Andrea Arnold
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“Don’t Call It ‘Magic Realism'”: Andrea Arnold on Returning to Narrative Cinema with Bird
Shot and set in Gravesend, a town in Kent, England, Andrea Arnold’s new film Bird, starring newcomer Nykiya Adams alongside Barry Keoghan and Franz Rogowski, is a portrait of a young girl coming of age under chaotic circumstances. Twelve-year-old Bailey, played brilliantly by Adams, is bound by poverty and a dearth of options to her unstable father, Bug (Keoghan); she seeks solace in whatever independence she can find. When a mysterious stranger (Rogowski) appears on her doorstep, an uncanny bond is formed between them, altering the course of her life. Bird is currently in theaters from MUBI. Filmmaker: Your narrative […]
by Evan Louison on Nov 11, 2024 -
Cannes 2024: Furiosa, Bird, Kinds of Kindness, Universal Language
The deficiencies of George Miller’s Fury Road prequel, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga—many of which have, unsurprisingly, been given a pass—echo my broader sentiments towards this year’s Cannes, at least from where we sit just past the halfway point. In Furiosa’s opening minutes, we’re informed via voiceover of the great struggles facing its world: pandemics, famine, climate catastrophe. Offering a supplementary narrative of broader relevance, it’s a table setting of topicality that’s wholly unnecessary to the film’s primary, surface pleasures. Many of this year’s Palme d’Or contenders, too, have felt like showcases for Contemporary Issue X rather than works of […]
by Blake Williams on May 22, 2024 -
“Luma Was a Feisty Cow”: Andrea Arnold on Cow
“We call them dumb animals, and they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words.” – Anna Sewell, 1877 Andrea Arnold, director of Fish Tank and American Honey, chronicles the travails of dairy cows in her first documentary feature. Upon giving birth—shown in viscous detail in the film’s opening scene—Luma and her calf are immediately separated. For 98 minutes, the camera, low to the ground, scuttles closely after them, as they’re herded from pen to pen, fed, milked, dehorned and even bred to establish the intimate, diurnal rhythm […]
by Elissa Suh on Apr 7, 2022 -
Cannes Film Festival 2021 Critic’s Notebook 1: Section Openers Onoda, Ghost Song, Between Two Worlds, Cow
Cannes declared itself open for business earlier this week, 2021’s first major international film festival to do so in an entirely physical edition (save the partially-digital market). The irony has not been lost on some attendees that Thierry Fremaux and co. opted to launch its first Un Certain Regard selection in more than two years (the festival’s main opening film, Leos Carax’s Annette, was reviewed by Vadim Rizov earlier this week here) with an epic about a man who continued fighting a war for nearly three decades after it ended. Invisible enemies, lost time and interminable isolation: familiar pandemic phraseology […]
by Blake Williams on Jul 9, 2021 -
Pre-Course Work
With most incoming film students being required to make shorts during their undergraduate or graduate studies, what exemplars of the form should they look to for inspiration? Filmmaker asked a number of friends—all filmmakers—who teach filmmaking at a cross-section of institutions to list the short films they think all incoming students should check out and be inspired by. Howard A. Rodman, professor, USC School of Cinematic Arts: I consistently recommend to my students—whose films often lead with cinematography, visual effects and sound mix—that they see Andrea Arnold’s Academy Award–winning 2003 short film Wasp. Adequate direct sound, wobbly cam, minimalist VFX, yet […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jun 11, 2018 -
Human Highway: Writer/Director Andrea Arnold Talks American Honey
Watching the world go by out a car window, a road trip feels like going nowhere and somewhere at the same time. The overpasses and parking lots, they all look enough alike, and then thousands of miles later, by the time you get somewhere new, you’ve changed, a metamorphosis propelled by asphalt and gasoline. The road is a symbol in America, as much as an everyday experience. Last month, Frank Ocean released his album Blonde accompanied with a zine about cars. “We live in cars in some cities, commuting across space either for our livelihood, or devouring fossil fuels for […]
by Whitney Mallett on Sep 29, 2016 -
Dispatches from Cannes 2016 and Olhar de Cinema
Cannes 2016 By Blake Williams Sometime around the fourth week of April — after word got out that Cannes festival director Thierry Frémaux had rejected Bertrand Bonello’s highly anticipated new film, Nocturama, in which a gang of young radicals plant bombs all over Paris (a film that was definitely finished and was definitely submitted to and seen by the selection committee); after various news outlets began circulating footage of the Cannes municipal police force’s elaborate terror drills at the Palais des Festivals, with faux wounded tourists writhing in agony on the pavement, simulated car bombs, coordinated police raids and all; […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jul 25, 2016 -
Trailer Watch: Andrea Arnold’s American Honey
A24 has just released this trailer for Andrea Arnold’s Cannes prize-winning American Honey, starring Shia LaBeouf and riveting newcomer Sasha Lane. She’s the new recruit, he’s the troubled showboater and Riley Keough is the bikini-clad capitalist who has cultishly transformed a motley collection of street youth into a band of traveling grifters. Arnold, along with her regular DP, Robbie Ryan, creates an exuberant and kaleidoscopic vision of contemporary America in a film that creates its own entirely compelling rhythm.
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 21, 2016 -
Ken Loach, Xavier Dolan Top Surprising Cannes Awards Ceremony; Andrea Arnold’s American Honey Wins Jury Prize
One of the more surprising Cannes awards ceremonies has just ended, with Ken Loach becoming a two-time Palme d’Or winner with his I, Daniel Blake, about a 59-year-old carpenter battling England’s health care system following a heart attack, winning the top prize. (The director’s The Wind that Swept the Barley won the Palme in 2006.) I, Daniel Blake, while not one of the buzzier titles in the Competition, was generally well received; the same can’t be said for the jury’s Grand Prix, awarded to Xavier Dolan’s It’s Only the End of the World. Variety’s Guy Lodge tweeted, “Giving Xavier Dolan […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 22, 2016 -
Andrea Arnold’s D.P. Robbie Ryan on Why He Still Shoots Shorts and Getting The Shot Off Set
Best known as Andrea Arnold’s right-hand man, Robbie Ryan has a surprisingly large number of short film credits for a cinematographer of his standing. While the majority of d.p.s graduate to the feature format and stay put, Ryan has shot a whopping 14 shorts since his breakthrough lensing on Fish Tank. Beyond a steadier flow of income, short films afford Ryan a sort of trial period with directors. Speaking in an in-depth interview with Barry Ackroyd (d.p. of Captain Phillips, The Hurt Locker) at the 28:25 minute mark, Ryan puts it plainly: “I think the reason I do short films […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Mar 5, 2014
