David Lowery made our “25 New Faces of Independent Film” in 2011 on the basis of his fantastic short film, Pioneer. Now he’s got the most buzzed-about film at Sundance this year with Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, starring Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck. Here he talks about that film and the journey it took to get there.
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 17, 2013Filmmaker David Lowery (Pioneer, St. Nick) has an interesting piece on his blog today comparing the storytelling engines in Sean Durkin’s Martha Marcy May Marlene and Julia Leigh’s Sleeping Beauty. Martha, he argues, deliberately builds tension by withholding key information, while Sleeping Beauty lays everything on the table up front in an attempt to diffuse tension and focus deeper on story, theme, and character. In the article, Lowery also defends Martha against Richard Brody’s recent New Yorker blog post (a response in itself to Anthony Lane’s review of the film) in which Brody argued that the film’s flashback-heavy narrative […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Nov 7, 2011To create a feature with a genuine sense of mystery pulsing beneath the filmed veneer is a rare accomplishment, but to achieve that in a short film? Next to impossible. However, Pioneer — David Lowery’s tender, moody short — is an absolute cryptogram. Little more than a father (well-played by musician/actor Will Oldham) telling a tall and violent tale about an absent mother to his young son, Pioneer manages to stay within the confines of a bedroom yet utterly transports the audience to the high altitudes of childhood imagination. Lowery’s facility to direct children was on fine display with his […]
by James Ponsoldt on Jan 28, 2011