Columns
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“The Brightest Light of a Shot Doesn’t Always Have to Be on the Actor’s Face”: DP Matthew Libatique on The Prom
Matthew Libatique likes to say that sometimes lighting needs to be the lead guitarist and sometimes it needs to be the drummer. The Prom is definitely a lead guitarist kind of movie. An adaptation of the popular musical, The Prom follows four Broadway personalities (Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman and Andrew Rannells) hoping to boost their careers by descending on small town Indiana as “celebrity activists” in service of the cause of a gay student banned from attending the titular bash with her partner of choice. With the movie now streaming on Netflix, Libatique talked with Filmmaker about working with […]
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“Almost the Entire Movie is Shot on Steadicam but You’d Never Know It”: John Patrick Shanley on Wild Mountain Thyme
As a writer (Moonstruck) and director (Joe Versus the Volcano), John Patrick Shanley has created some of the funniest, most compassionate, and original romantic comedies of the past 35 years, which makes his return to the genre with Wild Mountain Thyme cause for major celebration. Adapting his play Outside Mullingar, Shanley has created his most lyrical and complex film to date, and his most moving. Jamie Dornan and Emily Blunt play Anthony and Rosemary, would-be lovers who have grown up together on neighboring Irish farms without acknowledging their mutual attraction—mostly due to introvert Anthony’s hopeless awkwardness. Anthony’s father (Christopher Walken) […]
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“Every Day There’s Less People Who Really Know How to Handle Film and Do Focus for Film”: DP Newton Thomas Sigel on Da 5 Bloods
There’s something circular to the idea of Newton Thomas Sigel shooting firefights in the jungle on 16mm. It’s how Sigel’s career began, hauling gear into Central American combat zones as a photojournalist and documentarian in the 1980s. His first narrative as a cinematographer, Latino, was set during the Contra War in Nicaragua. His first studio break came with a 2nd Unit gig on Oliver Stone’s Platoon. Sigel’s latest, Da 5 Bloods, finds him back in the jungle, 16mm camera in hand. Filmed over three months in Vietnam and Thailand and directed by Spike Lee, Da 5 Bloods follows four of the […]
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Back to One, Episode 136: Justine Lupe
Willa on Succession, Astrid on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Jade on Younger, Holly on Mr. Mercedes, all characters brought to life by the great actor Justine Lupe, with all their quirks and nuances rooted in a reality that makes them seem to go on living outside the frame. On this episode, she takes us back to her time at Juilliard where she enjoyed the bootcamp-like training that suited her all-in approach to the work. She talks about growing to appreciate all kinds of directors, the importance of bonding with the camera operator, and shares her incomprehensible, hieroglyphic-like script marking technique […]
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Back to One, Episode 135: Tuppence Middleton
English actor Tuppence Middleton is on a steady, slow rise and that seems to suit her just fine. On this side of the pond she’s perhaps best known for playing Riley Blue on the Netflix sci-fi series Sense8 and Lucy Smith in the Downton Abbey movie, but you’d be foolish not to seek out her work in Trap For Cinderella and War and Peace. Now she’s part of the impressive ensemble in David Fincher’s latest film Mank. She plays “Poor Sara” Mankiewicz, wife of the alcoholic co-writer of Citizen Kane, played by Gary Oldman. I ask her about working with […]
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Back to One, Episode 134: Aubrey Plaza
From Parks And Recreation to Legion, from indie film queen to The Happiest Season, Aubrey Plaza is not done surprising us. Everybody’s favorite late-night talk-show guest and hilarious awards-show host rarely gets to show off the serious roots of her acting chops. Enter Black Bear. The Sundance hit from Lawrence Michael Levine stars Plaza as a former actress on a writing retreat opposite Christopher Abbott and Sarah Gadon. Further description is not only pointless, it can be detrimental to your enjoyment of the film. Let’s just say it’s worth your time, in large part because of the emotional territory Plaza […]
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Back to One, Episode 133: Kevin Corrigan
It’s become a tradition to have actor’s actor Kevin Corrigan on the show every year. This is his third visit (his first two episodes are #1 an #67). Sitting down with the wise sage of indie film always ends up being both a reset and recharge. He has a way of speaking about this art that helps bring us back to the root of what it’s all about: connection, empathy, being alive. In this hour, he tells us about a life-changing event that happened right after wrapping work on the Showtime series Ray Donovan, and how the effects reverberate throughout […]
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“It Came Out of Feeling Like I Didn’t Actually See Myself in the Movies…”: Claudia Weill on Girlfriends
Claudia Weill is a director whose work meant so much to me at such a formative age that I was almost hesitant to interview her; the two features she directed, Girlfriends (1978) and It’s My Turn (1980) spoke to me on such a profoundly personal level that I feared speaking with her could only be a disappointing experience—either because she wouldn’t live up to my image of her or because I would be so intimidated that I’d turn into a blabbering idiot. One of Weill’s many talents is to create work so intimate and precise that it always feels like […]
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“The Hardest Thing to Do is to Pick Up the Dolly Track When the Shot’s Not Right”: Max Winkler on Jungleland
A lot of filmmakers point to the New Hollywood movies of the 1970s as influences, but few directors have internalized and applied the lessons of the era as effectively as Max Winkler, whose new feature Jungleland recalls seminal studies of masculinity in crisis like John Huston’s Fat City and Hal Ashby’s The Last Detail. The movie follows bare-knuckle brawler Lion (Jack O’Connell) and his older brother Stanley (Charlie Hunnam), broke siblings looking for a way out of their desperate circumstances. They think they’ve found it when a local underworld figure offers to clear their debts if they chaperone a young […]
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Back to One, Episode 132: Ruth Wilson
With mesmerizing performances in such series as Luther, Mrs. Wilson, and The Affair, Ruth Wilson has established herself as one of our great actors. Her latest is the deliciously sinister Marisa Coulter on the hit fantasy series His Dark Materials. In this episode she explains the fascinating way she’s been able to build the multi-dimensional aspects of that character, and the challenge of hitting the proper balance when playing such a larger-than-life villain. She talks about the meditative aspect to her process, the invigorating power she gets from the theater, and how the energy of the audience affects her performance […]
