s Home Video Recommendations
The Great Escape was a dream project for director John Sturges for years before the success of The Magnificent Seven finally enabled him to make it in 1962, and the countless hours he spent thinking about and planning the WWII epic are evident in every flawless shot. The true story of a group of Allied officers who plan and execute a daring escape from a Nazi POW camp, The Great Escape is an exhilarating celebration of ingenuity and skill by a director who honors his characters with some awfully impressive skill of his own. The movie is 172 minutes but […]
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Sundance Institute Announces 22 Documentary Fund Grantees
The Sundance Institute announced today the 22 projects from filmmakers all over the world that will receive funding from its Documentary Fund. Filmmakers from 19 countries with projects in all stages of production will receive unrestricted grant support totaling $525,000. “At Sundance Institute, we know that these unprecedented times demand creative and nimble support,” said Documentary Film Program interim Director, Kristin Feeley, and Documentary Film Fund Director, Hajnal Molnar-Szakacs in a press release. “We’re fortunate to have a collaborative and strong network of partners that allow us to ensure material support for these filmmakers as they develop bold new work, […]
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Watch: David Lynch’s 2015 Short Fire (Pożar)
David Lynch has kept typically busy during his quarantine, giving interviews about abusive workplaces and alluding to a variety of personal art projects he’s focused on. Just posted online to his YouTube channel, the animated short film Fire (Pożar) is not one of those projects but a 2015 short previously only shown at a USC concert. “The whole point of our experiment was that I would say nothing about my intentions and [Polish-American composer] Marek [Zebrowski] would interpret the visuals in his own way,” Lynch said at the time. “So I say it was a great successful experiment, and I loved the […]
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Quarantine Reading: David Mamet’s Three Uses of the Knife
As a publication about film, we find ourselves in the peculiar position of publishing during a moment when theatrical access to movies, and their ongoing future, is as much in question as everything else. During this suspension of normal filmwatching habits, we’ve reached out to contributors, filmmakers and friends, inviting them to find an alternate path to the movies by participating in a writing exercise engaging with any book about or lightly intersecting with film, in whatever way makes sense to them. Today: Brendan Byrne on David Mamet’s Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama. The […]
