Movie City Indie Archive for October, 2005
Buff's bluff: what do today's screenwriters dislike?
David Anaxagoras, a recent UCLA MFA graduate in screenwriting and blogger, tackles the meaning of “film buff”, a phrase as pleasant to my ear as the word “flick” or road work outside my office window. His take… “To me, film buff implied a broad affinity for film in general — a wide ranging appetite for celluloid, be it Hollywood blockbuster, experimental, silent or new wave. Film buffs seem to love it all, almost indiscriminately. I’m not indiscriminate. I like what I like… Here’s my confession: I… managed to get through film school never having seen… The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, Citizen Kane, Lawrence of Arabia, Apocalypse Now, Chinatown,
On the Waterfront, The Graduate, It’s a Wonderful Life, The French Connection, Platoon, Ordinary People,
and a whole bunch of other films you probably assumed… I had seen. I don’t want to watch these movies because I have strong suspicion they will bore the hell out of me… I don’t think a film buff has to pause the DVD and walk away from the TV three times just to get through a viewing of A Streetcar Named Desire— which I did (it was required viewing, and it damn near made me drop the class). If I’m going to watch a bad film, it’s going to be something very sci-fi and very cheesy… I have a strong suspicion that there are plenty of young Hollywood execs who also have not seen these films, but pretend they have… Is there really anyone out there who made it past the first 20 minutes of The English Patient? Didn’t think so… I’ll sneak an [oldie] in with every three or four Netflix discs. If I water it down like that, I might be able to take it.”
Blowing chunks off the landscape: Shane Black
Kathryn Harris snacks with Shane Black in Variety’s Hollywood Film Festival Guide: “Black says he doesn’t regard his earlier films as pure action… “I was emulating a different model that’s about style and wit. Swerving cars, blowing chunks off the landscape are just elements of thrillers,” he tells Harris, citing Dirty Harry, North by Northwest and French Connection as movies that elude the “action” tag.
This “was a chance to re-invent the private detective story using realistic characters, in a modern setting but with the spirit of 1950s and 1960s,” says Black, dubbing it “the bastard child of two fathers.” First, there was comic kingpin Albert {sic James] L. Brooks, who gave him an office to write in, and then Joel Silver, kingpin producer of action suspense, whose door finally yawned open after several years of Black banging his head against closed ones. “It was a humbling experience… I thought people would remember me and I’d have more cachet… It was a sublime blur. I spent six months breathing movies from Spielberg to David Fincher.”
Valkyries over Iraq: Walter Murch, Jarhead and Apocalypse Again and Again
For the first entry in a cornucopia of Walter Murch items, Harper’s Magazine devotes 13 pages of its November issue to essayist Lawrence Wechsler‘s vertiginously intricate contemplation of “the trouble with war movies,” and a big chunk of his time is spent talking to editor Walter Murch about his work on Apocalypse Now and as editor of Sam Mendes‘ Jarhead, set in the First Gulf War of the early 90s of the last century. (It’s a big raft: there’s even room for John Milius.) Wechsler reveals that the “Ride of the Valkyries” sequence from Apocalypse Now is incorporated into the newer film in a way that may be unprecedented: a recognized, recognizable bite of culture refashioned into another work of art by one of its key original creators. “The result is… one of the most deeply affecting and disconcerting scenes in recent film history,” avers Mr. Wechsler, “thanks in no small part to the lavish ministrations of [Murch], who in this context has himself been having to harrow the distinctly unsettling task of revisiting and revisioning a scene he labored over for months almost 30 years ago as a crucial member of the original Apocalypse Now team, this time, alas, in an entirely new and even more disturbing light.
“At times I get to feeling like I’m inside my own Escher drawing,” Murch admitted… One hand, as it were, drawing the other into being: his past decisions shaping his current ones, and vice versa… Patiently, meticulously, Murch keeps interleafing the scenes. “It’s probably best that I’m the one doing this… If it weren’t me, some other editor would either be overly protective of the original—wary of breaking any of the precious china—or else just treating it all like raw material.” If you’ve read “The Conversations,” the literate and discursive book-length exchange about the junction of movies and life, between Murch and “The English Patient” novelist Michael Ondaatje, or listened to the Cold Mountain DVD commentary with Anthony Minghella and Murch, or dipped into the pages of the gratifyingly rich post-production procedural, “Behind the Seen: How Walter Murch edited Cold Mountain Using Apple’s Final Cut Pro and What This Means for Cinema,” by Charles Koppelman, you’ll be prepared for the intricate dissection Murch & Co. provide in the newsstand-only article. [Francis Coppola retains rights to refuse the final use of the footage, which was pending at the time the article went to press.]
AND OVER AT KAMERA, MURCH MUSES MIGHTILY ABOUT SOUND FOR 2,000 WORDS with Peter Cowie. “The human brain is wired to spend more of its computing power on vision than it does on sound. So what happens is that when we hear a sound we don’t hear it consciously, but it has an effect on us, and that effect we sort of re-process and render into an attribute of the visuals. So it’s very rare that an audience will hear sound for what it is. Usually what’s happening is that the sound is conditioning and colouring the way we’re perceiving the visual.” There’s a nice passage about whether films are too loud in latter-day theaters, followed by this: “The home experience will never equal the theatrical experience because you can never get 600 people sitting with you in your living-room. It’s just by the very nature of the beast – when you look at a film in a theatre it’s a communal experience, and there’s something both tangible and intangible about the presence of hundreds of other people with you watching the movie. You see different things in a picture under those circumstances than when you watch a film at home… The fact that you have left your home and paid money and you’re willingly sitting in the dark with six hundred other strangers to watch a film that makes you see different things in it even if, technically, everything is exactly the same.” [Murch more at the link.] Plus! Murch will hold a “conversation” the George Eastman House in Rochester, NY on 19 November. And! Filmsound has the Walter Murch obsessive’s one-stop archive, including an interview with poet Joy Katz from Parnassus magazine, on beauty: “When I know there are beautiful shots waiting for me in the dailies, I want to use them to their best advantage, but quickly become ruthless if the shots turn out to be superfluous to the story. Their beauty then almost turns into a liability, like handsome but empty-headed people. I much prefer a necessary shot to a beautiful shot. If it is necessary and beautiful, so much the better.”
Unintelligent designs: Penguins slap back
The March of the Penguins is having its UK premiere at the London Film Festival, and director Luc Jacquet tells Jack Malvern he wants nothing to do with any stowaways: “If you want an example of monogamy, penguins are not a good choice… The divorce rate in emperor penguins is 80-90% each year… After they see the chick is okay, most of them divorce. They change every year.” In fact the rate is substantially worse than the American divorce rate, which is about 50%… Michael Medved, a conservative film critic and radio host, concluded that the story of the emperor penguins’ journey “most passionately affirms traditional norms like monogamy, sacrifice and child rearing.” Mr Jacquet, who has never made a film for the cinema before, is concerned that his documentary has been hijacked. “It does annoy me to a certain degree… For me there is no doubt about evolution. I am a scientist. The intelligent design theory is a step back to the thinking of 300 years ago.
“My film is not supposed to be interpreted in this way. Some scientists I know find the film interesting because it can be a good argument against intelligent design. People should not jump on these bandwagons.” [Via Scott Macauley at the Filmmaker magazine blog.]
Harvey Weinstein: a poke in the eye?
“Harvey Weinstein said at last night’s annual dinner meeting of the Business Council of Westchester that when he was 10 years old, he was poked in the eye while playing cowboys and Indians, and was out of school for six months,” scoops Westchester Journal News’ Barbara Woller. Speaking to 500 gatherees at the Hilton Rye Town in Rye Brook, Weinstein regaled that “he made good use of that half year in the days ‘when there were no 500 channels/ to entertain him thanks to a retired librarian who lived next door and taught him the joy of reading.” [Miz Machiavelli was unavailable for comment.] “This love of books, he said, helped him to appreciate and recognize great writing. And that appreciation, he said, has been an underpinning of his career in cinema…
Weinstein also referred to the book “Leadership” by former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.” [The post 9/11 memoir, it’s worth noting, was published by… Miramax Books.] Weinstein said guidelines Giuliani gave to “study, read and learn” are his own philosophy for success.” Woller did not enumerate any of the shared precepts of the chummy corporate captains.
The Texas DNA of SPC, Michael Barker and Lee Harvey Oswald: deep in the heart
Chris Vognar of Dallas Morning News plucks at the Texas roots of Sony Pictures Classics, and it’s an unusually good read: “Michael Barker… used to catch weekend matinees at the Texas Theater, best known as the place Lee Harvey Oswald decided to catch a [film] on that fateful November afternoon in 1963. “They used to put a rope over the seat where Oswald sat,” says Mr. Barker. “When we showed up for the matinees, they’d take the rope off and we’d all take turns sitting in the seat.” [But Tom] Bernard and Mr. Barker didn’t know each other in their formative Dallas days… they attended different colleges… 2006 will mark their 15-year anniversary as co-presidents of Sony Pictures Classics, one of the most successful and influential specialty distributors…”
“The Texas terrors,” says Eamonn Bowles, president of Magnolia Pictures, who has known the SPC duo for 20 years. “They’re the one unchanging constant. They do their thing, and they haven’t varied much since they’ve started. They’ve stayed with their core audience of sophisticated art fans, and they really do business outside of the modern technologies available to them.” Which technologies would those be? “Oh, fax machines?” quips Mr. Bowles… On this day in the middle of the Toronto International Film Festival, the bulky Mr. Bernard, a high school offensive lineman, and the smaller Mr. Barker are both busy with their Blackberries. (“This thing right here makes it all happen,” says Mr. Bernard.)” [More anecdoting at the link.]
Stanley Kauffmann loved it: Capote
Stanley Kauffmann reviewed Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” and at 89, he’s still around to review Bennett Miller’s Capote in New Republic: “I reviewed the book adversely in these pages when it was published in 1965. I was put off by the suggestion of relish that touched Capote’s recounting of the murders, the prosecution of the killers, the interviews with them in their cells during the five years between trial and execution, and the inevitable chill of the hangings. But at least Capote wasn’t present personally in the book…. But this new film is his story…
A re-reading of the book seems to italicize the literary flourishes intended to make it, in Capote’s words, a new form, the “non-fiction novel.” … It is now more patent that Capote describes conversations and actions among the four victims that could not have been known to anyone else. Salient, too, is the apparent influence of the film medium on the book’s structure: the book is “edited” cinematically, with the interweaving of disparate sequences in ways that make their juncture inevitable… A slight conceptual nudge and Capote would have focused on (as the closing line tells us) its true subject: an American author’s success story. That theme is there, all right, but because it is not centered it is repellent, as the film pretends to be an account of the author’s descent into collateral agony… With the true theme of fame-hunger fully fashioned, the film would have been a more authentic American epic.”
Based on an actual lawsuit: the horror behind Wolf Creek
Copping to the real, reports The Age’s Stephanie Bunbury, may be a horror for shocker Wolf Creek: “There has been any amount of trouble about Wolf Creek, the home-grown horror film that was picked up by Miramax… {It] tells the story – with maximum efficiency and a lot of gore – of three travellers who are terrorised by a crazed outback murderer. The kind of story that is familiar enough to anyone who has read a newspaper in the past few years… By some bizarre coincidence, the film is set to be released nationally just as Bradley John Murdoch, the man accused of murdering backpacker Peter Falconio in the Northern Territory four years ago, is being brought to trial. And so McLean’s debut feature, which has until now been an unalloyed Aussie success story, is suddenly a legal hot potato in the territory.” Distrib Roadshow has withdrawn the movie in parts of Australia.
“Roadshow’s caution, however, extends further. I received a press kit for the film months ago, detailing the specific cases that informed the story – the Falconio murder, “backpacker killer” Ivan Milat, and the Snowtown serial murders among them… A new version of the press kit has been issued, minus references to specific cases and with instructions to get rid of the earlier version.” [More at the link.]
Cuban, freely: controversy outside The War Within
“Mark Cuban has spent so much time pushing boundaries and rattling status-quo thinking that he is nearly numb to the backlash that seems to accompany his every move, writes NY Times sportster Howard Beck. “In nearly six years as the Dallas Mavericks’ owner, Cuban has drawn hefty fines from the commissioner’s office, curious glances from other owners and acerbic broadsides from columnists and talk-show hosts… Cuban has been called irresponsible, foolish, crazy, an immature imp and a bigmouth. By now, those labels must sound kind. Cuban has acquired … in the blogosphere … a newly derogatory description: unpatriotic and un-American. Those accusations stem from Cuban’s role as the executive producer of The War Within, a film that depicts the inner struggle of a would-be terrorist. Even for Cuban, who practically breathes controversy, this is uncharted territory.
“One incensed blogger labeled Cuban a “jihadist propaganda producer.” [Googling the phrase will provide a link to the writer who said this, as well as the imperious assertion that “No film should ever have a homicide bomber as its “protagonist.” Period.”] Beck continues a new Times tradition of relying on bloggers and previously published web material rather than wasting pricey shoe leather: “How are we ever going to understand what’s going on right now if we don’t see these people as human beings?” the director, Joseph Castelo, said on the film’s Web site.” … Cuban first read the War script two years ago, while the horror of 9/11 was still fresh. “I thought it was timely, I thought it was interesting, I thought it was scary as hell,” Cuban said. “I’m the type that thinks if you don’t learn from history, you’re doomed to repeat it.” … Cuban said making the film was an act of patriotism… “If we can make a movie that reminds people over and over again that you always have to be vigilant or 9/11 can happen again, then it’s the most patriotic thing I could ever possibly do.”
Non-gratuitous Bellucci: a visit with the nude one
“With his trim grey beard and pipe forever clamped between his teeth, [Bertrand] Blier, now in his mid-sixties, cuts a professorial figure as he directs his actors perched on a wooden box, instead of the usual chair (he has a bad back),” The Observer’s Mark Salisbury observes as he gets closer to profile subject Monica Bellucci. Blier “wrote the part of Daniela especially for Bellucci after seeing her in Irreversible, in which her character was graphically raped in an underpass in one horrific, nine-minute unbroken take. ‘He told me, “Monica, I was so touched by the movie, I was inspired by you and I wrote this character for you.” I said, “What kind of character?” And he said, “It’s a whore.”‘ She emits a wry laugh at the recollection. ‘I said, “Is that a compliment?”‘ Apparently it was. She said yes before even reading the script. ‘He told me the story and I felt something.'” … Blier was impressed by how comfortable Bellucci is with her own body.
‘She’s completely relaxed with her image and with her own sense of modesty as well. Because she is so free and proud of being a woman and proud of her femininity, she has no problem with the fact that men look at her and desire her, and that is rare today with women.’… Nudity, she says, doesn’t bother her, providing it’s not gratuitous. ‘I’m not scared by nudity, because for me, nothing is more beautiful than a body. You can have such an amazing emotion from a body. In Irreversible, I treated my body like it was an object and it’s great when you can have this kind of relation with your body, it’s a part of your job, an object you can work with.” [More at the link.]
The Talented Mr. Minghella: I am very greedy
Anthony Minghella is directing “Madam Butterfly” for London’s ENO, and he’s collaborating with his wife, writer and choreographer Carolyn Choa. the ondefatigable director impresses the Observer’s Kate Kellaway: “Minghella is full of gusto. His new mantra, he tells me, is that he is determined to enjoy everything he does. And there is a gleam in his eye even if he looks tired (I don’t think there is anything ‘designer’ about his stubble). The nicest thing about him is his lack of swank, especially when he has so much to boast of as writer, musician and award-winning film director.” Minghella’s editing the Jude Law-starring Breaking and Entering, while producing another movie, writing a TV series with Richard Curtis, preparing to take on the chair of the BFI, and oh, there’s Puccini. “He manages all this because ‘I am very greedy. There is so little time and lots to do.’ But in the past, he has tended to feel overwhelmed and self-critical. Is he [overly] critical? I ask [his wife]. ‘I wouldn’t say that. But he is a perfectionist who tries to do everything as well as he can within the hours of the day.’ Just before [going] back into rehearsal, Minghella revisits his current obsession: that performance must never be an accessory, must be more than a garnish to the singing. ‘If you don’t know why you are moving, don’t move,’ he suddenly says. It’s a good rule for life too.”
Frogger: d.p. Elswit on digital and dead animals
Mark Burger of the Winston-Salem Journal reports on good night, and good luck. and P. T. Anderson d.p. Robert Elswit‘s visit to students in northwest North Carolina: “In recent years, digital technology has changed the landscape of filmmaking, “I think in a good way,” Elswit said. “It has made it possible, for very little money, to make films look bigger.” One such example was Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, which culminates in a deluge of frogs upon the city of Los Angeles. Elswit laughed as he recalled “testing” dead frogs (obtained from a laboratory) with Anderson during pre-production to see how they might look on camera. The frogs didn’t look good. They just looked dead. “We looked at each other: ‘Go digital.'”
Junction City blues: can we have more Sundance, please?
If everybody’s not a critic, then at least everybody wants a film festival on their own block. The Ogden (Utah) Standard Examiner takes a look at Park City envy. “Ever have one of those forehead-slapping moments? You know, an instant when you suddenly realize: Hey, that would work! We had one of those earlier this week after hearing about the Sundance Film Festival expanding in downtown Salt Lake City…. Ogden has a Sundance showcase, too — Peery’s Egyptian Theater, Utah’s only remaining movie palace dating from the silent era. It is three blocks up Historic 25th Street from another historic Junction City gem, Union Station, home of the M.S. Browning Theater, a large auditorium that has been used to exhibit films in years past… Ogden could offer its own utterly unique experience along Two-Bit Street — what with its nightclubs, restaurants, art galleries and other shops…. We wish Salt Lake City’s Sundance expansion all the best and hope that experience moves festival organizers to consider a similar arrangement in Junction City between the Egyptian and Union Station… Soliciting the necessary sponsorships to make it happen shouldn’t be a problem, since a “Sundance Avenue” approach would doubtless be appealing to the Historic 25th Street Association, whose members would benefit… Continued expansion of its presence in Ogden just means more fun.”
Tim Burton's Stainboy
Online treat: Flashing back to the messy supermite from “The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories” in six segments at Tim Burton Collective.
Search for “Stainboy” at the bottom of the page. And here’s how they got stained that way.
Har, har, Lars, superstar: Trier and now; Peter Aalbaek-Jensen is naked
The bane of the Danes is up for denying contemporary resonance for his latest flick-you to Emma Bell of the Independent: “It’s an unseasonally hot day in Copenhagen. Lars… Trier invites me to sit outside by the pool at Zentropa, the coalition of production companies he co-owns with Peter Aalbaek-Jensen. Von Trier is a taut, endearingly hectic little man; friendly, if agitated. I ask about the politics of his… films. “Oh shit! That sounds dangerous… The political part of my work, it’s nothing I’m proud of…” … Publicity material claims that Manderlay is a metaphor for… Bush’s aggressive interventions in Iraq: Grace cannot understand how her compassionate imposition of democracy turns into dictatorial severity, and Manderlay’s slaves demand their own oppression, preferring the certainty of captivity… The director has retreated somewhat… “It’s not necessarily about Bush. You can see the film like that, but it was written before Iraq. But why make a film that would do just that? I would never make a film like that.” … Zentropa boss Aalbaek-Jensen dives into the pool, splashing us. “Why does he have to do that while we sit here!” scowls… Trier. “This is my producer. He keeps in the background, as you can see. But now he has succeeded in making us completely aware of his presence.” One could not fail to notice Aalbaek-Jensen; he’s naked… Something of a circus is going on at Zentropa. Aalbaek-Jensen is parading naked again… Trier rebukes him: “Peter! Could you put on some clothes please?” Aalbaek-Jensen crossly retorts that he’s “not trying to shock anybody”… Does he prefer that his films remain difficult and opaque? “Oh yes, absolutely. I would prefer that!” … as his PDA beeps. “Sorry, I have to go to my yoga class now…” He bows, clasping his hands in prayer and offering a peaceful “Prana”.
