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ReelPolitik
A blog about film and politics, and the politics of filmmaking.
Anthony Kaufman is a film journalist and critic, who has written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Village Voice and Slate, and contributes regularly to Variety, indieWIRE, the Wall Street Journal Online and the Utne Reader.
[Email Me]
Articles
- "Piracy May Be an Indie Filmmaker's Best Friend" (Indiewire, October 2011
- "The Decline of Indies on Netflix" (indieWIRE, Sept, 2011)
- "Secretariat" Isn't Hollywood's Only Secretly Conservative Blockbuster" (IFC News, October 2010)
- "Absurdistan: The New Iraq War Cinema" (Village Voice, April 2008)
- "Is Foreign Film The New Endangered Species?" (New York Times, January 2006)
ReelPolitik
An Injury to One is An Injury to All... Filmmakers
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- March 15, 2012 10:11 AM
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- 2 Comments
Last October, I blogged about the belated--and much welcomed--DVD release of Travis Wilkerson's celebrated agit doc "An Injury to One," a stirring, compelling and formally innovative documentary about the lynching of a famous union agitator named Frank Little in Montana nearly a century ago. The film had garnered added relevance with the growing Occupy Wall Street movement, and was singled out by Dennis Lim in an L.A. Times story as "one of American independent cinema's great achievements of the past decade": The film seemed to have found an ideal moment to enter the mediasphere. But not so, according to Wilkerson.
"The Fog of War": Part II: Errol Morris Takes on Donald Rumsfeld
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- March 14, 2012 1:30 PM
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- 0 Comments
Errol Morris, the Oscar-winning director of "The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara," about the infamous Vietnam-era Secretary of Defense, has a similar target up his sleeves: a new project on Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense who helped plan the Iraq War and sanctioned America's policies of torture, according to a story in today's Vulture.
Despite New French-Lingo Project, Asgar Farhadi: "I Will Never Emigrate from Iran"
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- March 13, 2012 11:35 AM
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- 1 Comment
After winning the best foreign language film Oscar for "A Separation" and causing further political-cultural tremors inside his country, Iranian director Asghar Farhadi will be reportedly going to France for his next film, and not the one originally planned, according to Variety. The trade reports that Farhadi will work with Gallic producer Alexandre Mallet-Guy ("Taxidermia," "Cold Souls"), and that specific casting and story details will be announced nearer to the Cannes Film Festival in May.
A Certain Tendency of the Documentary Cinema
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- March 9, 2012 8:15 AM
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- 2 Comments
The celebrity-driven nonfiction film has become an unwelcome mainstray of the documentary form recently. Not only is Oscar-winning director Davis Guggenheim ("An Inconvenient Truth") directing commercials for none other than public persona #1 Barack Obama, but a whole slew of pop-docs are premiering at the Tribeca Film Fesival next month, with new films on Joseph Papp, musicians such as Queen and Tony Bennett, and sports figures such as the Red Sox's Tim Wakefield and the Met's R.A. Dickey. There's also star-studded docs on digital cinema ("Side by Side," featuring James Cameron, David Fincher, George Lucas, etc) and Morgan Spurlock's latest "Mansome" (with interviews with Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, Paul Rudd, Zach Galifianakis, etc). And do I care? Not really.
Is Adam Curtis the World's Most Important Political Filmmaker? Or Just a Wacko Conspiracy Theorist?
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- March 8, 2012 9:33 PM
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- 0 Comments
British TV journalist and filmmaker Adam Curtis, director of "The Power of Nightmares," is currently receiving a retrospective at New York galley e-flux, and if you haven't heard of this most essential documentarian, now's your chance to see his dizzyingly paranoid, and highly astute examinations of history, society and power. This weekend, they're screening his latest monumental 2011 work "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace," which connects Ayn Rand and her "Fountainhead" beliefs to an entire system of Sillicon Valley, economic and computer-worshipping excess that has put us in the mess we're in now. (Alan Greenspan was once a disciple of Rand's.)
The New Greek Wave? "Dogtooth," "Attenberg," "Alps" Reflect National Unease
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- March 8, 2012 9:46 AM
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- 2 Comments
It's a crappy time to live in Greece right now. But it's not so bad to be a Greek filmmaker. As economic austerity measures cripple the country, and the suicide rate has jumped 40%, a wave of bold, innovative films have been coming out of the country, of late, most notably from filmmakers Athina Rachel Tsangari, whose "Attenberg" opens this week in New York, and "Dogtooth" director Giorgos Lanthimos, whose latest "Alps" has been receiving critical acclaim on the festival circuit.
Iran's Movie Diplomacy: How Can We Attack A Country With Such Great Cinema?
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- March 6, 2012 9:29 AM
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- 1 Comment
In 2006, I wrote this headline, "How Can We Attack A Country With Such Great Cinema?" for a blog post, precipitated by a New York Times story I wrote about a number of Iranian films playing at that year's Tribeca Film Festival. Nearly six years later, the headline--and the thoughts behind it--seem as relevant as ever. With the success of Asghar Farhadi's "A Separation" (an Oscar win, the highest-grossing Iranian film in the U.S. ever, and the most successful foreign film in many months) at the same time as we're seeing escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran over its nuclear ambitions, it seems little has changed. Except, I guess, this time, we have a more reasonable head of state.
Where are you going to #OCCUPYTHECINEMAS today?
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- March 2, 2012 9:18 AM
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- 1 Comment
While I can't say my grassroots cinephilic political action has gotten the kind of wide-reaching attention as I had hoped, I'm happy to report that #OCCUPYTHECINEMAS was picked up by the Canadian press in recent days, in the country's largest urban weekly, the Georgia Straight, and Toronto's Globe and Mail. Why have the U.S. media not championed this Day of Action, in which moviegoers have been charged with giving their support to indie films and art-house theaters in protest of Hollywood and the MPAA's restrictive policies towards copyright laws, Internet piracy, movie ratings, international quotas and a host of Machiavellian strategies to dominate the media-sphere.
Recent Comments
Just stumbled on your article. As an Iranian and a filmmaker, I appreciate your insight into
Of course, because don't we want all our movies to be politically correct and focus-group
That's a fascinating take on the subject, Harry Harrison. And thank you for pointing out that
Ah, Harry, it's funny how certain internet types reduce everything to "moron",
FACTOID: "Similarly, what qualifies Gibney to tackle wikileaks?" Um, mr. factoid, using
Documentary filmmaking, particularly of the type likely to turn up at major festivals and be
The music industry renders your argument moot: the other 86% of the population is overwhelmingly
A close friend of mine works at ITVS. I can tell you that it is a secretive place where the managers
I knew this would be more political oriented. And that's why Pitt signed onto the project. So
I haven't seen the movie yet, but I did see Moulin Rouge. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but not