Today is St. Nicholas’ Day, and very fittingly David Lowery’s debut feature, St. Nick, is available to watch for free on the NoBudge website. In advance of the world premiere of Lowery’s second film, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, at Sundance in January, it’s also a great time to revisit this film — or watch it for the first time. You can watch St. Nick here from today until December 13.
by Nick Dawson on Dec 6, 2012Filmmaker 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, 2011Independent Film Week wrapped up last night with a closing night party swankier than most of us in the non-profit indie film world are used to. There were lobster rolls. There was paella (seriously, more paella in one place than I’ve seen over my entire life.) And there were three-hundred underfed indie filmmakers. Not a bad deal This was my third time at Film Week, and easily the best. Over five days, we hosted 2,200 filmmaker/industry meetings, as well as a conference, a screening series and a boatload of other special events. Here are some final photographic highlights: Writer/Director […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Sep 23, 2011Opening today at Brooklyn’s gastropub theater, reRun, is David Lowery’s first feature, St. Nick. Here’s Alicia Van Couvering’s introduction to her interview with Lowery for Filmmaker at the film’s festival premiere: There is almost no dialogue in the first half of David Lowery’s feature debut, St. Nick. A young boy and a girl enter an abandoned house, clean it up, build a fire, forget to open a window and fill the house with smoke, figure out a chimney and watch the embers turn into flames. They sleep, they forage for food; somehow they survive, until reality starts bearing down on […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 22, 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, 2011There is almost no dialogue in the first half of David Lowery’s feature debut, St. Nick. A young boy and a girl enter an abandoned house, clean it up, build a fire, forget to open a window and fill the house with smoke, figure out a chimney and watch the embers turn into flames. They sleep, they forage for food; somehow they survive, until reality starts bearing down on them. It’s not clear why they ran away, or if anyone is looking for them. The film is stark and the house feels haunted, but you can’t stop thinking: this was […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Mar 15, 2009