Winter 2018
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Who Inspires Us?
A feature entitled “Who Inspires Us?” appeared in the Fall 2003 edition of Filmmaker. Suggested by Ted Hope, the article contained 36 filmmakers writing simply about the inspirations sustaining their creative lives. I think that we can all agree that, 14 years later, inspiration is now an even more important commodity than ever. So, we went back to six of that article’s filmmakers, asked them to read their original responses and comment again — both on those responses and on who or what is inspiring them now. Screenwriter (Savage Grace) and former WGA President Howard Rodman’s contribution cited German artist […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Dec 14, 2017 -
On the Cut
On a film screen, a single edit flies by in the blink of an eye — usually, in 1/24th of a second. In the edit room, though, a cut is teased, strategized, finessed and obsessed over. We asked six editors from six of the fall’s best films to give us the frames on both sides of one particularly noteworthy cut — and to explain why these edits are so important. Call Me By Your Name Director: Luca Guadagnino Editor: Walter Fasano Fasano: Sensual. That’s the way I’d like to define our approach to the editing of Call Me By Your […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Dec 14, 2017 -
Outta Respect
“We tried to do everything we could.” “What do you mean?” “You know what I mean. He’s gone. And we couldn’t do nothing about it.” So kicks off an iconic sequence in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, the emotional summit of a movie that’s basically one iconic sequence after another: the moment on the pay- phone when Jimmy “The Gent” Conway (Robert De Niro) hears his old friend Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) has just been whacked. Jimmy doesn’t just hang up — he bashes the phone into the receiver, finally stomping the booth into the ground between muffled sobs while the film’s narrator, […]
by Steve Macfarlane on Dec 14, 2017 -
Editor’s Letter
So many of our film industry colleagues shift their focus each fall to awards. Here at Filmmaker, we decided to devote more of our coverage, both in print and online, to distinguished collaborators who don’t receive quite the same amount of ink as directors and movie stars. I’m talking, of course, about below-the-line, and you’ll find almost a dozen of them highlighted throughout these pages. Just after we shipped our last print issue, Filmmaker celebrated its 25th anniversary at IFP Week by hosting the opening day of panels and seminars. One highlight was contributing editor Taylor Hess’s onstage version of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 14, 2017 -
Hits and Misses: Anthony Kaufman Surveys the Sundance Class of ’17
The headlines said it all: “Hollywood Faces August Death March,” “Bummer Summer” and “Beleaguered Box Office.” OK, Hollywood had a tough year, but does that necessarily apply to independent films? Well, as the saying goes, a receding tide sinks all boats. And so it was in 2017: If people were going out to fewer movies and streaming more episodic content at home, it affected both indie films and tentpoles. But if we look back at the films that premiered at Sundance 2017, there are a few instances to inspire hope: The Big Sick, of course, was the big one; Wind […]
by Anthony Kaufman on Dec 14, 2017 -
Working Through Fear: An Interview with Blumhouse’s Jason Blum
Driving down Beverly, you head opposite Hollywood, away from Studio City, toward the nondescript, single-level, brown-bricked building that’s the literal Blumhouse — the offices of horror movie maestro Jason Blum. Since founding the company, Blum has produced dozens of films that have made varying degrees of impact on the zeitgeist: the found-footage scares of the Paranormal Activity films, the reinvented haunted house of the Insidious pictures, the social violence of The Purge series. And then, of course, there’s megahit Get Out, Jordan Peele’s ferociously intelligent satire on racism that, despite its share of lobotomies and knifings and violently applied white […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 25, 2017
