6301 Results for “Open ”
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Into the Spotlight: Bradley Cooper on A Star is Born, Consulting with Terrence Malick and Shooting his First Feature in 42 Days
Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut, A Star is Born, is the kind of movie that feels as though it contains decades’ worth of saved-up ideas and feelings, yet never strains under the weight of its ambition. It’s simultaneously sweeping in its scope and razor-sharp in its clarity, passionate and exuberant but restrained and confident. Although the tale has been told several times before, most memorably in George Cukor’s 1954 CinemaScope extravaganza, Cooper (who collaborated on the screenplay with Eric Roth and Will Fetters) makes it his own by using the basic premise as a springboard for a sophisticated meditation on fame […]
by Jim Hemphill on Sep 17, 2018 -
A Cut in Time: RaMell Ross, Joslyn Barnes and Maya Krinsky Break Down a Scene from Hale County This Morning, This Evening
“The discovering began after I moved to Alabama in 2009 to teach photography and coach basketball. Photographing in my day-to-day, I began filming using time to figure out how we’ve come to be seen.” — RaMell Ross, Hale County This Morning, This Evening The film Hale County This Morning, This Evening defies easy summary. It’s an ontological inquiry: a pushback against dominant narratives of what it means to be black in the historic South, an invitation to the African American diaspora to return to its roots and participate in the reimaging of blackness. It’s also a poetic exaltation of two young […]
by Genevieve Jacobson on Sep 17, 2018 -
What Makes a Good Production Designer?
As a kid, the first and only thing I ever wanted to be when I grew up was an artist. I never got bored or minded being sent to my room as long as I could draw. I wasn’t the “good artist” at school—I couldn’t draw a superhero, or a realistic Snoopy. But I was often told (only by adults, so it didn’t mean much to me) that I had a great imagination. I had a pretty rich fantasy life and drew pages and pages of imaginary interiors, collections of objects and fashion wardrobes. If I had known what a […]
by Judy Becker on Sep 17, 2018 -
The Agony and the Ecstasy
I’m a midcareer filmmaker with a few features that have played at major international film festivals, including Sundance and Cannes, followed by modest distribution. So, you can imagine my shock when my third feature, Rogers Park, was programmed by… almost no festivals. Despite having what I thought was a track record, I found myself in the wonderful position of having made a no-star ensemble film that had no industry champions, no curatorial validation and no traction. After regrouping from a year of festival rejections, I had to make a decision. Should I throw in the towel and post my film […]
by Kyle Henry on Sep 17, 2018 -
Looking Backwards To Look Forward
Lately, it seems that events are conspiring to make me look backwards. First of all, about two years ago, I was invited to donate my personal archives to the University of Michigan’s Screen Arts Mavericks & Makers Collection. It was an incredible honor to be joined with such illustrious company as Orson Welles, Robert Altman, John Sayles, Alan Rudolph, Nancy Savoca and, most recently, Jonathan Demme. But it was also a bit nerve-wracking to think that total strangers would be rummaging through my proverbial attic—a hoarder’s collection of film posters, correspondence (actual hardcopy letters, memos and mimeographs!), grosses and marketing […]
by Ira Deutchman on Sep 17, 2018 -
What Can Happen in the Frame: Sasha Waters Freyer on Her Doc, Garry Winogrand: All Things are Photographable
Photography was all over the New York City art world of the late 1980s. There was the Pictures Generation—artists like Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger and Laurie Simmons, who began in the mid ’70s and whose conceptual use of appropriated or staged photographs cast a critical and sometimes seductive eye at the way mass media imagery shaped consciousness. Jeff Wall, Philip-Lorca diCorcia and, later, Gregory Crewdson were bringing the staging techniques of film and theater to photographs charged with emotional and narrative possibility. And the work of photographers of an earlier generation, like Diane Arbus and Robert Frank, was still highly […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 17, 2018 -
Checkpoints: Independent Film’s Gatekeeper Problem
The good news: Film festivals and film-support organizations in the United States have never been more vocal in their support of underrepresented filmmakers. At Sundance 2018, the number of films made by women (37%) and people of color (more than 30 projects) was at an all-time high. And other events are following suit. But the bad news is that the independent film business’s gatekeepers—the programmers and critics who have the power to make or break these films in the marketplace—remain an #IndustrySoWhiteandMale. To be sure, there have been gains in these areas. This May, Sundance hired Kim Yutani as its […]
by Anthony Kaufman on Sep 17, 2018 -
Moment of Conception
“All it takes is one good egg.” This refrain is uttered more than a few times throughout the course of Tamara Jenkins’s Private Life, her first feature since 2007’s The Savages. A meditation on marriage, middle age and the haves and have-not’s of fertility, the film stars Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti as an artist couple—she’s a writer, and he runs both a theater group and an artisanal pickle company—desperate to conceive in their 40s. While the pair loads up on IVF hormones and diminishing hopes, they must also make room in their realistically cozy East Village apartment for their […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Sep 17, 2018 -
A Matter of Trust: Independent Film and the Blockchain
In his novel Enduring Love, Ian McEwan constructs a striking metaphor of the tension between individualism and cohesion that lies at the core of modern society: Five strangers rush to save a child stuck in the passenger basket of a hot air balloon being uplifted by the wind. As the balloon soars, the helpers find themselves in midair, hanging from its ropes. Their cumulative weight keeps the balloon hovering over the ground, but one person letting go would break this fragile pact and put the others in greater danger. This scene, which resembles a social psychology experiment, asks the question: […]
by Barbara Bruni on Sep 17, 2018 -
Rachel Weisz, Jon Kamen to Receive Tributes at the 2018 IFP Gotham Awards
IFP, Filmmaker‘s publisher, announced today that Rachel Weisz and Jon Kamen will receive, respectively, the Actress Tribute and Industry Tribute at the 2018 IFP Gotham Awards, to be held November 26 at Cipriani Wall Street, New York City. From the press release: “We are thrilled to be honoring Rachel with the Actress Tribute this year. Throughout her career she has carefully chosen projects ranging from thought-provoking independent films to thrilling studio blockbusters. Rachel consistently seeks out complex roles and delivers unforgettable portrayals of spirited and intelligent characters. We look forward to celebrating her lasting contributions to the art of film,” […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Sep 14, 2018
