Willem Dafoe
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32 Days with Willem Defoe on a Virtual Volume Set: Vasilis Katsoupis on Inside
A thief breaks into a Manhattan penthouse filled with priceless art. Trapped by a high-tech security system, unable to communicate with the outside world, he must figure out a way to survive. At the same time, he begins to question how much the art surrounding him is really worth. Working on his first feature, writer-director Vasilis Katsoupis set his appropriately-titled film Inside almost entirely within a single set. A few other characters appear on monitors, through windows and in flashbacks, but the movie is a showcase for Willem Dafoe, who plays the thief. Starring with him is a remarkable collection […]
by Daniel Eagan on Mar 16, 2023 -
Cannes 2019 Dispatch 5: Fire Will Come, Tommaso
We all know that Cannes appraises itself as the supreme purveyor of a given year’s most handsome industrially-produced arthouse motion pictures (that is, those that happen to have completed their post-production by late April of said year) — a launchpad for quote-unquote major achievements by the world’s most recognizable and uncompromising narrative filmmakers. Its unwillingness to accommodate the more outre or difficult projects from directors who fit that description hasn’t been too contentious thanks, mostly, to the Directors’ Fortnight’s relatively eclectic and much less constricted programming philosophy—carried over from one artistic director to the next for more than half a […]
by Blake Williams on May 24, 2019 -
Back to One, Episode 31: At Eternity’s Gate Actor Willem Dafoe
With over 100 films in his legendary career filled with versatile, bold, and iconic performances, Willem Dafoe is one of the most respected actors of our time. His artistic curiosity in exploring the human condition leads him to projects all over the world, giant Hollywood movies as well as small independent films. In this episode he talks about inhabiting Vincent van Gogh through the act of painting for his latest film, At Eternity’s Gate, and how being part of a strong director’s vision is actually freeing. Plus I try to get him to talk a bit about the nuts and […]
by Peter Rinaldi on Nov 20, 2018 -
It’s a Small World: Sean Baker on The Florida Project, Shooting 35mm and Going Union
I experience a bit of a disconnect when setting up my interview with Sean Baker about his indelible new feature about childhood, The Florida Project. The publicist tells me to meet Baker at the storied Stonewall Inn, where, before me, Baker will be doing an interview about the iPhone. It takes me a second to piece that together, but then I get it — Baker’s last film, Tangerine, starred trans actors and was shot on the iPhone, which marks its 10th anniversary this September. Baker, I guess correctly, is being interviewed for some tech website’s history of the transformative tech […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 14, 2017 -
“I’m Going Back to My Horror Film Roots”: Abel Ferrara Launches Siberia at Cannes 2015
Indie maestro Abel Ferrara launched his latest film project in Cannes this week with his first ever foray into Kickstarter. Siberia, a new film with Willem Dafoe, explores the language of dreams, using the subconscious as a form of language. “There’s nothing more horrific than your own dreams and nightmares,” Ferrara promised the crowd of assembled journalists gathered on the top of the Silencio club in Cannes. “I’m going back to that kind of filmmaking, to my horror film roots.” He’s hoping to raise half a million dollars to begin financing for the new film. “This is Willem being Willem,” […]
by Ariston Anderson on May 22, 2015 -
Trailer Watch: Abel Ferrara’s Pasolini (Mildly NSFW)
“I’m going to be frank with you,” says Willem Dafoe’s Pier Paolo Pasolini in this trailer for Abel Ferrara’s keenly anticipated biopic of the Italian director, killed under still mysterious circumstances in 1975. “I’ve been to Hell, and I know things that don’t disturb other people’s dreams.” The musically-literally-operatic trailer for Pasolini is subtitled in French but mostly in English, save for a brief, easy-to-follow French passage (asked whether he considers himself a screenwriter, critic, actor, etc., Pasolini replies that on his passport it simply says writer) and a tiny bit in Italian. This is mildly NSFW, as there are […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 2, 2014 -
Abel Ferrara Talks His Venice and Toronto-Bound Pasolini
At 1985, Evan Louison sits down in Rome with Abel Ferrara, learning more about the director’s Pasolini, starring Willem Dafoe as the murdered Italian director. Below Ferrara talks about the film’s relationship to fiction, non-fiction, imagination and the subconscious. Read the complete interview at the link. AF: He was a part of a tradition, a movement — Rosselini, Antonioni, & Bertolucci after that. I’m sure if you’re hard pressed you could call it all the same style. These guys are working with the same DPs, & a lot of the same actors. He wasn’t the only one using guys right […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 30, 2014 -
The Cannes Film Festival Announces Its Jury
With less than a month before the Cannes Film Festival starts up, the jury lineup has been fully unveiled. As announced in January, the jury president will be New Zealand director Jane Campion (Top Of The Lake, The Piano). Now her fellow jurors have been named: • Carole Bouquet, the veteran French actress who made her debut in Luis Buñuel’s That Obscure Object Of Desire • Sofia Coppola, whose The Bling Ring was the divisive opening film of the festival’s 2012 Un Certain Regard slate • Leila Hatami, the Iranian actress best known internationally as the star of Asghar Farhadi’s […]
by Vadim Rizov on Apr 28, 2014 -
MUSIC VIDEO WATCH: ANTONY AND THE JOHNSONS, TOM WAITS
It’s rare that one week brings not one but two ambitiously cinematic, outside-the-box music videos. The first is “Cut the World,” from Antony and the Johnsons and directed by Nabil. Starring Willem Dafoe, Carice Van Houten and Marina Abramovic, it starts out like a bittersweet tale of office longing… and then turns into something else. From Tom Waits and ’80s music video superstar director Matt Mahurin is “Hell Broke Luce,” which Waits describes as picturing “an enlightened drill sergeant yelling the hard truths of war to a brand new batch of recruits. The video grew from the gnawing image of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 8, 2012 -
4:44 Last Day on Earth — A Hammer to Nail Review
(Abel Ferrara’s 4:44 Last Day on Earth premiered at the 68th Venice Film Festival. It’s being released theatrically by IFC Films on March 23, 2012.) A number of recent films have collectively suggested that the more global, or even cosmic, the crisis, the more intimate the response. This was done most recently in Perfect Sense but also last summer’s Another Earth and, to a lesser extent, The Tree of Life, about which it might be more accurate to say that the cosmic is crafted from the intimate. (Melancholia breaks from this trend somewhat, and its cold remove is part of what makes it so disconcerting a film.) This art-house apocalypse continues in […]
by Michael Nordine on Mar 22, 2012
