Sean Price Williams
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“If There are Esoteric Titles in the List, the Unfortunate Thing is That They are Esoteric at All”: Sean Price Williams on 1000 Movies
The debut release from Metrograph Editions, Sean Price Williams‘s 1000 Movies is just that — a list of 1,000 movies seen and appreciated in some way by the director/cinematographer, listed chronologically across its 6″ x 4.25″ pages. There is much white space. Not included is any kind of foreword, such as a personal essay explaining the project’s genesis. (For that, you’ll have to look to interviews such as this one, or Matt Folden’s on the Metrograph site.) There are no Letterboxd-style ratings, no film stills, and not even an author bio; there’s just Lizzie Harper’s drawing up front of an […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 21, 2024 -
Cannes 2023: Sean Price Williams and Nick Pinkerton on The Sweet East
Originally published during the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, our interview with Sean Price Williams and Nick Pinkerton about their recommended feature, The Sweet East, is being reposted today as the film is in theatrical release from Utopia. America’s fraught political present meets the less savory corners of cinema’s past in The Sweet East, the first feature directed by celebrated cinematographer Sean Price Williams. Penned with typically acerbic wit by film critic Nick Pinkerton, The Sweet East stars Talia Ryder in a should-be-star-making performance as Lilian, a high school senior who impulsively runs off while on a class trip to Washington, […]
by Jordan Cronk on Dec 1, 2023 -
Cannes 2023: About Dry Grasses, The Sweet East
Cannes official competition has grandfathered-in filmmakers—Pedro Almodóvar, the Dardennes, Arnaud Desplechin—who will keep being included no matter what, and Nuri Bilge Ceylan, whose every feature since 2002’s Distant has premiered here, is definitely among them. After receiving the Grand Prix for 2011’s Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Ceylan introduced his “three-plus-hours only” mode with 2014’s Winter Sleep and 2018’s The Wild Pear Tree, and reception was what you might call “respectfully muted.” Outside the festival, his reputation seems to have fallen off: it’s a long way from the 2007 Coen brothers short World Cinema, in which a cowboy played by Josh Brolin goes to see […]
by Vadim Rizov on May 21, 2023 -
“It Always Seems That the Film Comes Together When You Just Go About Doing It”: Abel Ferrara on the Ethan Hawke-Starring Zeros and Ones
“Jesus was just another soldier, another war casualty — but on who’s side?” That’s military man JJ, played by Ethan Hawke, in voiceover as he walks the COVID-deserted streets of Rome in Abel Ferrara’s new Zeros and Ones. There’s a terrorist plot to blow up the Vatican but JJ’s got a more personal (and possibly intertwined) mission as well: his twin revolutionary brother, Justin (also Hawke), has been captured, and JJ’s nocturnal journey is an attempt to rescue him and possibly find some sort of spiritual salvation along the way. But the above is just the most reductive parsing of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 19, 2021 -
Watch: Sean Baker’s Short Film for Khaite’s Fall ’21 Collection
Inspired, he says, by Walter Hill and, as obvious from the title treatment, The Warriors title designer Dan Perri, Sean Baker (The Florida Project, Tangerine) has directed a blast of a fashion short for Khaite, a girl-gang fantasia evoking the cinema as well as streets of ’70s and ’80s New York. Shot by Sean Price Williams, the short compresses the attitude, abandon and confrontations of some imagined and long-lost work of downtown cinema (you’ll pull your own set of references — mine included Ms. 45, Liquid Sky, Paris is Burning and Wild Style) into a brisk four-minutes scored to Ace Frehley’s New […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 27, 2021 -
“Preparing for a Future that is Hard to Recognize Yet…”: DP Sean Price Williams Enters Time Capsules of Cinema
Clouds have finally arrived after almost three months of the most uncharacteristic bout of sunshine here in London. What brought them? I have been asking for some of that rain and gloom to give me comfort in closing myself off into the bedroom cave that I turn into our private cinema and do nothing but watch movies. I abandoned the fantasy that I could just watch movies all day and night during quarantine. It turns out movies are best enjoyed with a side of life. But, we can’t have too much living for now, as we are strapped down awaiting […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jul 8, 2020 -
“The Sadder We Made It Look, the Funnier It Became”: Gaffer Daniel April Lights The Death of Dick Long
I first saw The Death Of Dick Long at a press screening at Technicolor Postworks. It is the second feature film from one of Swiss Army Man’s co-directors, Daniel Scheinert, whose kooky debut portends the mercurial sensibilities of Dick Long, a cotton state comedy of errors with a hushed twist. The film’s gaffer, Daniel April, the sought after lightsmith of New York indie film, still hadn’t seen the film, so I invited him to attend A24’s special screening at the Alamo Drafthouse in Downtown Brooklyn, featuring free wine and popcorn, the common bribes. April had just gotten off the set […]
by A.E. Hunt on Oct 1, 2019 -
“Filmmakers Know ESPN Better Than Cinema”: DP Sean Price Williams on Shooting The Great Pretender With a DSLR and Today’s Film Climate
While shooting a commercial in Thailand cinematographer Sean Price Williams (Good Time, Golden Exits, Marjorie Prime) contracted an ear infection. He let me rattle questions into his ear canals despite it. Two months prior The Great Pretender, the second feature film he had shot with writer/director Nathan Silver (Thirst Street, Stinking Heaven, Exit Elena), premiered in the Viewpoints section of Tribeca. Following the screening, Sean revealed that the film had been shot on a DLSR camera that could fit in one hand, with plastic, sparkle filters taped over the lens, completely eschewing a matte box. He managed to photograph Brooklyn […]
by A.E. Hunt on Jul 17, 2018 -
“The Movie Industry Doesn’t Have Any Etiquette, Just Fear”: Director Nathan Silver on Thirst Street and Making Eight Features in Eight Years
Nathan Silver has made eight films in eight years. That doesn’t include other shorts he’s written or executive produced. For anyone not in the business of film, that might seem standard. For anyone who is, it’s wildly impressive, especially taking into consideration the inclusion of pre-production time, when a script is written, money is raised and all the frustrating puzzle pieces of building a team have to fall into place. Silver’s latest film, Thirst Street, centers on Gina (Lindsay Burdge), an American flight attendant who becomes entwined in a toxic obsession. After landing in Paris, she falls for Jerome (Damien […]
by Meredith Alloway on Sep 28, 2017 -
Directors Josh and Benny Safdie and Cinematographer Sean Price Williams Talk Shooting Good Time in NYC on 35mm at IFP Week
Directors Josh and Benny Safdie and cinematographer Sean Price Williams go way back. Their latest collaboration, the crime thriller Good Time, is the trio’s fourth joint effort. They’re not only used to each other; they’ve also been through some real shit. The Safdies love to work rough and tumble, filming most of their movies — including Daddy Longlegs and Heaven Knows What, both shot by Williams – on the streets and apartments of New York, feeding off and bottling up the city’s uniquely chaotic energy. For Good Time, they even dragged a big name, Robert Pattinson, along for the ride. To get […]
by Matt Prigge on Sep 20, 2017
