Madeline’s Madeline
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“Do We Need Another Movie about Two White Kids in Brooklyn?” DP Ashley Connor on Madeline’s Madeline, Shooting Commercials and Diversity
I screened the amorphous Madeline’s Madeline twice in preparation for my interview with DP Ashley Connor; on the second go-around, I realized I’d be as nonplussed on a third or forth. I didn’t write any questions because I couldn’t. But perhaps an improvised approach was truer to the spirit of Madeline’s Madeline, which refuses to be pinned down. One of New York’s most prolific working DPs, Connor’s fervent demand for a higher standard of nuance, diversity, and inclusivity in the film industry naturally formed the backbone and throughline of our oscillating conversation which features, amongst other things, Nathaniel Dorsky’s Devotional Cinema, Grand […]
by A.E. Hunt on Feb 19, 2019 -
2018’s Ten Best Films Directed by Women
The films on this list represent only a small fraction of films from 2018 directed by female identifying filmmakers ranging greatly in production from impressive big budgeted masterpieces, to smaller, spirited low-to-no budget indies. One thing that emerged more than in recent years was that many films on this list implicate the audience in their inquiries and creativity; they reach into the senses to make sense of our unmoored present to provide meaningful connection. These directors remind how human the medium of film is and how our choices as an audience make us just as responsible as the filmmakers, artists, […]
by Donna K on Dec 18, 2018 -
Breaking Character: Josephine Decker Talks to Mike Mills about Madeline’s Madeline
Madeline (Helena Howard) has a hospital bracelet on her wrist and a rehearsal to go to. One of the questions fueling Madeline’s Madeline, Josephine Decker’s third feature as a solo director, is how two of the biggest elements of Madeline’s life — some unspecified form of mental instability and her promise as a young actress — interact, or if they even can safely. Howard’s breakout performance as the troubled thespian is part of an unusual triangle. At one point is her mother Regina (the writer, actress and performance artist Miranda July), whose protective custody of her unstable daughter is unreadable: justifiable […]
by Mike Mills on Jun 11, 2018 -
What is Producing? A Group of Sundance Producers Share Insights on Financing, Selecting Projects and Making a Career out of Making Movies
What is producing? I ask myself this question a lot, and the title on my business card literally reads “Producer.” I’m staff at a rad women-run studio in Brooklyn while also producing my own films as well as a handful of others. I say all this to reiterate just how amorphous the craft of producing can be. Because of its fluidity, it can also be a challenge to learn how to be better at it. Plus, producers rarely get interviewed in the industry articles that offer insights into filmmaking process. When they are featured, producing technique can be difficult to […]
by Meredith Alloway on Feb 7, 2018 -
“Maybe When We’re Performing We Feel More like Ourselves than We Do in the ‘Real World'”: Josephine Decker on her Sundance Hit, Madeline’s Madeline
Three fascinating but very different actresses star in Josephine Decker’s exhilarating Sundance feature, Madeline’s Madeline. There’s Molly Parker, the exceptional film and television actress currently seen in Wormwood, who plays Evangeline, an experimental theater director who develops her work out of immersive performance workshops, challenging her company to mine their own feelings and experiences while creating new ones through the sometimes cringe-inducing exercises that can be the stuff of the improvisatory creation. Miranda July, an artist, writer, director and one of the most significant performance artists of the last 20 years, plays Regina, the frazzled single mother of a teenage […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 1, 2018 -
“We Lost Hours from Our Shoot Day and Gained Years of Wisdom”: Director Josephine Decker | Madeline’s Madeline
As you made your film during the increasingly chaotic backdrop of the last year, how did you as a filmmaker control, ignore, give in to or, conversely, perhaps creatively exploit the wild and unpredictable? What roles did chaos and order play in your films? Red. Blue. Green. Swim. Bathroom. Crying. Lifting. Exalted dance. Small inside. Melting personality. Melting fatigue. All night cigarette dance party. Fall asleep on the floor of the set. Messy reality. Inner turmoil. Beasts but good ones. Mask. Another mask. Masking tape on the mask. Tragedy but holding tragedy. A big hand holding it all together. Fond […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 26, 2018 -
Sundance 2018 Critic’s Notebook, Day 6: Madeline’s Madeline, Of Fathers and Sons, A Futile and Stupid Gesture, The Price of Everything
Context is everything — I’m writing this final Sundance dispatch at a remove of a day/continent from Park City, back in NYC, with a day’s pause between marathon-writing while reconsidering the chronological melange of what I saw and what, if any, narrative can be extrapolated about this year’s fest. My feeling, overall, is of a weak year, despite having (per usual) missed some of what appear to be the standout titles (Mandy, alas), which framed my response to Madeline’s Madeline, the last film I saw there. Is this a great movie? With a day to think about it, I’m not sure […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jan 25, 2018 -
Test Version – What is Producing?
What is producing? I ask myself this question a lot, and the title on my business card literally reads “Producer.” I’m staff at a rad women-run studio in Brooklyn while also producing my own films as well as a handful of others. I say all this to reiterate just how amorphous the craft of producing can be. Because of its fluidity, it can also be a challenge to learn how to be better at it. Plus, producers rarely get interviewed in the industry articles that offer insights into filmmaking process. When they are featured, producing technique can be difficult to understand […]
by Meredith Alloway on Feb 13, 2012
