11.15.13 |
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Scott Fennessey and Chris Ryan, writing for Grantland:
As a fine-arts student who got his start in the vulgar world of commercial directing and slick TV shows, he has always subverted expectations…Looking for the quintessential interstellar extraterrestrial adventure? Instead, take the most grotesque body-horror movie ever made. Scott’s movies are delivery systems for ideas, but they’re also Trojan horses — hulking, beautiful objects, meant to distract audiences while those ideas creep in, one soldier at a time, to take over your mind. It’s been an effective, unlikely strategy for the British-born filmmaker.
11.01.13 |
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Director Wong Kar-Wai shot Chungking Express in an unusually brief (by Wong standards) two month period while taking a production break from another film. The Dissolve‘s Keith Phipps writes about the movie’s history, plot, cinematography and more:
Though necessitated by circumstance, shooting faster and looser seems to have opened Wong up to new ideas. Yet, just as in the world of the film, there’s order within the chaos. Though made in an urgent heat, it’s a deeply considered, beautifully constructed film that captures the feel of a particular place at a particular time—and of characters of a particular age, specifically the age when it first becomes apparent that time only runs one way, even if the world seems to be eternally repeating itself.
08.02.13 |
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Director Nicolas Winding Refn, interviewed by The Dissolve:
Television has gotten much more aggressive, and much more mind-expanding and progressive than cinema, which is still the crown jewel, and will always be the crown jewel. We need to remember that cinema is not just about, “How much money did you make on Friday to Monday?” but also, “What is your actual interest?” Filmmaking is an art form, and the art can inspire. But if everyone’s afraid of standing out and risking polarization, which essentially means it’s a singular vision, then the world will become less interesting.
It’s a well spoken point. Among the film critics I follow on Twitter, TV discussion comes up again and again; we’re truly in a remarkable time period. I just haven’t seen film take the same risks over the last year or so, at least compared to years prior.
Alas, Refn’s “singular vision” reached a point of near parody in Only God Forgives. I’m generally a big fan of Refn’s work, and Only God Forgives is a visually striking, haunting film with a great Cliff Martinez score. But by the end the style excess and lack of dialogue felt suffocating.
05.31.13 |
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Matt Zoller Seitz on today’s great era of TV direction:
Where’s their MoMA retrospective? Why is there no auteur theory of TV?
One explanation is that movies have a half-century head start on TV, so there’s been more time for critics to settle on terms and definitions. I like to tell people that TV, as both business and art, is at roughly the same place in its development as cinema was in the late fifties, around the time that the French floated the auteur theory. We’re still figuring out who the “author” is on TV shows. We’re still taking into account whether we’re talking about the show as a whole or a particular episode, and why. We rarely think of TV as being directed, unless the show’s main creative force has already been identified as a theatrical director (as David Lynch was before Twin Peaks) or doubles as the show’s star (like Louis C.K. or Lena Dunham).
I’ve become more aware of reoccurring TV directors on shows as varied as Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones and even New Girl. I know there’s a “voice” there, but I admit I rarely make a connection with what’s onscreen the way I do with a “name” film director. Seitz helps explain why.
05.15.13 |
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I’d argue it’s hard to find someone better equipped to deliver a “State of Cinema” talk than director Steven Soderbergh. Film Comment transcribed his entire talk for reading, There’s also a full SoundCloud embed file if you’d rather listen to Soderbergh’s audio. One of his quick asides on the major studios’ financial dominance was pretty scary:
In 2003, 455 films were released. 275 of those were independent, 180 were studio films. Last year 677 films were released. So you’re not imagining things, there are a lot of movies that open every weekend. 549 of those were independent, 128 were studio films. So, a 100% increase in independent films, and a 28% drop in studio films, and yet, 10 years ago: Studio market share 69%, last year 76%. You’ve got fewer studio movies now taking up a bigger piece of the pie and you’ve got twice as many independent films scrambling for a smaller piece of the pie. That’s hard. That’s really hard.
04.16.13 |
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Grantland‘s Zach Baron:
He [Carruth] is obsessive, won’t deny that. For Primer he taught himself everything, from editing to operating a camera to acting to writing music. It took a while. The movie almost never got made because of it, because of his tendency to go down wormholes for weeks and months and years at a time. “I don’t typically have a social life, I don’t have a family, and I will stay up all night, every night, for days on end, to solve something that I think is solvable,” he says. “And it’s very frustrating sometimes, because I know that I’m like that, and it’s not always a positive result.”
‘Visionary’ and ‘auteur’ are words overused when it comes to describing filmmakers. But Carruth is unquestionably both. I revisited Primer last weekend for a second time, and it’s just as cerebral and deep as I remembered from my first viewing years ago.
02.06.13 |
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There’s a reason that this long interview with Vulture‘s Mary Kaye Schilling is getting so talk online. It’s because it’s great, candid, and moves in directions I never would have expected (e.g. Soderbergh loves reading US in airports).
01.25.13 |
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Film Crit Hulk:
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BUT IN ALL THE PRESS THAT HE GOT TO DO FOR THE FILM, THERE WAS SOMEONE HE REFERENCED TIME AND TIME AGAIN, AND INSTANTLY HULK SAW THE ENTIRE THROUGHLINE.
HOOPER IS OBSESSED WITH KUBRICK.
AND THEN IT ALL MADE SENSE…
HOOPER DOESN’T KNOW FUCK ALL ABOUT WHAT KUBRICK WAS ACTUALLY DOING.
06.15.12 |
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Critic Todd VanDerWerff nails the unevenness of “The Phantom”:
Some of what hampers “The Phantom” is, surprisingly, Weiner’s direction. He’s done such a fine job with all of the previous finales—even nailing the tricky tone of “Shut The Door. Have A Seat”—that I’m surprised at how weirdly flat this episode feels, confined by lots and lots of unimaginative shots and brusque directing that might have been standard on any TV drama. The pacing is all off in the first half of the episode, as everything jumps between storylines somewhat haphazardly, and though Weiner comes up with one magnificent image toward the end—the five partners of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce in their new office space, looking out toward what’s to come—so much of the rest of the episode feels like it’s trying to fit three or four episodes’ worth of plots into one hour and just barely pulling it off.
There were clearly some highlights – Roger’s mixture of happiness and genuine melancholy with Marie, Pete’s final speech to Beth – but I found this to be a pretty unsatisfying finale. Compared to the eloquence of Season 1’s “The Wheel”, or the surprise and movement of Season 3’s “Shut the Door. Have a Seat” and Season 4’s “Tomorrowland”, it was a pretty tame episode.
05.18.12 |
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Crazy to think how Bobcat Goldthwait, probably best known as Zed in the Police Academy series, has evolved into a independent (and very dark) film director. A wide ranging interview with Goldthwait appears on a recent Vice post, where he gives frank advice:
My point is this—if you want to be happy in showbiz (or any creative field), listen to that voice inside you. Even if it says “Fuck it” sometimes. Work with your friends. Avoid chasing fame or money. Just do what you want to do, when and how you want to do it. And if it’s not making you happy, quit. Quit hard, and quit often. Eventually you’ll end up somewhere that you never want to leave.