Columns
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The Thrill of the Chase: Cinematographer Joe Anderson on Capturing Robert Redford’s Ride into the Sunset in The Old Man & the Gun
Robert Redford’s final day on David Lowery’s The Old Man and the Gun — perhaps his final day as an actor on any movie set — found him in Texas. Though the amiable based-in-fact caper was shot largely in Ohio on 16mm, Redford’s dapper bank robber actually did most of his pillaging in Texas and its neighboring states. Thus a few pick-ups were needed — the last of which featured Redford’s Forrest Tucker phoning a widowed rancher he’s romancing. “There was a little bit of electricity in the air for that scene,” said cinematographer Joe Anderson. “The shot worked really […]
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Back to One, Episode 27: Thunder Road‘s Jim Cummings
Jim Cummings’ performance in the Sundance winning, one-shot short film Thunder Road was the talk of the indie film world in 2016. Then he turned it into a feature, and it won the Grand Jury Prize at the SXSW Film Festival. Now Cummings has decided to turn down less than thrilling distribution offers and make the risky decision to distribute Thunder Road himself. It was the right move. The film has not even hit American screens yet and it has already made its money back and more. He talks to me about “performing” the script into existence, mastering the long […]
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“Our Entire Moon Was Lit by One Single Lamp”: DP Linus Sandgren on First Man
In La La Land, cinematographer Linus Sandgren imbued the love story of two showbiz strivers with the opulent grandeur of the Golden Age Hollywood musical. First Man, which reteams Sandgren and La La Land director Damien Chazelle, presents the opposite challenge — reducing the mythic nature of mankind’s first voyage to the moon to something intimate, personal, and human. To do so, Sandgren eschewed the intricate, elegant long takes of La La Land in favor of an immersive cinéma vérité aesthetic inspired more by Pennebaker, Maysles and Wiseman than the sterile cosmic wonder of Kubrick. With First Man now out in […]
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“Imagine How Angels Would Look at Us”: Wim Wenders on Restoring Wings of Desire
As a longtime Wim Wenders fan and devoted admirer of his masterpiece Wings of Desire, I would never have thought it possible that the movie could look better than it did when it was released in 1987. Gorgeous in every sense of the word, from the shimmering black-and-white photography of Henri Alekan (the maestro behind Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast who Wenders prodded out of retirement to shoot the film) to the profoundly romantic story of an angel who wants to fall to earth and experience the human condition, Wings of Desire was a stunner when it came out […]
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Back to One, Episode 26: Private Life Breakthrough Kayli Carter
It’s difficult, right now, to find the words “Kayli Carter” without the word “breakthrough” nearby. The adjective refers to her brilliant performance in Tamara Jenkins’ Private Life, in which Carter unflappably shines next to her more seasoned co-stars Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti. She talks about the chemistry she had with those three, and about her formative experience with Mark Rylance in the play Nice Fish (including a 60-minute audition!), plus how she’s perfectly fine with passing on parts that do not depict young women as fully formed characters. Back To One can be found wherever you get your podcasts, […]
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Insecure DP Ava Berkofsky on Avoiding “Seinfeld Shots,” Faking Coachella and Lighting Mega-Churches
A row of symmetrically stacked airport luggage carts; the tumbling red-and-blue cylinders of a 7-Eleven Slurpee dispenser; the still life of neatly arranged condiments and coffee creamers on a diner countertop. While the romantically and professionally struggling twentysomethings that populate HBO’s Insecure make their share of pilgrimages to taco trucks, clubs, and even Coachella, it’s those tableaus of Los Angeles at its most quotidian that make the sprawling city feel as if it’s being viewed through a different lens. With the show’s third season recently wrapped up, cinematographer Ava Berkofsky spoke to Filmmaker about how she “makes L.A. feel like L.A.” […]
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Back to One, Episode 25: Private Life‘s Kathryn Hahn
Kathryn Hahn has joked about her plethora of “best friend or randy crazy lady” roles in comedies like How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days, Anchorman and Step Brothers. But recent projects by Jill Soloway (Afternoon Delight and I Love Dick) and Tamara Jenkins (the new Netflix film Private Life) have cast Hahn in the lead role, and suddenly we have an exciting leading lady who’s much more than a scene-stealer extraordinaire. She lets us in on a fascinating process she has for getting into the “I” of the character, talks about the road that lead to Private Life […]
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Remembering Chantal Akerman, 1950 – 2015
Director Chantal Akerman died three years ago today, and I wrote the following remembrance in the Filmmaker newsletter just a few days later but never posted it online. I wrote it from the Venice Biennale College Cinema, where I arrive again today. So, it seems fitting to remember Akerman once again by finally posting it here. (Photo above, taken on an 1MP digital camera at the Rotterdam Film Festival, 2001.) Here in Venice, on the small island of San Servolo, we were talking about Jeanne Dielman. Tom Quinn, one of the filmmakers attending the Biennale College Cinema, had included a […]
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Back to One Podcast, Episode 24: Nicolette Robinson
When Nicolette Robinson made her Broadway debut in September, taking over the lead role of Jenna in Waitress, she was not just fond of Sara Bareilles’ hit musical, she had been listening to the cast album cathartically as she went through emotional ups and downs in her own life. This might be part of why I found her “Jenna” so connected to the material, so alive. We talk about what led up to that Broadway debut night, stepping through the complex engulfing that is Hamilton (her husband Leslie Odom Jr. won a Tony for the musical), and what her inner […]
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Back to One Podcast: Taran Killam
The hilarious Taran Killam lets us peek under the hood of his comedic craft in this half hour. He stars in the new ABC series Single Parents (premiering September 26th) and the comedy Night School (opening September 28th) opposite Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish. He’s probably best known for his six years on Saturday Night Live. We talk about how that “bootcamp” prepared him for almost anything. But his talent goes beyond comedy. He writes, directs (check out his film Killing Gunther on demand), and sings (he was King George III in Hamilton). Plus he finally answers a question I […]
