Bad Lieutenant was the cover story for the Winter, 1993 edition of Filmmaker — this magazine’s second issue. This feature by Scott Macaulay, with quotes from director Abel Ferrara and screenwriter Zoë Lund, appears online for the first time. ***“No one can kill me. I’m blessed. I’m a fucking Catholic.” — Harvey Keitel in Bad Lieutenant. “The title is so ironic, Bad Lieutenant. Because of course it doesn’t mean he’s bad. You have the semantic irony of the “baaad” lieutenant and the central irony of ‘Is he bad or is he not bad and perhaps one needs to be bad […]

Leo (Félix Maritaud) never counts his money after he’s with a client. The gay sex worker at the center of Camille Vidal-Naquet’s film Sauvage/Wild is, honestly, happy to be there. Drifting from client to client and from place to place, the homeless hustler has one constant that is quickly disappearing: his unrequited feelings for fellow hustler (though “gay 4 pay”), Ahd (Éric Bernard). Leo’s intense yearning for human connection and affection, mixed with his somewhat paradoxical disinclination to be “kept” in a (facile) domestic situation, and ailing body but unrelenting spirit, are reminiscent of Giulietta Masina in Federico Fellini’s Nights […]

He brought to life one of the most iconic TV characters this century, Omar Little on the acclaimed series The Wire. Then Michael K. Williams went on to work with some of the great directors of our day (Steve McQueen, Paul Thomas Anderson, Ava DuVernay, Todd Solondz) and turned in powerful work in series like Boardwalk Empire (where he played Chalky White) and The Night of, to name a few. He’s earning rave reviews for his latest performance in Emilio Estevez’s The Public. In this episode, he talks about one particular “all-in” moment during the filming of that movie, also […]

As codirector Sofia Bohdanowicz has delightedly noted, MS Slavic 7 has caused a minor flutter of interest among the Extremely Online Librarian community, amazed that anyone would make a film titled after a call number at Harvard’s Houghton Library.  That collection, from the papers of the Nobel-nominated poet Józef Wittlin, includes two dozen-odd letters sent to him by his fellow poet and fellow Polish exile Zofia Bohdanowiczowa, Bohdanowicz’s great-grandmother and namesake. Within the world of MS Slavic 7, though, Bohdanowiczowa is the grandmother of Audrey, the character played by Deragh Campbell. Audrey is a recurring character in what now must […]

She’s perhaps best known for playing one of modern television’s baddest villains, “Vee” on Orange Is The New Black. And now with NBC’s The Village premiering last week, both Fast Color and the new season of Into The Badlands premiering this week, plus Julie Taymor’s The Glorias wrapping this month, all featuring the incredible Lorraine Toussaint, we might as well call this period “The Lorrainaissance.” In this half hour she takes a break from the hubbub and takes us deep into her process, her “almost schizo” embodiment of characters, what she needs on set, and what it means to live […]

His portrayal of Lola, the drag queen in Kinky Boots, put Chiwetel Ejiofor on the map, then his astonishing performance in 12 Years A Slave made him a household name. Roles in The Martian, Doctor Strange, and the under-appreciated Z for Zachariah followed. Now he has written, directed and stars in The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind, which is in select theaters and on Netflix. He talks about the art of wearing many hats, directing the extremely gifted young Maxwell Simba in his first film role, and the effort he took to not shortchange his own character. Back To One […]

For several years Christopher Doyle has been a fixture at Camerimage, the annual festival in Bydgoszcz, Poland, devoted to cinematography. This past November he was especially busy, hosting two panels called “The Language of Cinema Is Images” with his friend and colleague Ed Lachman. Extending over six hours, these were a chance for Doyle, Lachman, and their guests to share stories, give advice, and question each other about style and technique. The panels were also an opportunity for Doyle to screen some examples of his work. Leslie Cheung dancing to “Perfidia” in Wong Kar Wai’s Days of Being Wild. A […]

“My life is not what one would term heroic.”  The narrator of Romina Paula’s second novel, August, returns to her home town in Patagonia to memorialize a childhood friend five years after his death. Emilia’s in her early 20s and has been living with her brother in Buenos Aires. She’s still in college; her boyfriend is in a band. Once back home, she reunites with the love of her youth, Julián, who is now a father, married, somewhat happily. Emilia’s a familiar character making familiar first steps into adulthood, but Paula heightens every sensation and plumbs every potential cliché for […]

If you didn’t know Imogen Poots was British, it is understandable. Few young actors transform so chameleon-like, role-to-role, applying accents so skillfully. I was first wowed by her in Peter Bogdanovich’s She’s Funny That Way and then I actually didn’t even know it was her in Green Room until I saw the credits. She floored me again in Frank and Lola opposite Michael Shannon, in an entirely different kind of role. Now she plays a drifter with questionable parenting skills, who steers into escalating trouble in Mobile Homes, and by the end of the movie her performance wrecked me. In […]

Ethan Hawke’s “staying power” is grounded in hard work. He survived being the poster child of Generation X (Reality Bites), and thrived as Richard Linklater’s go-to actor (The Before Trilogy, Boyhood) and always returns to the true home of the actor–the theater (he’s currently starring in True West on Broadway). Now he has delivered one of the most critically acclaimed performances of the year in Paul Schrader’s First Reformed. He generously shares the wisdom and knowledge he’s acquired over the years as an actor, and is extremely eloquent when doing so. In this episode, he talks about the importance of […]