Filmmaking

AT SUNDANCE: RECURRING REFRAINS

Cinema is full of failed literary adaptations, attempts by famous directors to translate the work of their favorite novelists into images and screen action. Most of these films crash, however, by the sheer weight of their ambition. Tackling a writer’s best known book, they invariably disappoint his or her hardcore partisans when what’s particularly riveting about the work becomes less interesting when it’s visualized. Japanese director Jun Ichikawa avoided all of the Great Author-to-Film pitfalls with his Tony Takitani, an adaptation of a story by the great Haruki Murakami. Not so much a film as a celluloid ode to Murakami […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 27, 2005 Filmmaking
AT SUNDANCE: SINGLE ROOM OCCUPANCIES

Saw back to back screenings in the Sundance “experimental” Frontier section to kick off my festival moviewatching this year. Frequently ignored by most industry, the Frontier section always contains a few real discoveries by filmmakers the fest tags as “experimental” but who will go on to make the mark in the indie scene. A few years ago J.T. Petty debuted his chillingly simple near-silent ghost story Soft for Digging in the section and last year Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation screened there as well. This year the Frontier “filmmaker to watch” may be Kyle Henry, whose Room is an excellently directed and […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 27, 2005 Filmmaking
SOCIAL ACTIVITY ACCOUNTS

For years, the only op-ed conservative voice I’ve enjoyed has been William Safire’s at the New York Times, and this is despite the fact that I disagree with many of his positions. So, I took note of the columnist’s four-piece departure in the Paper of Record this past Monday and recommend, while it’s still free, this final column and thoughtful discussion of the need for perpetual personal change. Writes Safire: Combine those two bits of counsel – never retire, but plan to change your career to keep your synapses snapping – and you can see the path I’m now taking. […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 26, 2005 Filmmaking
AT SUNDANCE: “THEY MAY AS WELL SALUTE AL QAEDA…”

“They may as well salute Al Qaeda,” a guy sitting behind me at the 40 Shades of Blue press screening quite sincerely grumbled after seeing one of the “Independent” mini-trailers that precede all of the screenings here. These short films, which basically serve as cinematic headers for a credit roll of festival sponsors, occupy a strange place in the festival each year. They’re intended to be amusing but innocuous — little film tidbits to reinforce the idea that “You are at a Film Festival!” — but their sheer repetition invariably transforms them into gauche cinematic eyesores by festival’s end. This […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 23, 2005 Filmmaking
MURAKAMI MOVIE

A little over a year ago Filmmaker ran a feature entitled “Who Inspires Us?” [Summer 2004] in which we asked filmmakers to list current inspirations on their own work. Manito director Eric Eason cited the Japanese author Haruki Murakami, who was actually a recommendation to him from our own Managing Editor Matt Ross. Anyway, I hadn’t read any of Murakami’s work but the citing stuck in my head and I wound up buying his The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle this fall at a time when I particularly needed something great to read. 600-plus pages later I’m a die-hard Murakami fan, and […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 19, 2005 Filmmaking
TAKE THAT BACK!

At Filmmaker we’ve been trying to figure out editorial synergies between our daily blog and our quarterly magazine, but the below is not exactly what we had in mind. In the issue of the magazine that comes off the press today, attorneys Steven Beer and Maria Miles haved penned an article explaining the new Federal tax breaks for independent film, hailing it as a landmark windfall for independent film producers and investors. Today via Variety comes this disappointing article by William Triplett titled “Congress likely to take back indie tax break.” “Possibly as soon as next month, Congress will consider […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 19, 2005 Filmmaking
BOCCO LANDS AT GERSH

We were happy to read via Variety that former Miramax acquisitions exec Arianna Bocco, who recently left the company, has landed at Gershs’ New York office where she will head “an independent feature film packaging unit” with a special emphasis on bringing international filmmakers into the Gersh fold. An admirably straight shooter in the tangled world of acquisitions, Bocco was a tenacious exec for both Miramax and her previous employer, New Line, and worked on such films as City of God.

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 18, 2005 Filmmaking
DEEP INSIDE PARK CITY REAL ESTATE

The enterprising and publicity-savvy filmmaking duo of Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato have an entertaining Web site up for their Sundance entry Inside Deep Throat, a Brian Grazer-produced doc on the infamous porn film (number 50 on Filmmaker magazine’s “50 Most Important Independent Films” list almost a decade ago) that will hit theaters this spring. The directors post a blog on the site as well as some interesting links, the most fascinating of which is this link to local Park City paper The Park Record. Titled “Sundance documentary reveals local’s role in Deep Throat,” the article is a portrait of […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 17, 2005 Filmmaking
THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER

I know as a blogger I’m supposed to ferret out obscure links from publications you’ve never heard of. But here I go again — two links in a row from the New York Times. Still, if you’re a producer you’ll be interested in this sobering piece about Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney’s Section 8, proving that the producing biz is a tough one even if you’re an Oscar-winning director and matinee-idol movie star. An excerpt: “[Says Soderbergh,] ‘I think you could make an argument that it is not important to have too much taste as a producer if you are […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 17, 2005 Filmmaking
WHAT IS IT? CLICK HERE…

Actor and director Crispin Glover has a Web site up for his latest feature What is It?, which looks like one particularly bizarre and interesting entry in what seems like a very strong Park City at Midnight lineup. (I’ve seen Old Boy, and it’s pretty great, and while I’ll write more about David Slade’s Hard Candy later, I have a feeling that by fest’s end folks will both be wondering why it wasn’t in Competition and will be shortlisting actress Ellen Page as a future star.) [N.B. the Quicktime movie trailer on Glover’s site doesn’t always work, possibly due to […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 16, 2005 Filmmaking

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