Screenwriters
Interviews - Screenwriters
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“Everything in this Film is Autobiographical, But Then Again Everything is Not”: Asia Argento on Her Debut Feature, Scarlet Diva
From Filmmaker‘s print issue archives comes this Fall, 2000 interview with director Asia Argento, who discusses her highly recommended and, today, even more vital feature debut Scarlet Diva with Travis Crawford. (Richard Kern did the original photos.) “Mixing humor and self-laceration, Tortoise and Nina Simone, Argento uses the tools of digital video to create a thoughtful aesthetic distance from her own semi-autobiographical lead character,” was our subhed for the piece, which we’re reposting today as the theatrical rerelease of the film opens at the Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn. One could be forgiven for approaching Scarlet Diva with a healthy degree of […]
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“I’m Finishing My Bathtub of Whiskey”: Arnaud Desplechin on Ismael’s Ghosts
In 2014’s My Golden Days, Arnaud Desplechin revisited the childhood of Ivan Dedalus, brother of the anchoring protagonist of his 1996 breakthrough My Sex Life… or How I Got Into an Argument. With Ismael’s Ghosts, Desplechin continues toying with the Dedalus brothers — in this iteration, Ivan is played by Louis Garrel in a movie being written by Ismaël Vuillard (Desplechin’s regular on-screen alter-ago Mathieu Amalric). Vuillard is a director writing his latest film on a severe, mood-altering constant cocktail of whiskey, wine and pills. His longstanding relationship with scientist Sylvia (Charlotte Ganisbourg) understandably takes a hit when first wife Carlotta (Marion Cotillard) — […]
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“How Do You Communicate Backstory, Motivation and Theme Without Dialogue?” A Quiet Place Screenwriters Bryan Woods and Scott Beck at SXSW 2018
The movie: A Quiet Place, which served as the opening night film of the 25th South By Southwest Film Festival The plot: A family struggles to survive in silence on a rural farmstead amid a flock of sonically acute creatures that attack upon hearing the slightest sound. Starring Emily Blunt and John Krasinski, who also directed. The interviewees: Screenwriters Bryan Woods and Scott Beck, who grew up in Iowa together and have been making films as a team since junior high. I met them while working in the camera department on their most recent directorial effort Haunt, which wrapped production […]
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“Where Are the Men I Can Imagine on a Horse?”: Valeska Grisebach on Western
Given the sense of suspended time often pervading the narratives and atmospheres of classic westerns, perhaps it’s appropriate that the wait for Valeska Grisebach’s own Western was a protracted one. Arriving eleven years after her previous film, the understated Sehnsucht (Longing, 2006), the third feature by the German filmmaker (and Berliner Schuler constituent) sacrifices none of the depth and focus of her previous work. With a plot following a group of German construction workers in Bulgaria, the film is in some ways far removed from the vast plains and Monument Valley iconography we identify with the Hollywood western tradition, while at […]
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The Explosions Within: Lynne Ramsay on You Were Never Really Here
Joe uses a hammer. A tough guy for hire — one who specializes in cases involving pedophilia and child trafficking — Joe owns a gun, of course, and he uses that, too. But for the jobs that truly matter, ones triggering the dark memories that clank painfully around inside his brain, he prefers the brutal simplicity of a simple hammer that can fell an adversary with one silent, well-timed swoop. Arrestingly embodied by Joaquin Phoenix in Scottish director Lynne Ramsay’s fleet, impressionistic work of hardcore noir, You Were Never Really Here, winner of the Best Screenplay prize at last year’s […]
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The Politics of Waiting: Lucrecia Martel on Zama
Lucrecia Martel’s ambitious historical drama Zama opens with a decidedly muted image. The film’s eponymous protagonist stands alone at a river’s edge staring into space with a look of quiet expectation. The water faintly laps at his feet, and a pale sky provides an indifferent light. Suited in full colonial regalia, he appears small and lonely against the rugged landscape, a man lost at the edge of the world. Moments later, he is seen hiding in the grass like a naughty child, spying on a group of naked women bathing in the river. They laugh and call out, “Voyeur! Voyeur!” […]
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“Things Happen that are Too Big for You…”: Writer/Director Kenneth Lonergan on the Director’s Cut of his Masterpiece, Margaret
Margaret may be one of the best movies you’ve never seen. It’s the second film from writer/director Kenneth Lonergan, whose first, You Can Count On Me, won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2000, and third, Manchester by the Sea garnered two Academy Awards for Lead Actor and Original Screenplay. But Margaret suffered a different journey, shooting in 2005 and being released much later in 2011 for a very limited run — and a cut 36 minutes shorter than the one Lonergan preferred. As part of its series, “The Way I See It: Directors’ Cuts,” the Quad in New […]
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“No One Knew I Was There”: Ana Asensio on Most Beautiful Island
It takes a herculean effort to produce a first film that’s accepted to festivals and showered with praise (and prizes – SXSW handed it the Narrative Feature Grand Jury Award this past March), but first-time director Ana Asensio pulled it off in her debut Most Beautiful Island, a grounded-in-reality genre film following a Spanish immigrant who moves to New York City to start a new life. Emotionally distraught over the death of her child, Luciana (played by Asensio) works dead-end jobs—in one scene, dressing up as a chicken to promote a local poultry joint—trying to make ends meet and keep […]
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Stephen Cone on Princess Cyd, George Cukor and the Bisexual Cowboys of Brokeback Mountain
In brief—this interview is long as is—Stephen Cone’s new feature Princess Cyd begins with what’s almost a feint: a phone call to 911 reporting trouble next door and a potentially helpless young girl, heard before we actually see now-grown protagonist Cyd (Jessie Pinnick) on the soccer field. 16-year-old Cyd comes to Chicago to spend some time away from her father, crashing with her writer aunt Miranda (Rebecca Spence). They’re opposites: Cyd’s all body and bluntly atheist, Miranda is cerebral and Christian. The question of what happened to Cyd fades away over the course of a seemingly low-key movie in which Cyd […]
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“The Movie Industry Doesn’t Have Any Etiquette, Just Fear”: Director Nathan Silver on Thirst Street and Making Eight Features in Eight Years
Nathan Silver has made eight films in eight years. That doesn’t include other shorts he’s written or executive produced. For anyone not in the business of film, that might seem standard. For anyone who is, it’s wildly impressive, especially taking into consideration the inclusion of pre-production time, when a script is written, money is raised and all the frustrating puzzle pieces of building a team have to fall into place. Silver’s latest film, Thirst Street, centers on Gina (Lindsay Burdge), an American flight attendant who becomes entwined in a toxic obsession. After landing in Paris, she falls for Jerome (Damien […]
