Like Father Like Son
-
Hirokazu Kore-eda on Crafting Shots and Scouting Locations for Like Father, Like Son
Hirokazu Kore-eda is a wanderer. The Japanese director, 51, has been known to disappear on set, leaving his cast and crew wondering where their maestro’s ventured off to. For instance, while making his 2008 masterpiece, Still Walking, Kore-eda vanished for a spell, only to discover the flowering trees that became an invaluable motif in the film. The director’s exploratory nature, which one might partly attribute to his background as a documentarian, has proven crucial in the poetic meticulousness of his exteriors. However, his visual instincts are hardly outdoor-exclusive, and his keenness for selecting ideal settings and compositions is just as […]
by R. Kurt Osenlund on Jan 17, 2014 -
Lesbian Lovemaking, Graphic Novels and a Changing China: Parsing the Cannes Awards
Sex sells, but it’s not the kind of thing that wins highbrow prizes—right? The fact that Abdellatif Kechiche’s explicit and entrancing Blue is the Warmest Color (La Vie d’Adèle, chapitre 1 et 2) won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival is a watershed moment, not least of which because its frank depiction of lesbian lovemaking wasn’t an obstacle towards being taken seriously. People may have tweeted their puerile snickering about the randy onscreen romps, but any sober viewer would acknowledge that those relatively brief moments (especially in a 179-minute film) were hardly exploitative — in fact, they […]
by Stephen Garrett on May 27, 2013
