Interviews
Interviews
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Director/DP Nanfu Wang on Sundance Doc Hooligan Sparrow and the Perils of Political Filmmaking in China
Nanfu Wang makes her debut as a feature film director and cinematographer in Hooligan Sparrow, a documentary profile of human rights activist Ye Haiyan. The film, which participated in IFP’s Filmmaker Lab and the Sundance Institute’s Creative Producing Summit and Lab, is the work of a self-proclaimed “one-woman-band.” Here, Wang discusses her many run-ins with government agents and the intimidation she felt as a filmmaker highlighting political dissent in China. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Wang: When I […]
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Cinematographer Clair Popkin on Sundance Doc Jim: The James Foley Story
A New York-based cinematographer and camera operator, Clair Popkin has worked on such shows as Louie, 30 for 30, and Park Bench with Steve Buscemi. In 2015, he served as cinematographer for the HBO film Living with Lincoln, which was co-directed by Brian Oakes, the director of Jim: The James Foley Story. Below, Popkin discusses his unobtrusive visual approach to depicting the life of James Foley, a reporter who was held hostage and ultimately died in Syria in 2014. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for […]
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DP Robespierre Rodriguez on Colombian Sundance Feature Between Sea and Land
Robespierre Rodriguez served as the cinematographer on Between Sea and Land, a World Cinema Dramatic Competition selection at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. In his interview with Filmmaker, Rodriguez outlines a calamitous shoot in Colombia filled with canoe rides, sudden rain and ever-dwindling sunlight. He also discusses his impromptu role as the film’s DP and his methods to “capture all of the actor’s feelings” through his images. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? Rodriguez: I was a producer for the film and started talking to Manolo about the cinematography and post-production on color, and he thought it was interesting. Additionally, the person who […]
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Shooting a Movie in 25 Days for Blumhouse: Phil Joanou on The Veil
One of the best American suspense films of the last ten years sneaks onto VOD, iTunes, and Netflix streaming this week as director Phil Joanou’s The Veil arrives courtesy of Universal and Blumhouse. A movie in the subgenre that James Mangold once referred to as “the cinema of unease,” it’s a slow burn horror flick that skillfully utilizes the Blumhouse production model (which yielded The Purge, Sinister, and The Visit) to tell a slightly more ambitious – though no less unsettling – tale. Working from a subtle, complex, and ruthlessly original script by Robert Ben Garant, Joanou tells the story […]
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Mathieu Amalric on My Golden Days
I spoke with Arnaud while he was here for the festival. One of the things he talked about is that he’ll model things for you, that he’ll show you where to touch your nose or how to grab a glass. He’s very specific when he’s blocking. It’s very good. He said that that’s something that you’re not supposed to do when directing actors. Were you the one who asked him to do that for you, initially? Oh, he does that for himself, to find all the characters. He plays all the characters, especially women, extraordinarily well. It’s impressive. He’s such […]
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Seeking Arrangements: Lodge Kerrigan, Amy Seimetz and Steven Soderbergh on The Girlfriend Experience
Shot in New York City during the 2008 financial crisis, Steven Soderbergh’s feature The Girlfriend Experience was a cool movie about a hot topic. Ostensibly about a “new” kind of prostitution, where escorts would simulate the casual intimacy of a real relationship, it starred real-life porn star Sasha Grey even as it contained virtually no sex. But what began as a look at how the Internet enabled a new kind of solo entrepreneur sex worker — “As we were making the film, I didn’t consider [prostitution] as a metaphor for anything,“ Soderbergh said then — wound up a trenchantly austere […]
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The Pre-Fight: Arnaud Desplechin on My Golden Days
Arnaud Desplechin invigorates through assault tactics: aggressive camera movement, even more aggressively fragmented editing, seemingly irreconcilable musical cues that butt chromatic classical cues up against golden age hip-hop, a university library’s worth of citations and allusions. His films are scarcely less restless than their characters, who chafe against themselves and others. In his 1996 breakthrough My Sex Life…or How I Got Into an Argument, Desplechin promoted Mathieu Amalric from supporting bit player (in 1992’s La Sentinelle) to his regular onscreen alter-ego. A philosophy graduate student adept at tormenting both himself and girlfriend Esther (Emmanuelle Devos) while putting off completing his […]
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Family Plot: David Lowery Interviews Krisha Writer/Director Trey Edward Shults
One of the most impressive debuts of this year, Trey Edward Shults’s Krisha — the story of a recovering alcoholic thoroughly derailed by the pressure-cooker of her sister’s Thanksgiving Day dinner — is a work of astonishing performances, formal control, filmmaking ambition and, finally, deep emotional wisdom. It’s a movie that has all the dramatic pyrotechnics one expects from the “home for the holidays” sub-genre, but, loosely based on a true story about one of Shults’s actual relatives, is suffused with a real understanding about issues of addiction and recovery, regret, and the difficulties of being and feeling accepted. Winner […]
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“The Grain of Super 16 Gives the Film Another Layer”: Edward Lachman on Carol
If cinematographer Edward Lachman was inclined towards chasing golden statuettes, he would shoot nothing but ’50s-era forbidden romances for Todd Haynes. Lachman’s initial film to match that descriptor – 2002’s Far from Heaven – earned his first Oscar nomination. This morning Lachman landed his second nod for his work on Carol, another ’50s-set romance, this time between an unhappily married New York housewife (Cate Blanchett) and a budding young photographer (Rooney Mara). Carol marks Lachman’s fourth film with Haynes, highlighting a five-decade career that includes collaborations with Robert Altman, Steven Soderbergh, Todd Solondz, Paul Schrader, Sofia Coppola, and a sizable […]
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A Conversation with Philippe Garrel (Part 1)
Explaining why Philippe Garrel is one of my favorite working directors can be difficult. Talking with a co-worker, I tried to sketch out his recurring interests: “he makes movies about men, often directors, who cheat on women and have trouble with themselves.” She rolled her eyes, and I’m not blaming her: what, again? Garrel began making movies as a teenager, and his early work that I’ve seen is both gorgeous and the epitome of stereotypical arthouse pretension of the period. There is 1968’s Le lit de la vierge, a very of-its-time film about a particularly mopey Jesus, and 1975’s Le berceau […]
