"Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen." -- Robert Bresson
My Bio at indieWIRE
|
August 31, 2007.
The 2007 BRM Fall Film Festival Preview #4: Julian Schnabel's Le Scaphandre Et Le Papillon (The Diving Bell And The Butterfly)
"Through the frayed curtain at my window, a wan glow announces the break of day. My heels hurt, my head weighs a ton, and something like a giant invisible cocoon holds my whole body prisoner. My room emerges slowly from the gloom. I linger over every item: photos of loved ones, my children's drawings, posters, the little tin cyclist sent by a friend the day before the Paris–Roubaix bike race, and the IV pole hanging over the bed where I have been confined these past six months, like a hermit crab dug into his rock. No need to wonder very long where I am, or to recall that the life I once knew was snuffed out Friday, the eighth of December, last year..." -- Jean-Dominique Bauby, Le Scaphandre Et Le Papillon (The Diving Bell And The Butterfly) I have never read Jean-Dominique Bauby's Le Scaphandre Et Le Papillon (The Diving Bell And The Butterfly), as I am patiently awaiting Julian Schnabel's film adaptation, but I will. In the intervening months since the end of the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, I have been dying to see this film, which tells the story Bauby dictated using a series of blinks of his eye to indicate to his scribe which letter should be selected. According to Wikipedia, "The book took about two hundred thousand blinks to write and each word took approximately two minutes," which is, I believe, one of the least cinematic sounding processes imaginable (if not one of the most heroic acts of writing possible). Leave it to Julian Schnabel, whose high-profile portraits of the painter Jean Michel Basquiat (in Basquiat) and the poet/novelist Reinaldo Arenas (in Before NIght Falls) for me represent the antithesis of the staid, formulaic biopic, to take on Bauby's tale. Schabel is (as is well known to all, I'm sure) a visual artist of the highest order (his paintings are full of muscular color and life) and I think he brings a unique understanding to his cinematic portraits, that of an artist who has personally experienced the herculean struggle of creating something from the void that confronts all of us; The blank canvas that defines what gets created and what never is willed into being. I don't mean to get too artsy-fartsy on this point, but for me, Schnabel's understanding of the creative process makes his biographies burn with the constant struggle between his subject's idealism (that is to say, their political action and their desire to live a principled life) and the constant failures and compromises imposed by the societies in which they live. This is clearly embodied in both Javier Bardem's performance as Arenas in Before Night Falls (when his character is asked why he writes, he booms the word "Revenge!") and Jeffrey Wright's career-launching nonchalance as the visionary Basquiat; Both men live life on their own terms, and both pay a price. Setting aside the details of Bauby's story (of which I am rather ignorant), I can only anticipate that Bauby's heroic act of creation will be a springboard for a continuation of Schnabel's concerns, and I am most grateful for that.
Enter Matthieu Amalric*, who plays the role of Bauby in the film. As long time readers of this blog may know, he's my favorite working actor. Ever since I saw him in Arnaud Desplechin's My Sex Life..., I have gone out of my way to try and see everything he's done. The pairing of Amalric and Schnabel is one I find particularly exciting because Schnabel seems to bring out the best in his leading actors (both Bardem and Wright were tremendous) and because I haven't seen Amalric carry a drama on his shoulders in a long, long time. I'm already a sucker for Schnabel's brand of biography, and for him to have placed Amalric in the lead is a mouth-watering pairing. Fingers crossed that this one delivers on its promise, but really, it seems a lock to be a film I will absolutely love. In the meantime, you can read the first chapter of the English translation of Bauby's memoir here; Absolutely gorgeous writing, and I am eager to read the book once the film is behind me. Le Scaphandre Et Le Papillon (The Diving Bell And The Butterfly) is playing at the 2007 Telluride Film Festival, the 2007 New York Film Festival (where I will be seeing it) and the 2007 Toronto Film Festival in the festival's Premieres section. Tomorrow: Santosh Sivan's Before The Rains Previously: Shira Geffen and Etgar Keret's Meduzot (Jellyfish) Harmony Korine's Mister Lonely *By the way, if anyone would like to finance my idea for a Polanski biopic, Amalric is absolutely PERFECT for the titular director... the resemblance is uncanny... eh, kitty-cat? August 30, 2007.
The 2007 BRM Fall Film Festival Preview #3: Harmony Korine's Mister Lonely
Before we dive in, a bit of history; In the twelve years since Harmony Korine first appeared on David Letterman's show to promote his work on Larry Clark's Kids, he has gone on to produce only two polarizing feature-length films of his own; Gummo (1997) and Julien Donkey Boy (1999), the latter of which was the first American film (and maybe the only one ?!?) produced under the rules of the Danish Dogme '95 manifesto. Since this blog strives to keep things as personal as possible, I'll come clean and say that I truly admired both films. Neither was an 'entertainment' and neither was (formally speaking) anything earth-shatteringly new (what in this day and age can be?), but in my opinion, both films showed a deep sense of feeling that is very, very rare in American movies; If you're looking to understand the outsider and the deep sense of social alienation that exists on the fringes of American society, you could do a lot worse than Harmony Korine's movies. Of course, as any artist who is experimenting with the conventions and expectations in the cinema must do, Korine walks the razor's edge between examination and exploitation (see my defense of Todd Solondz for more on this subject) and I think a lot of people make a classic mistake when watching Korine's films, which is to paste their own feelings about the characters over the top of what is actually being presented on the screen. It is a very tough call to make, but when I hear people saying things like "what a bunch of freaks and losers", etc. in relation to fictional characters, I always believe that these criticisms say far more about the predispositions and prejudices of the critic than they necessarily do about the subjects in the films themselves. Of course, exploitation does exist in film, but a lack of irony is always a tell tale sign to me; Without an ironic, non-literal sensibility, I think films generally run a much greater risk of transforming earnestness into exploitation. A lack of irony is never a problem for Korine, but I do think he is very much connected to and caring toward his characters; For me, he is a deeply compassionate filmmaker, who uses his characters and situations to both critique social norms and to express what I can only assume is a personal sense of isolation. His films are full of the feeling of being a stranger to the artificial social relations that make up most of what passes for human interaction these days; That handshake on the Letterman show really says it all, no? Which is why, when I first heard about his new film Mr. Lonely, I knew simply from the title that the film seemed to fit naturally into Korine's body of work; The title alone seems to be a perfect summation of his work so far. In 2006, I was lucky enough to have dinner with Werner Herzog in Sarasota, and he had flown in to our festival directly from Costa Rica, where he had just finished shooting his scenes for Mr. Lonely; Werner explained his role as a mad priest who flies a bomber and unloads a payload of bicycling nuns over missionary areas. He relayed the story with a grand smile; After his gas-masked cough-syrup induced hallucinatory role in Julien Donkey Boy, he seemed positively tickled about working on Harmony's new film. Having read very little about the film in advance (because who you gonna trust on Harmony Korine?), I do know that the film is about a commune for celebrity impersonators which sounds like a terrific vehicle for Korine's own brand of "outsider" art; People so alienated from themselves, they live out their fantasies of being important by pretending to be someone else. I am very much looking forward to seeing where the movie takes us, and how far Korine has come since 1999.
Mister Lonely is playing at the 2007 Toronto Film Festival in the festival's Vanguard section. Tomorrow: Julian Schnabel's Le Scaphandre Et Le Papillon (The Diving Bell And The Butterfly) Previously: August 29, 2007.
The 2007 BRM Fall Film Festival Preview #2: Shira Geffen and Etgar Keret's Meduzot (Jellyfish)
This past year at the Sarasota Film Festival, we programmed a sidebar of films called Emerging Jewish Voices which tapped into artists with some new perspectives about Judaism, Israeli life and culture, and the changes in identity that seem to be happening throughout the Jewish diaspora. The films themselves ranged from new work like Dror Shaul's award-winning Sweet Mud to Michael Tully's Silver Jew to Jason Hutt's phenomenal Orthodox Stance to Joseph Madmony and David Ofek's tragedy Melanoma My Love all the way to master Amos Gitai's News From Home, News From House, a marvel of a film that uses history as a way of looking forward toward reconciliation among the diverse populations in the Middle East. The series was very popular with our audiences, and assembling it really piqued my interest in Israeli film making today and what seems to be an emerging film making community; Sure, Romania may be getting all the ink (I never thought I would write that sentence), but Israeli films are hot hot hot. Fast forward to May, and I watched from my seat on the sidelines as Shira Geffen and Etgar Keret's Meduzot (Jellyfish) won the Caméra D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. For me, the Caméra D'Or has always been the most interesting prize at Cannes, announcing the arrival of artists and filmmakers of consistent quality and imagination, and so I am usually pre-disposed to seeking out the films that are recognized with this prize. But couple that with some of Keret's previous credits (his story Kneller's Happy Campers was the inspiration for Goran Dukic's Wristcutters: A Love Story, one of my favorite Sarasota FF films of recent years) and the emergence of this film among so many quality Israeli films, and we have all the trappings of a highly-anticipated movie.
Again, Variety gives an absolute rave: "The Cannes Critics Week preem of Jellyfish marks another triumph for Israel, strongly represented on the Croisette this year with three films in official sections. Debuting feature co-helmers Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen, a couple already separately acclaimed as fiction writers, make a fluid transition to film with this tightly constructed, cleverly stylized, serio-comic ensemble piece. Highly cinematic, with a mood of existential loneliness leavened by magical whimsy, its different story strands share themes including the need for affection and the struggle to communicate. Endearing pic should wash ashore at many festivals, with niche distribution and broadcast likely in some markets."-- Alissa Simon, Variety Zeitgeist Films, one of my absolute favorite companies in all of American cinema, has picked up the movie for theatrical release in the United States, and their imprimatur on the film speaks volumes to me. Two plus two equals four, folks. This one is going to be good. I can't wait to get my eyes on it. Meduzot (Jellyfish) is playing at the 2007 Toronto Film Festival in the Contemporary World Cinema section. Tomorrow: Harmony Korine's Mister Lonely Previously: Day-And-Date
Anthony Kaufman's recent article in the Village Voice (also see his blog post about his decision to return to the critic-depleted Voice for this piece) is one of the paper's must-read pieces about New York City film culture in quite a long time. Reading it, I forgot how much I missed flipping to the to Voice on my daily march through film writing, and how much I used to anticipate Tuesday evenings, when I could settle in and read Dennis Lim, J Hoberman (whom I still read), Michael Atkinson, Amy Taubin and the Voice staff writers who really framed the film-going discussion among my friends and colleagues. Yes, the writers are still out there, working hard and delivering excellent work, but the Voice used to be a one-stop shop for some of the best film writing available. Today, a diaspora of bookmarks barely replicates the experience. Anthony's article, which I am sure will raise a few eyebrows, takes on the real problems of the "day-and-date" model's theatrical component; Primarily a way to capitalize on the short window of press and media attention for independent, foreign and low-revenue films, day-and-date (as I am sure you know by now) simultaneously bundles a very small theatrical release with cable television Video On Demand availability (and supposedly a DVD release, but that has not been the case for very many films at all). Anthony tackles a very important topic in his article, one that will be near and dear to the hearts of all serious New Yorker film goers; The way in which the decline in art-house screen space in New York City, coupled with the IFC Center's use of the day-and-date model to populate their screens with their own IFC First Take distribution products, has created a shortage of opportunity for films seeking distribution. The IFC Center (which, full disclosure, is managed and operated by people I consider to be personal friends) takes the brunt of the article's rightful indignation, and Anthony gets some very choice quotes from the film industry, none more scathing than Sony Pictures Classics' Tom Bernard's withering statement that the IFC Center is "... a promotional item for television day-and-date broadcasting, and it puts films in the market that are not up to standard." Ouch. Of course, he is right in the first half, and half-right in the second. This past year, I hosted a panel at the Sarasota Film Festival about the challenges facing foreign film distribution in the United States, and along with Jon Gerrans (Strand Releasing), Paul Hudson (Outsider Pictures) and Josh Braun (Submarine Entertainment), I had IFC President Jonathan Sehring on the dais (ironically, Tom Bernard was invited but was a last minute cancellation). We discussed this very topic in great detail and Jonathan was unapologetic for his company's strategy. Day-and-date, he argued, allowed the films to reach new audiences; Despite the concerns of New York City theater-goers, the IFC First Take strategy is a national one. I won't speak for Jonathan, but the crux of his argument seemed to be that the theatrical experience was becoming less and less of a priority for most Americans and that VOD cable, which allows IFC First Take films into homes that otherwise would never have any access to these films at all, was a growth business because, in the new world of constantly emerging technologies, it was a much less expensive, less risky (in terms of IFC's perspective) way to get movies in front of eyeballs. And so, while the IFC Center mixes in a sprinkling of non-IFC First Take releases with its repertory calendar, the primary purpose seems to be to make some box-office on the films themselves before they head on their typical five or six city release patterns (give or take) while allowing the movies to generate all of the press and attention of more traditional, multi-city release patterns. And don't even mention film prints; Hannah Takes The Stairs, a recent IFC First Take title, will make its small theatrical run without a 35mm print ever being struck. And so, if you are running a business and rarely making much money on any of these films, this makes a lot of sense. Or, as Brian Newman argued in his recent post, this all may just be an ass-covering shell game. Who knows for sure.
Of course, it may not be working for New York City, which despite the location of the film industry in Los Angeles, is by far the most movie-crazy city in America. Which is where the "films in the marketplace that aren't up to standard" comment, which seems to be an important part of Anthony's argument, comes into play. I have to say, that while IFC First Take has delivered some duds, I can't point to a single distributor who hasn't unleashed duds into the theaters of America. Copious amounts of duds at that. So, yes it is easy to pick on some of the films that IFC First Take has selected, but for me, it is much easier to praise most of the titles and directors who, had IFC not picked up their films, would have remained completely unavailable to everyone (New Yorkers included). That list is not small, by the way; Alain Resnais' Private Fears In Public Places, Lars von Trier's The Boss Of It All, Shane Meadows' This Is England, Patrice Laconte's My Best Friend, Susanne Bier's After The Wedding, Christophe Honore's Dans Paris, Julia Loktev's Day NIght Day Night, Ken Loach's The Wind That Shakes The Barley, Hou Hsiao-Hsien's Three Times; All of these titles, which saw different levels of theatrical success by playing in the First Take program, would never have made it into New York theaters at all without being picked up by IFC. Couple that with the fact that I can go home to Flint, MI, go online and read a The other premise of Anthony's article is that there are films out there that can't get on a screen because of the IFC First Take program (and, though argued to a lesser extent, Film Forum's desire for exclusivity in their theatrical window), or as his sub-title puts it, "More movies, fewer screens, and a new game in town means cutthroat competition for indie-film distributors." For me, the problem is never "more movies"; I am not sure what "standard" Tom Bernard is talking about (I assume it is his own company's standard of excellence, about which there can be no argument, but to which most other film companies cannot afford to comply), but most of the films that make it to a theater deserve to be there simply because a distributor and a theater programmer are assuming some financial risk in placing them there. That is the standard; The market and critics then compete to decide the relative merits of the movies themselves. If you think the situation is bad now, imagine what more screens and more movies could mean; A glut of movies even worse than the ones bemoaned in the article. As a programmer, I promise you, there is more shit out there than undiscovered and unreleased quality; The ratio is probably 1000:1 in favor of the crap. The issue, as Mark Urman clearly articulates, is screen space; "Manhattan is scandalously under-screened, and the rate at which theaters playing specialty films are renovated and created is far behind the rate they've been dying, " he says. Later, Tom Bernard is absolutely correct when he "remembers the Upper East Side as the Boardwalk to Park Place of specialized exhibition, with the Cinema 1, the Beekman, the Baronet and Coronet—and that's fallen off. If there were a theater that had the trappings of the Angelika on the Upper West or East Side today, they'd have a license to print money. That is the heart of our audience...and there's a big hole with nothing there.'" But why should anyone, Film Forum, The IFC Center, whomever, be beholden to adding screenings of films already playing elsewhere in town? What we need, as is made clear, are more theaters. And maybe not in Manhattan; As Bernard puts it in the article, "Brooklyn is thriving." Really? Because we have nowhere near enough art-houses. As a Park Slope resident, I head to BAM all the time, but talk about under-screened and a license to print money; If someone partnered with The Brooklyn Brewery and built an Alamo-style art-house in Williamsburg (go ahead, do a search for 11211 on your favorite on-line ticketing website) and Park Slope, they'd be putting screens where the audience for these films now reside. Brooklyn is the most populous borough by far, and yet BAM, Cobble Hill and Brooklyn Heights Cinemas represent the extent of art-house; That's roughly nine to eleven screens (as Cobble Hill mixes in Hollywood fare) for art-house films to accommodate roughly 2.5 million people. You think we like riding the subway back into Manhattan for the 9:00 p.m. show? Real estate in New York City is ridiculous, the theater business is in decline, distributors continue to open Brooklyn on the second or third weekend of a New York City release, and so, the shortage continues. No one, and I truly mean no one, loves the experience of sitting at Film Forum (or IFC Center, or BAM, or the Laemmle 5 In LA, of the Burns Court in Sarasota, etc etc etc) among a group of committed movie-lovers as much as I do; I positively need a darkened movie theater and have spent the best part of my life's work up to this point trying to program films that will inspire that same love in others. But I also know how far outside of the mainstream experience my own passions have become. For me, the problem isn't the IFC Center's programming choices, which seem to me as hit or miss as anywhere else, but the dying experience of going to a movie theater and having the space be reverential toward movies. In the overwhelming majority of America, that experience is long-since dead; Movie theaters have become disposable edifices that share more in common with a Wal-Mart than with the movie palaces of old. Multiplexes are full of teenagers running wild, crying children at their parent's knee in R-rated films, cell phones blaring, advertisements looping for a good half-hour before the movie itself begins and few people bothered enough by the collective experience to prohibit them from talking in full-voice during the movie. All of that for $10 a head? Which is why, on any given weekday, the art-houses of New York City are an absolute sanctuary. Let me confess; I've actually taken a 30 minute train-ride to Film Forum on a bright and sunny summer's afternoon without any idea as to what is playing that day and paid an admission simply to be at the movies at favorite place to see them. When I return to New York City, I have to go there within the first few days in order to re-connect to the city itself. Which is why, like Anthony, I am highly sensitive and defensive about the art-house experience, but the problem is not the films; It's the change in the city and the world around us, the shortage of screens, and the realization that theatrical exhibition is more and more expensive for art-house titles that make less and less money. All I can do is continue to spread the word via my festival work, and get my ass into a movie theater seat as often as I can. All I can hope is that artists, distributors and theatrical programmers just keep the movies coming. Without them, I'm nothing. My previous thoughts on the new distribution platforms can be found HERE. August 28, 2007.
The 2007 BRM Fall Film Festival Preview #1: Lee Issac Chung's Munyurangabo (Liberation Day)
While the rest of the world gears up for the autumn by turning their attentions from the parade of summer blockbusters (and the requisite discussion of money money money) to the fall festivals and their impact on the awards season (and the requisite discussion of money money money), I think it is important to talk about some of the upcoming films that may be flying under the radar. The festival season kicks off in earnest this weekend when my Mrs. heads off to Telluride, and I'm looking forward to our annual Friday afternoon phone call, when we look over the program and plan her weekend. My own festival season jump starts when I leave for Toronto next Wednesday, and I thought I would spend the intervening week previewing a different film each day. Yes, while the world at large awaits Atonement (loved the book, very interested in the film), Elizabeth: The Golden Age and Michael Clayton, I've got my eye on some films that may not have the publicity, but seem to promise tremendous quality. First up is Lee Issac Chung's Munyurangabo, a film shot in Rwanda by an American director using non-actors. Munyurangabo was in this year's Un Certain Regard section at this year's Cannes Film Festival, just played Sarajevo, and I have yet to hear or read a single negative word about it. In fact, I am not sure I have ever read a more positive Variety Review in my life: "Like a bolt out of the blue, Korean American filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung achieves an astonishing and thoroughly masterful debut with Munyurangabo, which is -- by several light years -- the finest and truest film yet on the moral and emotional repercussions of the 15-year-old genocide that wracked Rwanda. Pic's supremely confident, simple storytelling and relaxed, slightly impressionist visual style follow a conflict that emerges between two friends as one makes a long-delayed homecoming. This is, flat-out, the discovery of this year's Un Certain Regard batch, and deserves loving care from arthouse distribs after a liberating and fruitful fest tour."-- Robert Koehler, Variety
The film is playing Toronto in the Contemporary World Cinema section and looks to be tremendous. A little clicking around, and I stumbled upon Lee Issac Chung's Almond Tree Films, which has a biography of the Director: "A son of Korean immigrants, Chung grew up on a small farm in rural Arkansas and then attended Yale University to study Biology. At Yale, with new exposure to art cinema in his senior year, Chung dropped his plans for medical school and turned to film making. Munyurangabo is his first feature film. He resides in New York with his wife Valerie and has recently formed Almond Tree Films, LLC, with his collaborators and fellow filmmakers, Samuel Anderson and Jenny Lund. In addition to supporting their personal works, the company is working to create a school for cinema in Rwanda." The company sounds as interesting to me as the film does; I really can't wait to see it and talk to the team about their experience. This is what film festivals are all about and my hopes are high. Munyurangabo (Liberation Day) is playing at the 2007 Toronto Film Festival in the Contemporary World Cinema section. Tomorrow: Jellyfish by Shira Geffen and Etgar Keret August 20, 2007.
Categorical Defiance
This week marks the theatrical release of Joe Swanberg’s Hannah Takes The Stairs and New York City has been taking notice. First, there have been the commendable and tireless efforts of Matt Dentler, whose energy and enthusiasm in helping spread the word about Hannah are significant. In a terrific piece of marketing, Matt’s interviews with the Hannah team were farmed out to film bloggers of all stripes, and his piece for indieWIRE this weekend goes a long way toward giving the history of these films to those unfamiliar with them. The strategy appears to have paid dividends. This week, pieces in the New York Times, Village Voice, and a (hilariously) regrettable piece of nonsense in the New York Post have continued the conversation about Joe Swanberg’s Hannah, and Andrew Bujalski and Aaron Katz’s terrific films, all of which will be showing up in the coming weeks at the IFC Center. The The New Talkies: Generation D.I.Y series has the feeling of a legitimate cinematic event, with an Apple Store panel, a highly anticipated party, and a lot of buzz for films that have become the talk of the town this August.
What has been most interesting for me has been the long-term project to name and define this community of filmmakers. What has been most frustrating in watching this process has been the way in which the need to define and, frankly, pigeonhole the movies has limited a critical discussion of the movies as individual works by individual filmmakers, all of whom seem to be responding in unique ways to our cultural moment (although many of them from the same cultural perspective). Yeah, yeah, yeah; There is a lot of talk right now, but how many people have seen the films? How to put things into proper perspective? Let's look back. Talking about this new grassroots community in American movies, two concepts and traditions that seem most applicable to me which rarely get more than a mention; The D.I.Y. (Do It Yourself, for those not familiar with the lingo) music movement of the late 1970's/ early 1980’s (which seems to be the focal reference of the IFC Center’s title) and media analysis, written back in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, on the “coming impact of the digital film making revolution”. Before discussing the films themselves, I think it is critical to understand the ways in which D.I.Y. and film history have provided models for these filmmakers to create their movies and to develop this emerging community. For me, Generation D.I.Y. began in the late 1970’s and ended officially when Nevermind made it big, and in my estimation, the loose, grassroots network of musicians and bands that formed the American hardcore punk rock scene of that era provides a mirror image of the film making community that is blossoming today. Which is to say, there are pockets of individual artists and film making communities in American cities that are loosely affiliated, made up of couch-crashing, cross-country road-tripping friends, who support and create with one another in what is essentially a grassroots network. In the same way that Washington, D.C., Athens, GA, Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Seattle harbored bands in the post-punk era, Chicago, Boston, New York, Los Angeles, New Orleans and Austin, TX provide a national network of artists who use new tools to write scripts, shoot and edit movies, and get them on the film festival circuit (which serves as a micro-distribution solution for many of these movies.) Simply put, the idea seems to be to make your movie, take it on the road to get it seen, meet up with like-minded colleagues, watch one another’s films and then get back to work on the next project; The punk rock ethic in a nutshell.
August 16, 2007.
Here We Go: The New York Film Festival Program Announced
It's August and the film festival line-ups have begun rolling in, piece by tantalizing piece. Is it any wonder that year after year, I end up waxing rhapsodic about the autumn, about these festivals and the true start of the film-going season? For cinephiles, this is the best time of year. The anticipation of these films, the schedule making, the travel, the socializing, the conversations; The feeling reminds me of anticipating a trip to summer camp, the afternoons spent dreaming of the forthcoming month with the friends I only see once a year. I will be previewing some of the festival line-ups in the coming weeks and I definitely plan on my usual schedule of festival blogging, but I did want to take a moment and focus on the NYFF line-up that was announced yesterday.
Some of you may remember that back in May, we had a bit of back and forth about the changes this year at the New York Film Festival. I am wondering what everyone thinks of the line-up now? Stu over at The Reeler uses the phrase "drool-worthy" to describe the program, so I can only assume that his earlier fears have been assuaged (including his prescient prediction that the selection committee would possibly reject Wong Kar-Wai's My Blueberry Nights). That said, looking at the line-up, I wonder what films in the program represent signs of a change on the selection committee? This looks like a traditionally excellent NYFF program to me, but my baseline for a "younger, hipper" NYFF program (the inclusion of Anton Corbijn's Control) wasn't met; The film is being released by The Weinstein Company on October 10 at Film Forum without an NYFF appearance. Not that I have a single complaint about the NYFF program; It looks staggering on paper and I cannot wait to spend my September and October taking it all in. But where are all the critics now (yes, Nathan Lee, I'm asking you)? Bravo to Richard Peña (who is celebrating his 20th year at the helm), Kent Jones, Scott Foundas, J. Hoberman and Lisa Schwarzbaum for what looks to be an awesome line-up. More on this one soon. August 13, 2007.
Toronto 2007 | Documentary Preview
The ever-excellent documentary programmer extraordinairé Thom Powers sent me an email earlier in the week asking me to participate in a survey of documentaries I am anticipating at the upcoming Toronto Film Festival. After reviewing the excellent lists of my fellow programmers (nice head shot, Nugent!), colleagues and dear friends, I was honored to offer a list of my own, one that I I hope brings some attention to some films in the program not yet discussed by others. Thanks to Thom for the opportunity and I look forward to seeing which films are discussed on the Doc Blog. Otherwise, despite the excellent slate of movies on offer here in the city, I just haven't been able to get to the cinema and so, the blog remains more sparsely visited than I would like. There have been several mitigating factors this week; Marital transitions, some exciting shopping (drooool), and perhaps most the time consuming for me, the start of the English football season. My beloved Liverpool won their first match 2-1 away to Aston Villa. A great free kick by captain Steven Gerrard won it for the Reds, who picked up all three points on their opening day match for the first time in years. It is shaping up to be an exciting season, and I've been watching games, putting together my Fantasy Team*, and celebrating the return of football.
Next week, I plan on hitting the indieWIRE Apple Store Generation DIY event, the Hannah Takes The Stairs premiere and hopefully getting my ass to Film Forum and BAM for some screenings. I need some warm-up days for Toronto, and I better get cracking! As always, more soon... » Continue reading "Toronto 2007 | Documentary Preview"August 10, 2007.
Timing Is Everything
I am a married man.
That said, it looks like I picked the wrong two weeks to get married. Antonioni and Bergman both gone? How can it be? I was in Michigan when I read the news, and my first instinct when I heard that both great men had died was to commune with them again by watching their films; In truth, that is the only way I knew either of them. Unable to make the time and far away from my DVD’s of L’Avventura and Cries and Whispers, I was left with only my sadness and my own memories of their movies. I have a different relationship to each man’s work (they are such different filmmakers), but at the same time, they both represent (for me, anyway) an idealized era in the cinema; That time when New York City art-houses were plentiful and full of people who were committed to seeing challenging, foreign films and then spilling out onto the sidewalks and discussing what they had just seen. Of course, like any ideal, I assume this is partly a fiction; I am sure as many people went to L’Avventura in the hopes of seeing Monica Vitti naked as went to understand the post-war existential crisis among wealthy Europeans. That said, there is something comic and deeply sexy about a theater full of lustful moviegoers reading subtitles and taking in the psychological duel at the heart of Bergman’s Persona, their voyeurism rewarded by the heat of grief shared by Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann, their lurid hopes dashed across the rocks of great art. That is a film culture to which I wish I belonged, and both Antonioni and Bergman are essential to that fantasy for me. Woody Allen introduced me to Ingmar Bergman. I was watching Manhattan and the classic scene where Diane Keaton’s Mary is walking with Woody, Mariel Hemmingway and Michael Murphy while trashing some of history’s great artists touched me deeply; I love Manhattan and was already a huge fan of Woody Allen at that time, so when he piped up in defense of Ingmar Bergman, I made a note of it and rented Persona on videotape. I wasn’t ready for the film in any way, but it truly blew me away; The scene where Bibi Andersson discusses her great sexual awakening was deeply intimidating and profoundly affecting to me. Here was a movie that seemed to be a cliché of a foreign film (the silences, the morphing faces, etc) and yet, it was certainly no cliché at all; I became instantly distrustful of people who would mock a film like Persona as pretentious because it was a film that utilized these techniques for a precise (and absolutely truthful) psychological purpose. This is what art should be. I went on to see many of Bergman’s films, including Saraband, his final film. I remember when it came out that Bergman announced it would be his last film, and so I was curious to know why he chose to revisit Scenes From A Marriage for his final work. That said, it certainly makes sense; A bit of closure and forgiveness at the end of things. My favorite film among his works is Smiles Of A Summer Night, simply for its lighter tone and exquisite storytelling, but no one made me feel closer to Bergman as a man than Liv Ullmann in her amazing film Faithless (written by Bergman himself). Erland Josephson plays Bergman, an old writer living alone on his Swedish island who contemplates his failures and achievements against the rocky backdrop of the sea. It seems to me that this character is as close to cinematic autobiography as we will see from the man, and I can only hope that Ullmann continues to make movies as, based on Faithless, she is the absolute heir to Bergman’s work. I will miss his films, but I feel I have so much left to discover, so many unseen, that it is ridiculous to complain. Ingmar Bergman left behind a corpus of films that will be discussed for an eternity, and I don’t think we can ask more from our work. (My thoughts on Summer With Monika can be found here). Antonioni, well, I discovered him in college, when I saw Blow Up in a Gender In Cinema class. I am a little disappointed by that fact, since I don’t think of Blow Up as the proper place to start digging in to Antonioni’s films, but I do have to say, despite my love for L’Avventura, I feel a much cooler distance to his work than I do to Bergman’s. That said, when I look at films from around the world today, I see filmmakers ripping off Antonioni all the time; Scenarios, pacing, tracking shots, fractured narratives, images. From a technical point of view, Antonioni is a definitive artist, and in terms of his influence on today’s movies, I would rank him right alongside Bresson. He was also a pioneer; It is hard for me to imagine living as an adult in a world where Alain Resnais and Antonioni were making their early films at the same time, but there was certainly a time when the cool detachment and narrative innovation of those two artists shaped the cinema in a wholly new way. Of course, it doesn’t hurt when you have Monica Vitti, Alain Delon, Jeanne Moreau, Marcelo Mastroianni, Jack Nicholoson and Vanessa Redgrave populating the screen; Antonioni worked some seriously talented and beautiful people. And let’s not even get started on Zabriskie Point, which has undergone plenty of revisionist appreciation since it was misunderstood and under-appreciated upon its release (although I often think people admire the movie more because it was somehow, someway made at a Hollywood studio more so than their simple love for the film itself). Last year, when I was in desperate need of a good evening at the movies, I walked down to the Burns Court Cinemas in Sarasota to see The Passeneger and I found it revelatory; I think the coming years will only be kinder to Antonioni, as his existentialist style and his technical innovation grows more and more entrenched in the cinema. That can only be a good thing. While I am sad that neither Bergman nor Antonioni will produce another film, I also realize that both men lived tremendously fruitful and important lives, living to a ripe old age and working until the end. As a model for artists of all stripes, both men grow in my estimation not simply because of their artistic gifts, but equally so because of their commitment to working, to formal exploration and to living lives unapologetically dedicated to their artistry. I have no doubt in my mind that their work will live forever. A fine example for all of us. | |
Thoughts On Cinema.
"Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen." -- Robert Bresson My Bio at indieWIRE
Links.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Recent Entries.
» The 2007 BRM Fall Film Festival Preview #4: Julian Schnabel's Le Scaphandre Et Le Papillon (The Diving Bell And The Butterfly)» The 2007 BRM Fall Film Festival Preview #3: Harmony Korine's Mister Lonely » The 2007 BRM Fall Film Festival Preview #2: Shira Geffen and Etgar Keret's Meduzot (Jellyfish) » Day-And-Date » The 2007 BRM Fall Film Festival Preview #1: Lee Issac Chung's Munyurangabo (Liberation Day) » Categorical Defiance » Here We Go: The New York Film Festival Program Announced » Toronto 2007 | Documentary Preview » Timing Is Everything Archive.
June 2008May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 Complete List of Entries Search.
Total Entries: 350 Comments: 264
Blogs hosted by blogs.indiewire.com Powered by Movable Type 3.2 |
