Black and White
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Director Pablo Berger on Blancanieves
If two recent adaptations of the “Snow White” tale offer any indication, the film industry takes the modern revisionist’s pleasure in applying its cutting-edge tools to the creaky joints of bedtime stories. But Spanish director Pablo Berger swerves away from the familiar path taken by the likes of Snow White and the Huntsman and Mirror Mirror. His latest, Blancanieves, is a silent black-and-white film that appropriates more of the old than the new — and yet it feels fresher than the rest. The binary palette is no limitation, rendering the velvety texture of shadows and the film’s gothic sensibility. Berger […]
by Esther Yi on Mar 29, 2013 -
“LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD”
If you’re not familiar with David Kaplan’s work this is a good CliffsNotes on his talents, which caught our eye back in 1999 when we made him one of our 25 New Faces of Independent Film. With the main focus put on his 1997 Sundance short, Little Red Riding Hood, a black and white-shot adaptation of The Story of Grandmother folk tale, the disc also includes two other shorts, Little Suck-a-Thumb (1992) and The Frog King (1994). Kaplan’s Riding Hood telling is a mix between Tim Burton and Guy Maddin with a little toilet humor sprinkled in with narration voiced […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jun 15, 2009 -
“THE WHOLE SHOOTIN’ MATCH”
Unavailable for at least two decades, Eagle Pennell‘s landmark film has been lost in the conversation of influential American independent films. But with its low-budget filming, engaging yet hapless characters and Pennell’s semi-doc handheld shooting of Central Texas, The Whole Shootin’ Match is a precursor to almost any indie made today. The film, shot on B&W 16mm, follows two slacker cowboys who spend their time chasing women and getting drunk while trying to cook up get-rich-quick schemes. Legend has it when Pennell screened the film at the U.S. Film Festival in 1978, where it won the Audience Award, Robert Redford […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Feb 22, 2009 -
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 -
blackANDwhite, LYNCH
DAVID LYNCH IN DIRECTOR blackANDwhite’S LYNCH. COURTESY ABSURDA. Contrary to popular belief, many directors are genuinely modest and can honestly maintain that they make movies for the love of cinema (rather than the money, stardom, hedonistic lifestyle, etc.), but it is still surprising to find one who is unwilling to reveal their identity. This is the case with the director of LYNCH, the new documentary about David Lynch, who is choosing to remain anonymous behind the pseudonym blackANDwhite. He (for blackANDwhite is a he) initially drew attention to himself with this refusal to stand in the limelight, and prompted the […]
by Nick Dawson on Oct 26, 2007 -
Lilah Vanderburgh, Bitch
BITCH. This article is part of Filmmaker’s Sundance 2007 Special Coverage. Bitch, the kinetic, black-and-white, Harold Lloyd-meets-Jello Biafra love story, is one of the most visually sophisticated and stylized films to emerge from that Sundance short film-factory, Columbia University’s MFA Film Program (eight shorts screening at the festival this year!). The film’s director, Lilah Vanderburgh, is obsessed with skater culture, punk-rock, underground comics, and displays the hip film literacy of another director with an encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture. (Is it taboo to compare a young director to Tarantino? Who cares — in this case, it’s deserved). This film will […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 19, 2007
