Interviews
Interviews
-
“The Boys in the Basement Were Very Active On This One”: Screenwriter David Koepp on Writing Steven Soderbergh’s Ghost POV Thriller Presence
Updating the themes of The Conversation and Blow Out for the pandemic era, 2022’s Kimi, Steven Soderbergh’s thriller about the panoptic world of voice assistants, marked the director’s first realized collaboration with veteran screenwriter David Koepp, whose filmography is noteworthy for his many scripts written for legendary auteur directors, including Brian DePalma (Carlito’s Way, Snake Eyes, Mission Impossible), Steven Spielberg (Jurassic Park, The Paper), and David Fincher (Panic Room). And that’s in addition to his direction of his own scripts, including Stir of Echoes and Ghost Town. Now, with another fleet, multi-layered thriller, Presence, Koepp continues his collaboration with Soderbergh, […]
-
Get In/On the Car: DP Terry Stacey on Den of Thieves 2: Pantera
The original Den of Thieves was all about the thin line separating insular tribes of cops and robbers in Los Angeles. In the breezier Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, Gerard Butler’s detective crosses that line to join forces with former nemesis O’Shea Jackson Jr. to rob the World Diamond Center in Nice. The heist franchise represents a line crossing for cinematographer Terry Stacey as well. The British DP began his features career lensing early aught indies (including American Splendor and films with Larry Fessenden, Allison Anders, Brad Anderson and Lisa Cholodenko) before working on a slew of studio romances and […]
-
“… A Singular Biographical Representation of a Subject is Impossible”: Elisabeth Subrin on Maria Schneider, Manal Issa and The Listening Takes
Drawing upon a 1983 interview the actress Maria Schneider gave to the French TV show Cinéma Cinéma, Elisabeth Subrin’s short film Maria Schneider, 1983 premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and went on to win in 2023 France’s César award for Best Documentary Short. In Subrin’s film, three actresses — Manal Issa, Aïssa Maïga and Isabel Sandoval — progressively interpret the text of Schneider’s interview throughout the 25-minute piece, with Issa strictly recreating Schneider’s original answers while Maïga and Sandoval adapt the text to reflect their own experiences in the film business, turning the work into, as I wrote […]
-
“There Was a Fair Amount of Us All Killing Each Other”: Sam Crane and Pinny Grylls on Grand Theft Hamlet
Grand Theft Hamlet, which took the Documentary Feature Jury Award at last year’s SXSW, is groundbreaking cinema to say the least. The first documentary to win an Innovation Award at The Stage Awards in London back in 2022, the film’s production probably also marked the first time a filmmaker jumped into an online avatar and then shot her doc entirely within a video game (one in which conditions often resembled a war zone to boot). The project was born out of the UK’s third Covid lockdown in 2021, when abruptly out-of-work theater actors Sam Crane (who co-directed along with his […]
-
“I Believe Art Can Invent Hope”: Rashid Masharawi on From Ground Zero
For over a year, the images coming out of Gaza have been more chilling and disturbing than most horror films. Scenes of devastation and death became the norm, pain and suffering a recurring and unshakeable theme. But while Palestinians broadcast to the world what it was like to live—to survive—under Israel’s bombing of Gaza in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israeli citizens, Palestinian filmmaker Rashid Masharawi was also organizing, advising and funding filmmakers in Gaza to use the moving image to express themselves artistically, to create during a time of destruction. The result is From Ground Zero, […]
-
“It Was Crucial to Bring a Native Lens into Each Area of the Creative Roles”: Jonathan Olshefski and Elizabeth Day on Without Arrows
Delwin Fiddler Jr., star of Jonathan Olshefski (a “25 New Face” of 2017) and Elizabeth Day’s Without Arrows, grew up on the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Reservation in South Dakota, where he found his calling as a grass dancer (which led to championships on the pow-wow circuit and eventually even international fame. His work can be seen not only in the film but also in a continual loop at the Museum of the American Indian in D.C.). And then he spent over a decade in Philadelphia, making more money if not a better living. Having had enough of big city […]
-
DP Drew Daniels on “Anora”
In Anora, a stripper (Mikey Madison) at a Manhattan club marries the irresponsible 21-year-old son of a Russian oligarch after a whirlwind romance, only for his family to quickly attempt to get the union annulled. In an ode to the “Russian-ness” of the story, cinematographer Drew Daniels paired 35mm film with the flavorful Soviet-era Lomo anamorphic lenses. For further inspiration, Daniels and writer/director Sean Baker turned to the New York City movies of the 1970s. “Some of my favorite films are New York films. The city gives you such a unique canvas,” said Daniels. “I feel like every cinematographer has […]
-
“Film No Longer Has the Texture I Was Looking For…”: DP Phedon Papamichael on Shooting A Complete Unknown
The five years between Bob Dylan’s arrival in New York and his performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival marked a huge shift in popular culture. It wasn’t just the songs Dylan wrote and performed. The politics he espoused, relationships he formed, causes he endorsed, even the clothes he wore were critiqued and copied by a growing number of acolytes and fans. Dylan helped shape the culture in ways few other artists could match. Based in part on Elijah Wald’s book Dylan Goes Electric!, director James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown follows Dylan as he finds and develops a voice and […]
-
Christmas with Art the Clown: DP George Steuber on Terrifier 3
Movies are a uniquely collaborative art form. A painting, a novel or a song can be created in solitude, but you can’t make a commercial narrative film by yourself. That said, the original Terrifier came about as close as you can get: Writer-director Damien Leone is also credited for producing, editing, special make-up effects, visual effects, sound design and props. In addition to putting up money, producer Phil Falcone served as UPM, AD and stunt driver and also assisted with the effects. As for cinematographer George Steuber, he was the entirety of the camera department. He operated, pulled his own […]
-
Creating Composed Chaos: DP Jasper Wolf on Babygirl
Just as its characters shift roles in their erotic game of cat and mouse, Halina Reijn’s third feature Babygirl fluently shifts between erotic thriller, existential melodrama and corporate satire. At the center is Nicole Kidman role as Romy, a successful CEO of a high-powered New York-based e-commerce company who relinquishes her sense of control when a chance encounter with a new company intern (Harris Dickinson) plunges Romy into the erotic chaos of a BDSM-charged relationship. Babygirl carefully traces how the seismic shifts of this newfound dom-sub dynamic open up an emotional rift in Romy, resulting in an explosive and messy […]
