Direct Cinema
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Leviathan is a Nonfiction Game-Changer
(Distributed by Cinema Guild, Leviathan opens at the IFC Center in New York City on Friday, March 1, 2013. Visit the film’s official website to learn more.) A staggering thrill-ride of an experience, built on moments of astonishing cinematic immediacy, Leviathan marks a major leap forward in nonfiction filmmaking. It’s certainly not a film all viewers will respond to, but as someone who makes documentaries, I see Leviathan as the future. The progeny of direct cinema, experimental film and ethnography, Leviathan uses new cameras and an inventive technique to create something bracingly distinctive. Directed by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel, Leviathan […]
by Robert Greene on Feb 28, 2013 -
FREDERICK WISEMAN, “BOXING GYM”
This year the Museum of Modern Art’s Film Department launched a year long retrospective of a prominent octogenarian documentarian. On opening night of the series, with the filmmaker present, the curator of the series asked during a Q&A, “do you think you’ve mellowed a bit with age?” Frederick Wiseman responded, “why does one have to mellow?” In fact, at eighty, he hasn’t at all. Yes his films have grown a touch more lyrical and perhaps one could even say tender as he enters his sixth decade as our country and perhaps the world’s most vital documentarian. Since bursting on the […]
by Brandon Harris on Oct 21, 2010
