6300 Results for “Open ”
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“We’re All on a Downward Spiral, Right?” Calvin Reeder on The Rambler
Judging from the slick production values, the leading name actor, the eye-catching poster art, and the stock horror trailer, one might glean the false impression that The Rambler, Calvin Reeder’s sophomore film, might be a more commercial affair than his micro-budget 16mm debut, The Oregonian. But make no mistake, though The Rambler finds Reeder painting with a larger canvas, the film is just as bold, hallucinatory and unrepentantly experimental as any of his previous work. Based off the 2008 short of the same name, The Rambler follows a taciturn guitar-slinger (Dermot Mulroney, taking the role on from Reeder who played […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Jun 6, 2013 -
Geoffrey Fletcher on Violet & Daisy
An often stirring and certainly very odd meditation on the difficulties and ambiguities of love and friendship about a pair of female teenage assassins, Violet & Daisy is the debut feature of Oscar-winning screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher (Precious). A tricky balance of near camp, New Wave aesthetic hijinks and earnest melodrama unfold in this three-handed chamber piece and are for the most part deftly pulled off by Fletcher and his collaborators, who have made a film that is reminiscent of both grindhouse cheapies (Danny Trejo is in it after all, albeit very briefly) and Godardian reveries. Ex-Gilmore Girl Alexis Bledel and Atonement‘s Saoirse Ronan play the title […]
by Brandon Harris on Jun 5, 2013 -
City World Director Brent Chesanek
Among the discoveries at the 2012 edition of CPH:DOX was Brooklyn-based Brent Chesanek’s City World, which is part magic realist children’s adventure tale and part austere landscape documentary. Over precisely framed tableaux shot in his hometown of Orlando, FL — nearly all of them completely absent of people — Chesanek drapes the narration of a young boy mulling the breakup of his family and subsequent move, with his father, to this Southern city. As in another recent film, General Orders No. 9, contemporary landscape photography is presented as historical residue meant to be both meditated on and explicated. Drained of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 5, 2013 -
MoMA Launches “Harris Savides: Visual Poet” Series
Ten features shot by the late cinematographer Harris Savides are included in “Harris Savides: Visual Poet,” a series opening at MoMA today. Writes curator Anne Morra: A Savides shot is often characterized by a sensitivity to design and the striking mutability of light, and a special attention to the actor’s place in the composition. The films in this special tribute represent the wide range of his work, and the many directors who chose his camera to reflect their most personal stories. The series opens with Jonathan Glazer’s Birth, which was the film concentrated on by Zach Wigon in Filmmaker‘s remembrance […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 5, 2013 -
Letters from Blocked Filmmakers: Gregory Austin McConnell
In the debut piece in this column, Letters from Blocked Filmmakers, Drew Whitmire described a relentless perfectionism that led to him continually begin and begin again what was meant to be his debut feature — a 14-year process that resulted in only 15 minutes of footage. In today’s installment, Gregory Austin McConnell describes a related behavior: a continual re-envisioning of his feature as he ages and his own life circumstances change. Characters, storylines and tone all mutate as McConnell’s teenage dreams give way to adult realities — realities that bring not only creative change but also family responsibilities that make […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 4, 2013 -
Shooting in Snow and Ice with the Canon C100: Interview with Ben Pender-Cudlip
Ben Pender-Cudlip is a Boston-based documentary filmmaker who recently switched from shooting with a DSLR to the Canon C100. His first project shot on the C100 was a short that included a segment on ice climbing. In this second part of our interview with him about switching to the C100, Pender-Cudlip talks about the project and what it was like to use the camera in these conditions. Filmmaker: How did this project come about? Pender-Cudlip: It’s a film for a woman named Lauren Schaad. She approached me about shooting a TV pilot. She was looking to get into reality TV […]
by Michael Murie on Jun 4, 2013 -
Walter Murch on Editing and His Translations of Curzio Malaparte
While editing The Unbearable Lightness of Being in France, Academy Award-winning film editor and sound designer Walter Murch came across a reference to Italian writer Curzio Malaparte’s description of horses being suddenly flash frozen in Lake Ladoga during the siege of Leningrad. He became intrigued by the startling image, and tracked down Malaparte’s 1944 novel Kaputt, the book the image came from. Over time Murch, best known for his work on films such as The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, read all of the obscure Italian writer’s translated writings, then brushed up on his Italian to read untranslated work. He eventually […]
by David Barker on Jun 3, 2013 -
Ten Lessons on Filmmaking from Director Takashi Miike
Few directors out of Japan are as controversial as Takashi Miike, a man who has been surprising audiences for years with anything from stomach-wrenching horror films to slick yakuza films to happy-go-lucky children’s films, with no less than 70 directing credits to his name. This year at Cannes he surprised fans perhaps more than ever before by premiering his most mainstream film yet, a smart thriller that seems to be begging for a Hollywood remake. Shield of Straw follows a team of security police who must transport a psychopathic killer across Japan to Tokyo for trial. The criminal in question […]
by Ariston Anderson on Jun 3, 2013 -
Switching from a DSLR to the Canon C100: Interview with Ben Pender-Cudlip
Ben Pender-Cudlip is a Boston based filmmaker who specializes in nonfiction work. His short film Sanjiban, which chronicles the passing of filmmaker Sanjiban Sellew, premiered at Hot Docs last year. Ben recently switched from shooting on a DSLR to the Canon C100. In part one of this interview he talks about his experience switching to the C100, and in part two he talks about the first major project shot with the camera: documenting an ice-climbing expedition. Filmmaker: What were you using prior to getting the C100? Pender-Cudlip: Before the C100 I was using a Canon 60D, which is sort of […]
by Michael Murie on Jun 3, 2013 -
Zal Batmanglij and Brit Marling on The East
Brit Marling recently gave the convocation speech for the 2013 graduating class of Georgetown University, the alma mater of the writer/producer/actress and her friends and collaborators Mike Cahill and Zal Batmanglij. Cahill directed Marling in Another Earth, a film she co-wrote, and Batmanglij has stood at the helm of Sound of My Voice and the new eco-thriller The East, both of which also credit Marling as co-writer and star. In her speech, a riveting address that was wonderfully articulate and rang deeply true, Marling offered fun anecdotes about her misadventures with Cahill and Batmanglij (Cahill, for example, once served as […]
by R. Kurt Osenlund on Jun 1, 2013
