Interviews
Interviews
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Breaking Character: Josephine Decker Talks to Mike Mills about Madeline’s Madeline
Madeline (Helena Howard) has a hospital bracelet on her wrist and a rehearsal to go to. One of the questions fueling Madeline’s Madeline, Josephine Decker’s third feature as a solo director, is how two of the biggest elements of Madeline’s life — some unspecified form of mental instability and her promise as a young actress — interact, or if they even can safely. Howard’s breakout performance as the troubled thespian is part of an unusual triangle. At one point is her mother Regina (the writer, actress and performance artist Miranda July), whose protective custody of her unstable daughter is unreadable: justifiable […]
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Notes on Camp: Desiree Akhavan on The Miseducation of Cameron Post, ADR Rewriting and 4 Non Blondes’ “What’s Up”
In Desiree Akhavan’s feature debut, Appropriate Behavior, the cowriter/director was front and center as Shirin, a young, bisexual Persian Brooklynite trying to figure out how to live her life, one sexually impulsive bad decision at a time. It was in keeping with the of-the-moment nature of The Slope, Akhavan’s reputation-making 2011 web series about a year in a lesbian couple’s New York relationship, in which she again costarred. Her sophomore feature, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, tackles new territory: It’s Akhavan’s first time working from an adaptation, first period piece and first time staying offscreen in her work. Miseducation was […]
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Complicated Grief: Ari Aster on Hereditary‘s Family Nightmare
There are films that scare you, and then there are films that do something more. The former are easy to name—maybe you remember a particular jump scare or chilling scene—but the latter are more difficult to describe. These are films that dig deep into your subconscious, films that identify a weakness or fear and prey upon that with their cinematic imagination. You’ll remember scenes from these movies in detail, too, but also how old you were, and where you were, and what was going on in your life when you saw them. You’ll remember how they made you feel, and […]
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My Life… As I Repressed It: Writer/Director Jennifer Fox on Her Explosive New Film about Sexual Abuse, The Tale
In 1992, award-winning documentary filmmaker Jennifer Fox began round-the-clock filming of an interracial couple living with their two daughters in Flushing, Queens. Over 17 months she accumulated over 1,000 hours of footage documenting their daily lives. In 1997 An American Love Story aired as a nine-hour miniseries on PBS, described by The New York Times as “the most ambitious, exhaustive documentary about private life since An American Family.” The film, as I recall it 20 years later, was an enthralling and intense examination of love, middle-class aspirations, race relations and the failings of America to create a truly integrated society. […]
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“This Kind of Storytelling with Real People is Social Experimentation”: Marcus Lindeen on his CPH:DOX-Winning Conceptual Doc, The Raft
Reposted here from its original publication following last year’s CPH:DOX — where the film won the top prize — is Pamela Cohn’s intensive interview with director Marcus Lindeen about his provocative non-fiction experiment, The Raft. The documentary opens tomorrow for a run at New York’s Metrograph, with Lindeen and various commentators and critics appearing at the various screenings. Swedish artist, writer and director Marcus Lindeen stepped into documentary filmmaking with a very specific method in mind as to how he wanted to frame people’s stories. His particular obsession within the context of nonfiction is in the performative aspects of insinuating […]
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Back to One: Margaret and Nancy Star J. Smith-Cameron on Stage, Screen and Her “Inner Actor”
The brilliant J. Smith-Cameron blew us away in Margaret (written and directed by her husband, Kenneth Lonergan) and in the acclaimed series Rectify. Currently she’s starring in the new play Peace For Mary Frances (with Lois Smith), and the praiseworthy film Nancy (written and directed by Christina Choe and co-staring Andrea Riseborough and Steve Buscemi), which opens Friday June 8th. We talk extensively about her work in the latest two pieces and how her desire for rehearsal is sometimes satisfied in a roundabout way on a TV shoot. She also shares what she does right before she steps on the […]
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DP Larkin Seiple Breaks Down Every Shot from Childish Gambino’s “This Is America “
Since its May 5th launch, Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” video has been viewed more than 215 million times on YouTube, a testament to the power of the internet as mass medium. According to Variety, the average ticket price for the first quarter of 2018 is $9.16; using that math, a music video shot in two days with nine rolls of film has been viewed by as many people as Avengers: Infinity War. “I was a bit shocked at the scale and speed of the reaction. It was released on a Saturday evening and on Sunday morning I woke up to […]
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“I Never Want To Be Someone Who’s Just In a Film So They Can Sell It”: Sylvia Chang on Driving Scenes, First-Time Directors and Her New Film Love Education
As a singer, actress, writer, and director, Sylvia Chang has been at the forefront of Asian culture since the 1970s. She has worked with directors like King Hu, Tsui Hark, Johnnie To and Jia Zhangke, and directed several of her own features. Chang is the subject of a 15-movie retrospective at the Metrograph running May 18–27. Along with films she directed, including Murmur of the Heart and 20 30 40, the series includes Shanghai Blues; That Day, on the Beach; Mountains May Depart, and Office, a musical based on her stage play Design for Living. Chang spoke with Filmmaker Magazine after the New York […]
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“Sprinkling a Little ‘Stacey’ On It”: Director Stacey K. Black on How to Excel at Directing Episodic Television
Directing episodic television can be one of the most challenging forms of filmmaking. A tricky balancing act is required by having to simultaneously meet the expectations of the audience, the demands of the network and showrunner, and the desires and opinions of actors and crew, who have been on the show for years — and all while providing a distinctive enough point of view so as to make one’s self essential to the process (and thus get asked back to direct more episodes). Few directors have managed to navigate the intersection between personal expression and mass entertainment as well as […]
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“It Went from ‘He Can’t Breathe’ to ‘He is Really Cold'”: Director Joe Penna on his Cannes Survival Drama, Arctic
Los Angeles-based writer/director Joe Penna has made a name for himself in the YouTube world with his popular channel MysteryGuitarMan. Combining his passion for music and stop-motion animation, the channel, now over ten years old, boasts 2.8 million subscribers and over 400 million views. Videos such as “Guitar Impossible” have screened at the Guggenheim Museum. In addition to his many commercials for top brands, the native Brazilian gained further attention for his short films, including Instant Getaway, that was produced by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer and Turning Point and was selected to play at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. […]
