Interviews
Interviews
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CCR (Claustrophobic Control Rooms): DP Barry Ackroyd on “A House of Dynamite”
In Netflix’s A House of Dynamite, the United States’ government and military chain of commands scramble to respond as a ballistic missile of unknown origin speeds toward the Midwest. The non-linear narrative replays the final 20 minutes before impact from different perspectives, taking the viewer into the White House Situation Room, the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, U.S. Strategic Command and an Alaskan missile defense battalion. It’s certainly not cinematographer Barry Ackroyd’s first time lensing a room full of analysts staring worriedly into a bank of monitors. “Someone actually said to me once, ‘Is that the only thing you do? You’re […]
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DP Lukasz Zal on “Hamnet”
A tutor and a free spirit fall in love in sixteenth-century Stratford, but then Will (Paul Mescal) leaves Agnes (Jesse Buckley) for London while she raises their three children. Tragedy threatens to split them apart until Agnes sees her husband’s latest play, Hamlet. Based on the best-selling novel by Maggie O’Farrell, Hamnet has been earning praise since it screened at Telluride in August. Chloé Zhao’s direction, and performances by leads Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, have drawn particular attention. But Hamnet has a distinctive atmosphere that sets it apart from many of this year’s releases. That look and feel is […]
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The Notes of an Age: Composer Bryce Dessner on “Train Dreams”
Composers are often brought on to score a film very late into the process, but Bryce Dessner was writing music for Train Dreams before director Clint Bentley began production. A longtime collaborator of Bentley’s, alongside his creative partner Greg Kwedar, Dessner has scored every narrative film project of theirs, either alone or with his brother Aaron, beginning with Transpecos. “Because we’re old friends, I was aware that they were thinking about [adapting Train Dreams] for a long time,” explains the musician. “I had read the book [and] early versions of the script. There’s a lot of information in the early […]
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“A Lot of Women Just Think It’s Fucking Hot”: Sarah Meyohas and Courtney Podraza on Their Taboo Erotic Short “Medusa”
After taking a spontaneous dip in the South of France, visiting Swedish perfumer Mia (Elektra Kilbey) is badly stung by a jellyfish. She rushes out of the water—topless, shivering, limping—and Franck (Franck Sémonin), a local out for a stroll, leaps into chivalric action, giving the bare-chested woman the shirt off his back. Tending to her injury, he runs a credit card over her thigh in order to remove the venom lingering on her skin. In France on a residency to further her craft, Mia grabs the card from Franck’s hand and wafts it under her nose—traces of lavender from her […]
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“My ‘Jaws’ Obsession Had No Boundaries”: Kleber Mendonça Filho on “The Secret Agent”
Kleber Mendonça Filho has never been shy explicating how personal memories have seeped into his professional work. Born and raised in Recife (capital of the Brazilian state of Pernambuco), the filmmaker has consistently dived into its history and, in doing so, his own history as well. While technically a narrative (featuring a remarkable cast led by Wagner Moura), The Secret Agent is also a movie about tumultuous events in and around the filmmaker’s hometown. Anyone who spoke out against the military dictatorship’s brutality was relentlessly harassed, spied on and, in some instances, murdered. An adolescent when these events unfolded, film-critic-turned-filmmaker […]
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“Withholding Information Makes You More Engaged”: Elena Oxman on “Outerlands”
After a run-in with a new coworker at the laundromat, Cass (Asia Kate Dillon) has a drunken hookup with Kalli (Louisa Krause). Kalli seems to take an immediate trusting to Cass, and after Cass tells her their side-gig is nannying, Kalli asks if they can watch her daughter Ari (Ridley Asha Bateman) while she goes out of town for work. Cass makes an income by caring for others—watching rich kids by day, serving in a restaurant by night—but their own inability to take care of themselves comes to the forefront when they suddenly have to play parent to a pre-teen. […]
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“On The Set It Was a Funeral Everyday”: Kaouther Ben Hania on “The Voice of Hind Rajab”
Almost no film has devastated me as much as Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab. In an age of numbing doom-scrolling, we may be unprepared for the impact when a single story is given the thoughtful, shattering treatment by an empathetic filmmaker. That story made headlines: a 6-year-old Palestinian girl, Hind, called the Red Crescent emergency center in Ramallah in January 2024 begging for help because a tank was shooting at her family’s car. Recently been nominated at the Oscars for Four Daughters and The Man Who Sold His Skin, Ben Hania sought permission from Hind’s […]
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Diane Kruger, Back To One, Episode 371
Diane Kruger is a German actress known for her verticality in roles and languages, from Hollywood blockbusters like Troy and National Treasure, to Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds and international gems like In the Fade, for which she won Best Actress at Cannes. Currently she stars in two television series, The Seduction, a French-language period drama for HBO MAX, in which she plays Madame de Rosemonde, and Little Disasters, a psychological thriller for Paramount+ where she plays a complex, fiercely devoted new mother whose world collapses around her. On this episode, she gives us a peek inside her acting process and the ingredients in the “sauce” that help her do her work, […]
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Liz Garbus on Non-Fiction Filmmaking
Liz Garbus broke into documentary features with The Farm: Angola, USA, an unnerving portrait of the notorious Louisiana prison. Made when Garbus was 24, it looks eerily prescient today. Garbus has since directed a string of influential works covering the spectrum of the documentary genre. Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer used the Gilgo Beach serial killings to uncover police corruption in Suffolk Country. What Happened, Miss Simone?, a wide-ranging look at Nina Simone, won Emmy and Peabody awards. All In: The Fight for Democracy tackled voter suppression. She’s explored shorts, features and series for every available platform, from […]
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John August on “Scriptnotes” (the Book)
After Syd Field’s Screenplay was published in 1979, an entire cottage industry sprung up in Hollywood. Screenwriting manuals and classes, overnight gurus and other (often predatory) enterprises promised impressionable aspirants a breakthrough if they just practiced a particular architecture of rules to write their dream spec feature. The next migration happened to the blogosphere in the Aughts, and in the teens, a plethora of screenwriting podcasts blossomed. Few voices have proven trustworthy, though. Cutting through the clutter in 2011, John August (Big Fish, Corpse Bride) and Craig Mazin’s (Chernobyl, The Last of Us) “Scriptnotes”’s podcast has developed a formidable following […]
