16mm
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A Woman Above Everything Else
The camera pushes tight in on Natalie Portman’s distressed face, a layer of 16mm grain putting a slight filter on her perfect features. From the very beginning, we’re too close; the customary distance from an iconic first lady is gone. Also missing are biographical flashbacks, or early happy moments, or pretty montages locating Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy within the tapestry of her husband’s life and administration. No, Pablo Larraín’s Jackie, which follows the first lady in the days following John F. Kennedy’s assassination, begins in a kind of emotional media res, a heightened state accentuated by the dark chords of Mica […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 20, 2016 -
Kelly Reichardt on Shooting Certain Women on 16mm, the Ugliness of the Day, and Making the Space Tell the Story
In the more than two decades since her stunning debut film River of Grass premiered at Sundance in 1994, Kelly Reichardt has managed to carve out a unique niche for herself in the independent film world. Her distinctive and uncompromising body of work includes Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy, Meek’s Cutoff, Night Moves, and her latest, Certain Women, which premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. Written and directed by Reichardt and based on the short stories of Maile Meloy, Certain Women stars Laura Dern, Kristen Stewart, Michelle Williams, James Le Gros, Jared Harris, Lily Gladstone and René Auberjonois. Shot by frequent collaborator, DP […]
by Paula Bernstein on Oct 14, 2016 -
~64 Films Released in 2015 Shot on 35mm
When rounding up all the 2014 movies (as defined by the US release calendar) that I could confirm had been at least partially shot on 35mm, the tally was 39; after posting, I caught a few titles that I’d overlooked, but the number basically stayed the same. In researching this year’s follow-up edition, I was shocked to see that figure increase significantly to somewhere around 64 (I’ll get into the qualifiers in a bit). Was I really sloppy in doing my homework last year, or is the number of productions shot on 35mm increasing? It’s hard to tell, and there’s all kinds of asterisks attached. […]
by Vadim Rizov on Feb 18, 2016 -
The Pre-Fight: Arnaud Desplechin on My Golden Days
Arnaud Desplechin invigorates through assault tactics: aggressive camera movement, even more aggressively fragmented editing, seemingly irreconcilable musical cues that butt chromatic classical cues up against golden age hip-hop, a university library’s worth of citations and allusions. His films are scarcely less restless than their characters, who chafe against themselves and others. In his 1996 breakthrough My Sex Life…or How I Got Into an Argument, Desplechin promoted Mathieu Amalric from supporting bit player (in 1992’s La Sentinelle) to his regular onscreen alter-ego. A philosophy graduate student adept at tormenting both himself and girlfriend Esther (Emmanuelle Devos) while putting off completing his […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jan 20, 2016 -
“The Grain of Super 16 Gives the Film Another Layer”: Edward Lachman on Carol
If cinematographer Edward Lachman was inclined towards chasing golden statuettes, he would shoot nothing but ’50s-era forbidden romances for Todd Haynes. Lachman’s initial film to match that descriptor – 2002’s Far from Heaven – earned his first Oscar nomination. This morning Lachman landed his second nod for his work on Carol, another ’50s-set romance, this time between an unhappily married New York housewife (Cate Blanchett) and a budding young photographer (Rooney Mara). Carol marks Lachman’s fourth film with Haynes, highlighting a five-decade career that includes collaborations with Robert Altman, Steven Soderbergh, Todd Solondz, Paul Schrader, Sofia Coppola, and a sizable […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Jan 14, 2016 -
Why Ed Lachman Chose to Shoot Carol in Super 16mm
Carol is getting raves not just for Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett’s subtle performances, but also for Ed Lachman’s cinematography, which was inspired by mid-century street photographers such as Ruth Orkin, Esther Bubley, Helen Levitt and Vivian Maier. In a first-person story for Indiewire, the veteran cinematographer, who has worked with Werner Herzog, Sofia Coppola, Todd Solondz, Robert Altman and Steven Soderbergh, writes about why he and director Todd Haynes chose to shoot the film in 16mm in order to achieve the look of 1952. “We wanted to reference the photographic representation of a different era,” Lachman said. “They can recreate grain digitally now, but […]
by Paula Bernstein on Dec 7, 2015 -
Short Film Premiere: Francesca Coppola’s Jonny Come Lately
“What can be said of a connection that seems to border on captivity? Where does the line between violence & intimacy exist?” That’s how Francesca Coppola introduces her sophomore short film, Jonny Come Lately, further described as focusing on “a fragile, complicated, volatile union between two lovers.” The film features Deragh Campbell, Kentucker Audley and Evan Louison, it was shot on 16mm, and it premieres online today via Filmmaker and courtesy of 1985. Last year, Coppola wrote about her film on the occasion of its Kickstarter launch. Here, she describes what the film means to her and, hopefully, for you: […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 20, 2015 -
Hitchcock + Haneke: DP Edu Grau on The Gift
Amongst a summer movie season awash in sequels, remakes and presold tentpole properties, it’s rare to find a sleeper at the multiplex, an unknown quantity with the ability to surprise an audience. Such is The Gift, an unnerving psychological thriller that begins as a post-Fatal Attraction variant before veering into the domain of Roman Polanski and Michael Haneke. Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall star as a married couple leaving behind personal tragedy in Chicago to start a new life in Los Angeles. Shortly after their arrival, Bateman bumps into former high school classmate Joel Edgerton, who begins to insinuate himself into […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Aug 27, 2015 -
A Digital Camera Built Like a Film Camera: The Black Betty
The Black Betty is a custom made camera that is quite simple in nature: an SI-2K Mini and a Mac Mini housed in one unit. What separates this from rest of the digital cinema crowd is its form factor: it’s actually built like a film camera. As technology progresses, things get smaller. We now have cameras like the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera that shoots RAW video (soon, currently only ProRes) and is no bigger than a point-and-shoot — all for $1000. This is awesome. However, the issue is that filmmakers don’t seem to take advantage of the small form factor […]
by Shaun Seneviratne on Aug 29, 2013 -
Steven Sebring, Patti Smith: Dream Of Life
PATTI SMITH IN DIRECTOR STEVEN SEBRING’S PATTI SMITH: DREAM OF LIFE. COURTESY PALM PICTURES. Since he first picked up a camera, Steven Sebring has been defying expectations and blurring genre boundaries. A South Dakota native who grew up in Arizona, Sebring taught himself photography during his teens and then honed his style during several years spent in Europe. Following his return to the States, the mix of glamor and grit he brought to his images made him an in-demand fashion photographer, and also distinguished himself as an inventive celebrity portraitist. His background in fashion and an interest in cinema led […]
by Nick Dawson on Aug 6, 2008
