Lucien Castaing-Taylor
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Trailer Watch: Verena Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s De Humani Corporis Fabrica
A squirm-inducing sensation on the festival circuit, Harvard Sensory Lab leaders Lucien Castaing-Tayler and Véréna Paravel’s De Humani Corporis Fabrica has a new trailer ahead of its limited release next month. The film consists of raw medical footage—eye surgery, genital drilling and an assortment of equally unsettling internal procedures—shot between eight different French hospitals. Vadim Rizov covered De Humani during its Cannes premiere last year, writing: …Fabrica toggles between something like Fantastic Voyage and a particularly grody Wiseman documentary. Defamiliarizing images on the former front include a camera being inserted deep inside….whatever (I don’t want to know) that made me wonder why I’ve never […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Mar 24, 2023 -
“We Try Not to Think”: Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor on De Humani Corporis Fabrica
It was only a matter of time before Sensory Ethnography Lab explorers Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor went inside—deep inside. Shot at eight different French hospitals, De Humani Corporis Fabrica intermingles imagery from within and without the human body, observing patients and listening in on surgeons during operations with special cameras and medical equipment. Immersive in different ways from their masterpiece Leviathan, and even more hypnotic than Caniba in aligning the screen’s surface with the textures of tissue, Paravel and Castaing-Taylor’s latest film takes its title from Vesalius’s groundbreaking 16th-century anatomy text, de- and re-familiarizing us with the interiors and […]
by Nicolas Rapold on Jun 3, 2022 -
Hereditary, Horror and the Power of Choice
It was the closing night of the Overlook Film Festival and everyone was gathered at a mansion on the outskirts of town. I was coming out of the bathroom, spooked, because A24 had planted some Hereditary sound effects next to the toilet. Jesus. The film, which comes out today, had closed the festival earlier that night and had left everyone on edge — deliciously so. I grabbed a glass of wine, discussing the experience with a stranger who was leaning against a wall outside next to some friends. Why do we put ourselves through all this? There was a number […]
by Meredith Alloway on Jun 8, 2018 -
Berlin Critic’s Notebook #1: somniloquies, El mar la mar, California Dreams
Some lines from Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s somniloquies: “I don’t wanna see your ass, Mrs. Dangerfield.” “Welcome to Midget City. Yes, we built it from the ground up. We have our own police.” “I’ve seen the past. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it! I want the future. The present is squalid!” “Kill the cunt! KILL THE CUNT!!” These are all spoken by Dion McGregor, a musician from New York described in the film’s opening titles as “the world’s most prolific sleep-talker.” Over a period of six years, McGregor’s flatmate recorded hundreds of his elaborate, vividly narrated […]
by Giovanni Marchini Camia on Feb 13, 2017 -
IFP Announces Filmmaker Conference Highlights
Independent Film Week is less than a month away, and today IFP announced some highlights of the event Filmmaker Conference, which will take place at Lincoln Center between September 15 and 19. The keynote speakers this year include Leviathan director Lucien Castaing-Taylor and musician and filmmaker DJ Spooky while there will be case studies of Ryan Coogler’s Sundance-winning Fruitvale Station, Penny Lane’s archival doc Our Nixon, Dave Grohl’s Sound City and Elaine McMillion’s web doc Hollow. From the press release, here’s the info that was unveiled today: Each day of the conference guides filmmakers in the art, technology and business of […]
by Nick Dawson on Aug 22, 2013 -
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 -
All At Sea
The world of commercial sea fishing is captured in all its stark and violent beauty in LUCIEN CASTAING-TAYLOR and VÉRÉNA PARAVEL’s Leviathan.
by Paul Dallas on Jan 21, 2013 -
The Act of Killing Takes Top Prize at CPH:DOX
The Act of Killing, Joshua Oppenheimer, Christine Cynn and Anonymous’s jaw-dropping tale of war crimes, guilt and moviemaking, took the top prize at CPH:DOX here in Copenhagen Friday night. The film, pictured above, boasts Werner Herzog and Errol Morris as executive producers and follows a group of former death squad leaders as they make Hollywood-style movies based on their murders of communists, ethnic Chinese and intellectuals following Indonesia’s military coup in 1965. Director Edwin (Postcards from the Zoo) presented the award and read the jury’s statement: “The Jury would like to award a film for its ability to show the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 10, 2012 -
Locarno Critic’s Notebook #3
Leviathan. You may have heard the title by now. By the time it screened to press, the film had already gained some momentous hype, and I’m pleased to report it does not disappoint. Often exhilarating, Véréna Peraval and Lucien Castaing-Taylor‘s creation is a unique viewing experience—loud, disorienting, frightening, exciting and visually awesome. The best film from the main competition, at the very least, Leviathan (above) offers the sort of sensory adventure that cinema can but rarely does offer. Using cheap GoPro digital cameras, the filmmakers show us images and perspectives we’ve never seen before. Apparently, Apichatpong Weerasethakul did not like […]
by Adam Cook on Aug 13, 2012 -
TORONTO: TRAVELING WITHOUT MOVING AT ‘WAVELENGTHS’
Wavelengths, the Toronto International Film Festival program that ferries viewers deep into the world of contemporary experimental film, celebrated its tenth birthday in 2010 and received a sweet birthday gift: A completely sold out first show. Even enthusiasts who had lined up more than thirty minutes early were turned away from the 200-seat theatre at the Art Gallery of Ontario (along with your loyal scribe and similarly surprised colleagues from The Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Pacific Film Archive and the Walker Art Center). It was an auspicious start to curator Andréa Picard’s extensive program of more than thirty individual […]
by Livia Bloom Ingram on Sep 19, 2010
