Olivier Assayas
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“Whenever Cinema is in Chaos, You Can Do a New Irma Vep“: Olivier Assayas on His New HBO Series
In the early 1990s, French director Olivier Assayas was invited to develop a remake of a classic work of French cinema for television. “I hadn’t known where to start until I remembered [Louis] Feuillade’s Vampires,” he remembered in 1996, referring to the 1915 silent serial in which Musidora played the costumed criminal Irma Vep. “I spent a few weeks considering the possibility, then I decided that, attractive as it was, I couldn’t take it any further. Somehow, my heart wasn’t in it.” A few years later, another invitation: this time to join Claire Denis and Atom Egoyan in the sort […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 23, 2022 -
“I Don’t Think I’d be a Good Militant”: Olivier Assayas on Wasp Network
Wasp Network attempts to make sense of the anti-Castro groups stationed in Miami during the late 90s. Poised at the other side of the Florida straits, they coordinated terrorist attacks on the Cuban tourism industry, hoping to bring its economy to its last legs. The Cuban government retaliated by planting spies in Miami, the titular Wasp Network, hoping to scupper future attacks on the coasts of Cuba. Here’s a stage for the shadowy intrigue of a political thriller, but Olivier Assayas recounts the bulk of his espionage under the sun, outdoor bars and restaurants, shot reverse shot dialogue whilst drinking, smoking, eating. […]
by A.E. Hunt on Jul 20, 2020 -
DPs Denis Lenoir and Yorick Le Saux on Wasp Network, Arri Alexa vs Sony VENICE and Dividing Cinematographer Duties
The sunny subterfuge of Wasp Network, about a knotty web of anti-Castro groups and Cold War residuals, is a relief from the blue skin, suits and shadows of heavy political thrillers. It’s an Olivier Assayas (Irma Vep, Personal Shopper, Non-Fiction) film after all, shot in Cuba, Miami and the blue sky and ocean in between. As on Carlos, Assayas’ go-to DPs Denis Lenoir (Cold Water, Disorder.) and Yorick Le Saux (Personal Shopper, Non-Fiction) shot their own half of Wasp Network. With Carlos, Le Saux started the film and chose the film stock, lenses, etc. On Wasp Network, Lenoir shot the first […]
by A.E. Hunt on Jul 15, 2020 -
“This Movie’s Explicitly Nonvisual”: Olivier Assayas on Non-Fiction
Writers and publishers, politicians and performers deal with a changing cultural landscape in Non-Fiction, the latest feature from writer and director Olivier Assayas. A snapshot of Parisian society about to succumb to the digital generation, it’s also a surprisingly supple romantic comedy in which couples form and dissolve with distinctively French sangfroid. Alain (Guillaume Canet), a publisher of “quality” literature, is facing the takeover of his house by a digital entrepreneur. His assistant Laure (Christa Théret) argues that books are obsolete anyway. Alain’s wife Selena (Juliette Binoche) feels trapped in her role as a “crisis management expert” (read: “cop”) in […]
by Daniel Eagan on May 1, 2019 -
Watch: Olivier Assayas Discusses Ingmar Bergman’s ‘Absurdly Important’ Persona
Olivier Assayas speaks eloquently about his own work, able to talk about them both abstractly and practically. No surprise, then, that he’s as sharp when talking about other filmmakers’ films. A new video from TIFF finds the acclaimed French filmmaker — most recently of Non Fiction, Personal Shopper and Clouds of Sils Maria, and whose 1994 classic Cold Water was reissued earlier this year — talking Ingmar Bergman. Specifically he discusses Persona, the Swedish legend’s game-changing 1966 whatzit, about a caretaker (Bibi Andersson) tending to a damaged actress (Liv Ullmann). Bergman, according to Assayas, showed “that you could be both […]
by Matt Prigge on Nov 16, 2018 -
Onrushing Now
Nick Nolte had walked into a bar. Nolte was a constant in a screenwriting partner’s Malibu hinterlands, hair ever elevated, stalking across a parking lot to Coogie’s for the midafternoon breakfast, resplendent in striped Sulka pajamas and happy dudgeon. This time, it was dark and it was Toronto, across from the Sutton Hotel headquarters of the festival. The upstairs of now long-defunct Bistro 990 on this night in the late 1990s is rich with heightened voices but not shouting. I’m standing near Nolte with a cofounder of Indiewire, Mark Rabinowitz. Our eyes literally grow large just as our ears figuratively […]
by Ray Pride on Jun 11, 2018 -
“You Really Had to Struggle to Get Your Music”: Olivier Assayas on Cold Water‘s Long Journey to American Screens
In the opening minutes of Olivier Assayas’ Cold Water, two boys huddle around a radio like it was a small fire in the woods. The year is 1972; the place, just outside Paris. They madly fumble for reception. Finally, success! They get a decent (though still fuzzy) signal, just in time to bob their heads to Roxy Music’s “Virginia Plain.” It’s a moment that must seem alien to anyone who grew up pre-Internet, who have no idea what it was like when everything (if not everything) wasn’t a click away. For ages, you had to fight to find Cold Water too. […]
by Matt Prigge on Apr 26, 2018 -
La Chinoise, Le Gai Savoir, Personal Shopper and Two by John Sturges: Jim Hemphill’s Home Video Picks
“How has La Chinoise aged?” asks Amy Taubin in her liner notes to the new Blu-ray edition of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1967 provocation. Elsewhere in the disc’s accompanying booklet Richard Hell examines how he has shifted positions from seeing La Chinoise as lesser Godard to “a glorious experience” superior to more easily accessible works like Pierrot le fou. Both critics circle around one of the things I find most fascinating about Godard in general, which is the fact that his movies, more than those of any other filmmaker, seem to change the most drastically from one viewing to the next. Of […]
by Jim Hemphill on Oct 20, 2017 -
Personal Shopper: Assayas, Garrel, Truffaut, Godard, Lagerfeld and the Anxiety of Economic Influence
It only dawned on me last week — midway through four consecutive days spent at Lincoln Center’s Jean-Pierre Léaud retrospective — that Olivier Assayas and Philippe Garrel are essentially contemporaries. This isn’t obvious if you look at their filmographies: Garrel made his first short in 1964 (when he was all of 16!) and his first feature three years later. Assayas didn’t make his first short until 1979 and his first feature until 1986; looking at those dates, they’d appear to be filmmakers from different generations, even if at least somewhat temperamentally aligned in their backgrounds (both began as painters). Garrel was born in 1948, Assayas in 1955, and […]
by Vadim Rizov on Apr 3, 2017 -
Trailer Watch: Kristen Stewart in Olivier Assayas’s Personal Shopper
No film has stayed and resonated with me from Cannes this past year as much as Olivier Assayas’s Personal Shopper, an eerie ghost story/character study laced with dark forebodings entirely entwined with our current political moment. IFC has just dropped a new trailer which focuses aptly on Kristen Stewart’s riveting performance as a buyer and stylist to a Davos-set celebrity socialite. Intrigued with the paranormal in all its historical dimensions, Stewart’s character is grieving her recently deceased brother while exploring the possibilities of communication in an age in boundaries are increasingly blurred. IFC releases the film on March 10. (And […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 4, 2017
