The Playlist

Interview: Shane Carruth Reveals The Mysteries Of 'Upstream Color'

By Jessica Kiang
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April 8, 2013 3:02 PM
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9 Comments

Interviews

In the hopes that some of you got to see "Upstream Color" over the weekend at one of its few, packed screenings, we're bringing you the concluding part of our interview with director Shane Carruth from the Berlin Film Festival, in which we spoke in a more minute way about the ins and outs of the film's plot, the motivations of some of its key characters, the thematic importance of the sound design and the metaphysics that underlies its ultimate meaning. Those who haven't yet had the singular pleasure of seeing it, we can only urge to go back and read parts one and two of the interview, or our review from Sundance, and then bookmark this one for later, as it's probably too close a reading of the film for anyone who hasn't yet become entangled in its enigmas.

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Interview: Shane Carruth Talks Trying To Make The Perfect "Album Film" With 'Upstream Color'

By Jessica Kiang
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April 3, 2013 2:35 PM
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2 Comments

Interviews

In Part One of our Shane Carruth interview, we brought you news of the "Primer" director's other projects -- the abortive "A Topiary," his work on Rian Johnson's "Looper" and the gestating "The Modern Ocean." But, of course, the real excitement is for "Upstream Color," which hits theaters this Friday, and it's a film that those Playlisters who've seen it have been profoundly impressed by. We can't wait for what will no doubt become a lively discourse because, much as we loved it, the film's willful impressionism has seen more than a few viewers, perhaps initially attracted by the genre trappings, leave the cinema (early) and frustrated. But as Carruth himself says, "People who are getting it are really getting it," and we humbly count ourselves among the latter group. During our extensive interview with the filmmaker at the Berlin International Film Festival, we got to talk in depth about his inspirations, his process and his hopes for the film's reception.

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'Upstream Color' Director Shane Carruth Reveals Details On Next Project 'The Modern Ocean,' His Work On 'Looper' & More

By Jessica Kiang
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April 1, 2013 4:02 PM
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5 Comments

Interviews

Psychotropic, romantic and beautiful like a scary dream, Shane Carruth’s long-awaited follow-up to "Primer," the self-distributed "Upstream Color" comes to theaters this Friday. Though it will undoubtedly divide, it has already, in its way, conquered many who've seen it: our reviewer in Sundance was little short of enraptured by the film, and this writer wholeheartedly agrees after seeing it at the Berlin International Film Festival. There are very few films that have the power to stay with you, buzzing and humming below the surface of your consciousness, for days after you see them, but the strains of "Upstream Color" remain with us still.

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Interview: Emma Stone Talks Comedy, 'The Croods' And Cameron Crowe; Scores Off The Charts On Likability

By Jessica Kiang
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February 24, 2013 1:30 PM
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Festivals

Having enjoyed pretty much the definition of a meteoric rise to fame, you could maybe forgive Emma Stone for having lost the run of herself. But just as her big-screen persona is usually based on being the approachable, down-to-earth, girl-next-door type, in person she demonstrates many of those qualities too, along with an absolute refusal to take herself too seriously. It made for an entertaining interview at the Berlin Film Festival following the premiere of her animated film “The Croods” (our review here). And if some members of our small press group were not just eating out of her hand, but apparently longing to curl up in her lap and go to sleep there by the end of our time with her, in between the various "Why are you so awesome?"-style questions, Stone did fill us in quite a bit on her philosophy towards her career to date, her role models and what the future holds. And if she has been taught to be a little cagey in some areas, she admitted as much saying, “This is what ‘Spider-Man’ does to you I’m always like ‘I don’t know if I can tell you about that, you’ll have to wait and see.’ About everything. ‘Would you like some water?’ ‘I dunno, you’ll have to wait and see…’ ”

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Interview: Mélanie Laurent On Advice From Luc Besson, Gerard Depardieu, 'Night Train To Lisbon' & Her Singing Career

By Jessica Kiang
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February 23, 2013 4:37 PM
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0 Comments

Festivals

It can be hard to remember that Mélanie Laurent had actually been acting for a decade, albeit largely in French-language productions, before breaking out internationally by killing Hitler in “Inglourious Basterds.” Of course the one-two punch of the Quentin Tarantino movie and Mike Mills’ well-received “Beginners” is a relatively recent phenomenon for the actress, but in person, too, Laurent has an engaging freshness about her and a genuine excitement about where she is and what she’s is doing that makes her seem more like an ingenue than a seasoned pro. Or so we found when we got to meet her at the Berlin Film Festival where her latest film, Bille August’s “Night Train to Lisbon."

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Berlin Interview: Jeremy Irons Talks 'Night Train To Lisbon,' 'Beautiful Creatures' And The Rationale Behind His Roles

By Jessica Kiang
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February 22, 2013 10:58 AM
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0 Comments

Interviews

A quick look through his back catalogue or a few minutes in his company will tell you that Jeremy Irons, despite his Best Actor Oscar (for his creepy, ambiguous Claus von Bulow in 1990’s “Reversal of Fortune”) and despite the many auteurs he has worked with in the past (David Cronenberg, Steven Soderbergh, Louis Malle, Bernardo Bertolucci, David Lynch etc), regards himself, first and foremost, as a jobbing actor. It’s not every esteemed and awarded star, after all, who boasts a U.S. indie, two lavish TV dramas, a small role in a would-be YA blockbuster, a lead in a European co-production and the voice of a bar rag in an episode of the “The Simpsons” as his credits in just the last 14 months or so.

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Berlin Interview: Ken Loach Says Critics Missed "Bias" Of 'Zero Dark Thirty,' Talks 'Spirit Of 45,' Sexiness Of Socialism & More

By Jessica Kiang
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February 22, 2013 9:56 AM
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8 Comments

Festivals

One of the quieter debuts at the Berlin International Film Festival last week was of a small talking-heads-and-archive-footage documentary about postwar Britain’s socialist reconstruction called “The Spirit of ‘45” (you can read our review here). But while it feels destined for a life on the small screen, the name above the title alone meant a festival bow was appropriate; it's the latest from British director Ken Loach, recipient of the Palme D’or at Cannes in 2006 for “The Wind that Shakes the Barley,” and one of the most well-respected and consistent proponents of the school of social realist filmmaking.

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Berlin Interview: Richard Linklater Talks Making ‘Before Midnight’ & The 14-Minute-Long Shot

By Jessica Kiang
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February 21, 2013 1:01 PM
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0 Comments

Interviews

With “Before Midnight” being readily clasped to the bosoms of audiences and critics alike at the Berlin International Film Festival, and having missed the talent when on their promotional rounds at Sundance last month (where the film was similarly well-received, our review is here), we jumped at the chance to sit down with the film’s co-creators last week. We ran our Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy interview earlier, but up next we have director Richard Linklater -- a filmmaker we’re quite the fan of and of whom we ran a retrospective last year -- talking about bottling the lightning of the beloved “Before Sunrise” not once, not twice, but now three times over.

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Berlin Interview: Juliette Binoche On 'Camille Claudel' & Working With Haneke, Minghella, Carax & Kiarostami

By Jessica Kiang
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February 20, 2013 4:47 PM
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1 Comment

Interviews

Like most of director Bruno Dumont’s films, “Camille Claudel 1915” has proven divisive (you can read our take here), but one thing that critics on both sides of the fence are in unanimous agreement about is the quality of the central performance from Juliette Binoche. Economically contained and internalised, even when her Claudel is displaying some rare histrionics, Binoche invests the role with oceanic depths and undercurrents of conflicting emotion in a turn that in some ways can almost be seen as the stripped-away template for the kind of melancholic, tragic, tortured heroine with which she has made her name.

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Berlin Interview: Nicolas Cage Explains Why 'Wicker Man' Is Misunderstood, His Career Choices & More

By Jessica Kiang
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February 20, 2013 12:23 PM
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14 Comments

Festivals

With “The Croods,” an animated family film from DreamWorks (our review here), premiering at the Berlin International Film Festival, lead voice actor Nicolas Cage was in town over the weekend, and we got to speak with him in a small group of journalists. About the experience of working on the film itself (“It’s like ‘Avatar’ meets ‘Yellow Submarine’ with these people who look like Neanderthals” he summed up) he had nothing but good things to say: “I feel like this is the best chance I’ve had to perform in an animated movie.” But he was also frank and forthcoming about other areas of his working life.

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