Interviews
Interviews
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Back to One Special Episode: Mike Leigh
For one year now on this podcast, I have talked to dozens and dozens of actors about their approach to the craft of acting. There are few living non-actor directors whose thoughts on this subject I feel would be worthy for this archive. Mike Leigh is on the top of that list. Listening to actors talk about their working experiences has made me think of an analogy. They are like fish people, showing up on a set expecting some water to work in but mostly finding dry land everywhere, and, for the most part, having to supply the water themselves. […]
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“When They Think They’re Safe, That’s When You Get Them”: Pet Sematary Directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer on Revisiting Stephen King’s Most Unsettling Novel
I first watched Pet Sematary on a family vacation when I was 11 years old—well, watched may be a bit of an exaggeration. My older sister and I made it through the second appearance of Pascow’s rotting corpse before we retreated beneath the hotel bed’s comforter. I eventually braved the entirety on my 13thbirthday, a memorable sleepover double feature with The Fly II. No movie ever scared me more than Pet Sematary. But while other horror flicks that sent me scuttling under the blankets as a kid now seem almost comically unthreatening in adulthood—your Silver Bullets and My Bloody Valentines—the themes of […]
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“There’s a Vulnerability That Can Isolate Us, Whether We’re in an Era of Analog Connectivity or Virtual…”: Five Questions for Colewell Writer/Director Tom Quinn
Receiving its world premiere tomorrow in the Launch section of the 2019 SFFILM Festival, Tom Quinn’s sophomore feature Colewell stars Karen Allen, whose filmography runs from intimate dramas to some of contemporary cinema’s biggest blockbusters, as a clerk in a small town post office whose way of life — and, actually, her life itself — are imperiled when her branch is scheduled for closure. Inspired, as Quinn relates below, from learning of an instance in which a town was literally erased from a map, Colewell is a gentle, melancholic film, one inflected by bursts of real anger and sorrow, that […]
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“I Don’t Want to be Brought on to This Just Because I’m a Female…”: Emma Tammi on Directing Her Horror Western, The Wind
It’s not until you approach a genre of film from a new perspective, and as filmmaker Emma Tammi puts it, flip “the camera 180 degrees,” that you see how one-sided that genre’s films have been. In her narrative feature debut The Wind, out now in theaters, Tammi brings a unique point-of-view to the 1800s American frontier story and all of its psychological terrors. Combining well-crafted scares with the complexity of Teresa Sutherland’s script, the film takes us on a journey of solitude, loss and the demons that can be dredged up in the Wild West. Lizzy (a wonderful Caitlin Gerard), […]
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Yuen Woo-Ping on Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy, Dave Bautista and Martial Arts Cinema
Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy (2019) closes out Yuen Woo-ping’s fifth decade in martial arts filmmaking. It is an astonishing run in which he helped launch the careers of Jackie Chan (Drunken Master, 1978) and Donnie Yen (Drunken Tai Chi, 1984), while shaping the style of Hollywood action for a generation with his fight choreography for The Matrix (1999). Master Z is a spinoff of the Donnie Yen-led Ip Man franchise, following Cheung Tin-chi (Max Zhang), a kung fu master humbled by a loss to Ip Man who tries to rebuild his life as a grocery store vendor. Of […]
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“He Stays the Strongest Because He Has This Unquenchable Love in His Heart”: Writer/Director Camille Vidal-Naquete and Actor Félix Maritaud on Sauvage/Wild
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 […]
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The Sound of a Panic Attack: Composer Keegan DeWitt on Her Smell
What does self-destruction sound like? In Her Smell, the sixth film from Alex Ross Perry, it takes many forms: a nasty laugh, a frenetic synth loop, a warble of radio static. The sounds come hard and relentless. A raw sound wave, warped to mimic the syncopations of a demented drum machine, serves as its palpitating heartbeat. For reasons I can’t fully explain, it’s a sound that induces instant anxiety. Her Smell sounds, and unfolds, like a panic attack. The urge to self-destruct hounds its central character, Becky Something (Elisabeth Moss), just as music dogs viewers for most of its 134 […]
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Back to One, Episode 53: Michael K. Williams
The actor Michael K. Williams died yesterday at the age of 54. We are revisiting here his 2019 interview with Peter Rinaldi, in which he spoke about many things, including his first time auditioning for The Wire and the role of Omar. R.I.P. Michael K. Williams. — Editor 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 […]
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At The Mercy Of The Sun: Cinematographer Fan Chao On Shooting An Elephant Sitting Still
There’s an elephant at a circus in Manzhouli that sits and won’t move.“Perhaps some people keep stabbing it with forks,” Yu Cheng muses to his close friend’s wife, but the elephant still won’t budge. This is one of four characters whose lives eventually intersect en route to the seated behemoth. In the bleak mining city of the late writer/director Hu Bo’s slow epic An Elephant Sitting Still, people tend to linger as they’re being hurt too, in spite of the obvious exits that beckon them. Somewhere in the time it takes to endure this 230 minute trial of misanthropy, you […]
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“… When you’re a Niche Filmmaker in a World That’s Not Always as Openminded as You Might Like”: CineKink Artist Spotlight Award Recipient Jennifer Lyon Bell on Her Art Porn Career
This year CineKink NYC will be celebrating its upcoming sweet sixteen edition of the fest (April 3-7) by adding something new: the CineKink Artist Spotlight award. And in town to receive the honor — and premiere her latest Adorn, along with its making-of documentary, as well as host her “From Fantasy to Film: Design Your Own Porn Film” workshop — will be Amsterdam-based Jennifer Lyon Bell, no stranger to the kinky fest. Indeed, Bell has been screening her work at CineKink since 2006, racking up awards while making connections she cites as integral to her longevity in a notoriously difficult […]
