The enemies (and maker) of Darwin's Nightmare

In LA Weekly, B. Ruby Rich talks to Hubert Sauper, director of the fierce, Oscar-nominated doc, Darwin’s Nightmare. “Sauper does not appear in his own documentaries. He’s no Nick Broomfield or Michael Moore, hogging the frame to brand his vision. Instead of his face, he pours his heart and wisdom into Darwin’s Nightmare, infusing it with a degree of empathy and compassion rarely encountered in contemporary documentaries. In the human-rights corner of nonfiction filmmaking, where docs usually rely on shocking revelations to do the job, his poetic lyricism is even rarer. More than an exposé, more than an anti-globalization screed, Darwin’s Nightmare is a cinematic Homeric ode, shot with a tiny consumer-grade Sony camera in four years of trips back and forth to Tanzania… Sauper brings such a contagious enthusiasm to everyone and everything he encounters that you immediately understand how he was able, in the most difficult conditions imaginable, to capture his intimate interviews with Darwin’s Nightmare’s unforgettable subjects… Darwin’s Nightmare, Sauper’s second film, leaves its audiences so devastated that some have complained it can’t work as an activist tool because it’s too depressing. “I think those people were already depressed before they saw my film,” says Sauper, who proceeds to rattle off facts and figures about arms-trading in Africa, environmental devastation and social collapse. “The biggest wars are in the center of Africa, not Iraq. A million people are dying in the center of Africa from the direct consequences of war, the arms are coming mostly from Western and Eastern Europe, and they’re not illegal. These people you see in the film are just doing their job, just making deliveries. They’re like taxi drivers.” .

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The distributor who wasn't there: Brian Flemming's heresies

In LA Weekly, Steven Leigh Morris talks to filmmaker Brian Flemming re: self-distribution today: “Los Angeles native Brian Flemming is doing just fine without a distributor. As part of a strategy to get his films seen, the soft-spoken, mild-mannered auteur charges nothing to community centers willing or offering to screen his 2005 documentary, The God Who Wasn’t There… Flemming earns his income from the sale of DVDs at… events — a take that’s supporting his simple lifestyle as a bachelor in West Hollywood… That, and royalties from amateur productions of his hit off-Broadway stage parody, “Bat Boy: The Musical,” co-written with Keythe Farley, which did well in L.A. and New York, before being crucified on London’s West End. “It’s much easier to make a film than put on a play,” Flemming says… And, he adds, it’s only getting easier. “All you need now is a digital camera and some editing equipment. . . . I know there’s an audience out there, and I know how to reach it.” Screenings of The God Who Wasn’t There and subsequent DVD sales have been brisk, thanks in large part to the movie’s unique thesis: Christ probably never walked the Earth.” [More filmfrastructure and religious heresy at the link.]

Wiseman's documentary Award of Distinction

David E. Williams talks to Fred Wiseman as the American Society of Cinematographers gives the vet docco maker their Award of Distinction, which he’ll get at the ASC Awards on February 25. “I’ve always picked subjects that have been around for a time, are common in America and have their counterparts in most other countries — the army, police, education, hospitals, prisons. The subject that links all my films is experiences that are common to many people.” How do his films reflect American culture? “My films are subjective, impressionistic accounts of some aspect of American culture. It’s impossible for me to calculate what effect or impact a film or group of films may have. It would be quite pretentious of me to say, ‘They have had the following effect.’ People come to films with such diverse individual life experiences that it’s hard to determine in advance how they might respond to or read a work. I don’t believe there is any direct, traceable relationship between any single work and social change. My movies are more novelistic than journalistic or ideological in their approach.

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Cutting edge Canada: what the NFB's buying these days

Brendan Kelly catches up with the latest ventures, including cell phone movies, with Canadian National Film Board commissioner and chairperson Jacques Bensimon for Montreal’s Gazette. “What we’ve done in the last five years is open up to the democratization of the audio-visual industry,” puffs Bensimon. “When Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King tapped a dynamic 40-year-old Scottish filmmaker by the name of John Grierson to set up a new public film studio way back in 1939, the idea was to “interpret Canada to Canadians and to other nations.” Grierson, the first government film commissioner, proposed to do that by producing socially conscience films and screening them to as many Canadians as possible in theatres across the country… Sixty-seven years later, the NFB hasn’t lost any of its enthusiasm for churning out activist films, but what’s rapidly changing is how the films are distributed and where we see them. With the arrival of a slew of specialty channels over the past 15 years, the NFB has shifted its focus from cinemas to the small screen, and its films have become staples on networks like the Documentary Channel and History Television… Bensimon [makes] every effort to ensure that the studio’s films make full use of all the new distribution avenues, from iPods to cellphones to the Internet… “The problem is that the NFB tends to live on its old glory and people have only the past on their minds. But there’s a continuing need for someone who’s experimental. When you win an Academy Award [for the innovative animated NFB co-production Ryan], someone is saying ‘you’re good.’ What you need is a place that’s innovative. When I arrived (in 2001), the NFB was closed in its bubble. You have to get out of the frame of mind where the NFB is stuck in its 67 years of history.” … The NFB is currently in negotiations with Apple to sell the iPod maker a package of 200 films – both animated and documentary shorts – that would then be made available for downloading from the iTunes online store for iPod users. The Board is also big on movies made for cellphones. Last year, the NFB and Bravo!FACT, a fund for Canadian filmmakers, partnered to co-produce four so-called “micro-movies” designed to be viewed on cellphones. One of the four, director Don McKellar’s Phone Call from Imaginary Girlfriends, was actually shot using a cellphone, as well. The Shorts in Motion series also includes Unlocked by Sook-Yin Lee, host of CBC Radio’s Definitely Not the Opera; Go Limp, from Love, Sex and Eating the Bonesdirector Sudz Sutherland; and former Kid in the Hall Mark McKinney’s I’m Sorry… Bensimon’s film studio also began shooting many of its major documentaries in high-definition long before private producers took to the format, and that gamble is paying off now that more TV networks are switching to broadcasting in high-definition.” [More initiatives at the link.]

150 seconds of hell: Night Watch in its entirety

Eugene Jarecki: Why We Laugh or Cry

At Huffington Post, Why We Fight filmmaker Eugene Jarecki muses on the reaction to the news that Vice President Cheney shot a man in the face: “Dick Cheney’s America is a place so cutthroat that a 78-year old man gets shot by his own friend and the dominant response across the country is laughter… What is it about Dick Cheney that brings out the worst in us?
Is it his secrecy? — the secrecy that mocks the openness we all idealize as being the core of our democracy? Are we so tired of watching Mr. Cheney obstruct access to information about his activities that reading the Texas Parks and Wildlife Hunting Accident and Incident Report online gives us all a brief holiday in our hearts? Is it his arrogance? — the sense that he is above the law — that makes us relish the sheepish sight of him being interrogated by a park ranger? … What frightens me is that when one of Mr. Cheney’s shotgun pellets slipped into Mr. Whittington’s heart tonight and Mr. Whittington himself slipped into cardiac arrest, I find even Mr. Cheney’s allies at the DrudgeReport rubbing their hands in ghoulish expectation. With a headline that reads CHENEY FACES GRAND JURY INVESTIGATION IF MAN DIES, I fear that too few prayers going out around the country tonight are directed at the vulnerability of Mr. Whittington’s life and too many at the vulnerability his death might bring to an overly-powerful Executive Branch. As for me, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

Paintings don't cost the same: David Leonardt saves the movies

he New York Times is speaking—shhhhhh—listen. Biz columnist David Leonhardt decrees changes to come in movie pricing. “It’s not how airlines sell seats, the Gap sells shirts or eBay sells anything. Soon, it won’t be the way the movies work either. You will pay more for a ticket on the weekends and less on weekdays. You’ll be able to buy a reserved seat in the center of the theater for a few extra dollars.” [No note is made of the dismal failure of this experiment in NYC earlier; why would you want to be stuck next to a tall or loud or fragrant fellow consumer?] “One of these days, you may even have to pay more for a hit movie than for a bomb. The changes are under way, and they are long overdue,” Leonhardt sez. “The theater industry’s attempt to ignore the laws of supply and demand is as good an example of corporate inertia as you will find. For decades, going to the movies was one of the rituals of American life, and competition among theaters revolved mainly around trying to land more hot films than the theater down the street. A thumbnail version of “variable pricing,” noting the souk and discount airline People Express follows, as well as the bromide, “A theater can’t sell marked-up popcorn to someone who doesn’t buy a ticket first.” After quoting an industry source who says that movies are “ultimately… art,” Mr. Leonhardt brings on the mighty cymbals: “Fair enough. But the next time you’re in an art gallery, check the price tags to see if all the paintings cost the same.”

Obit the dust: an editor remembers a cricket

At CNN.com, editor Todd Leopold remembers his late editee, Paul Clinton, who died early this month: “As a critic, Paul Clinton was fond of using the word “perfect” in his reviews. As his editor, I was just as fond of taking it out…. There was something perfect: Paul, to his credit, was a perfect gentleman about my tinkering.” Leopold notes that the 53-year-old Clinton, a lifelong smoker, “had struggled with respiratory ailments,” then inartfully takes some more of the late writer’s wind: “Paul wasn’t the most artful writer — or most art-obsessed movie reviewer — as he would be the first to tell you. He loved the roller coaster rides and popcorn flicks as much as he enjoyed works that aspired to something more… Paul could accept a little manipulation — after all, that’s what movies do — but he could not tolerate insincerity. If a movie appeared to making a blatant play for awards, or put technical virtuosity above human (and humane) values, he came down hard… Yes, he had the film studies courses, the student filmmaking experiences, the hours of Italian neo-realism and French New Wave — but like most moviegoers, he was mainly a guy looking for two hours of diversion.”

Quota quotable: Park Chan-wook protests

“South Korean director Park Chan-wook staged a one-man demonstration in front of the Berlin Film Festival’s entrance for an hour on Tuesday to protest against moves to cut the Korean film quota in his country,” Reuters reports. “Park, a top filmmaker who won an award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004 for Old Boy, held an English-language poster that read “Korean Films Are in Danger” and “No Screen Quota = No Old Boy” as he stood calmly in front of the Berlinale Palast. Outnumbered by more than 20 journalists and photographers, Park, 42, politely answered questions and posed for pictures with his sign at the Marlene-Dietrich-Platz square. “The Korean government is planning to cut the quota for Korean films in half and I don’t like that,” he said through a translator. “I’m protesting the changes in the quota. It will be very bad for the Korean film industry and all the filmmakers are coming together to stop it.” [More at link.]

Bubbling under: Winterbottom works some Revolution

Michael Winterbottom [pictured] and producer Andrew Eaton are working a Revolution in the afterfroth of Bubble, reports Variety’s Adam Dawtrey. With The Road to Guantanamo, debuting Tuesday in Berlin and on UK’s Channel 4 on March 9, will then have March 10 cinema, DVD and internet bows. Eaton says, “When Channel 4 decided to broadcast it so quickly after Berlin — which was the right thing to do—we thought it was worth a crack to copy what Steven Soderbergh was doing…” “Eaton even consulted Soderbergh for advice on how to proceed. He is work[ing] with Tony Jones, head of the arthouse City Screen circuit, to book the movie on 20 to 30 screens, mostly utilizing the new Digital Screen Network set up by the UK Film Council… Eaton is planning a more intensive release across Yorkshire and Lancashire, the region where the three protagonists of the movie come from. Road to Guantanamo is based on the true story of the Tipton Three—three British Asians who were captured in Afghanistan and whisked away to Camp X-Ray for two years before being released without charge.” Eaton is working deals on downloads and is near a DVD agreement. “Most of the theatrical screenings will be digital, but there will be three or four 35mm prints for major cities such as Birmingham which don’t yet have any digital screens. Channel 4 … has agreed to waive the contractual one-month holdback between the pic’s TV premiere and internet release.Eaton says he has “absolutely no idea” how the multiple release will work. “That’s why we’re doing it. We’re all curious to know what will happen,” he said…. According to Eaton, Soderbergh told him that he regrets not being able to make [Bubble] available via the Internet as well.”

Quaint, folkloric crap: Alex Cox visits with Arturo Ripstein

Writer-director-raconteur Alex Cox writes about trying to find directing gigs in the UK as well as in Mexico: “On Thursday I have dinner with the director Arturo Ripstein and Paz Alicia Garciadiego, his partner and screenwriter. Ripstein was once Buñuel’s assistant; Paz has written many scripts for Rip, and did the Mexican re-write on El Patrullero. Ripstein was the first Latin American director to shoot a digital feature. He’s just finished his latest, on HD. I ask who will distribute it, and they both laugh. Our positions are peculiarly similar. Rip and I are middle-aged white guys who like to piss people off. We refuse to die, or to watch American movies. For some reason, we continue to make films. Rip and Paz, like me and Tod, have no health insurance. Fortunately, they’ve both been given honorary Spanish citizenship, so now we all have the same health plan: if you get sick, try and make it to the airport, fly to Europe, and go the hospital. It’s a fine plan if you’re diagnosed with cancer or a wasting disease, but I’m not sure it works in the case of apendicitis, or a broken leg. I always have fun with Rip and Paz. We spend the evening shouting at each other (“I’m talking now! Let me finish!” and so forth). They both hate political correctness; I support it but I hate identity politics; so we have a lot to shout about.

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Larseny: More bosh from the Dane

Fed up with making pronouncements, Lars Trier emits a pronouncement, via Variety, entitled a “Statement of Revitality,” written in the same sort of improvised English that makes Manderlay sound so odd: “In conjunction with the departure of Vibeke Windeløv, who has been my producer for ten years, and the arrival of Meta Louise Foldager in her place, I intend to reschedule my professional activities in order to rediscover my original enthusiasm for film. Over the last few years I have felt increasingly burdened by barren habits and expectations (my own and other people’s) and I feel the urge to tidy up. In regards to product development this will mean more time on freer terms; i.e. projects will be allowed to undergo true development and not merely be required to meet preconceived demands. This is partly to liberate me from routine, and in particular from scriptual structures inherited from film to film. I will aim to reduce the scope of my productions in regards to funding, technology, the size of the crew, and particularly casting, but I should like to expand the time spent shooting them. I want to launch my products on a scale which matches the more ascetic nature of the films, and aimed at my core audience: i.e. my films will be promoted considerably less glamorously than at present, which also means without World Premieres at prestigious, exotic festivals. With regard to PR, my intention is for a heavy reduction in quantity, compensated for by more thorough exploration in the quality press. In short, in my fiftieth year I feel I have earned the privilege of narrowing down. I hope that this attempt at personal revitalization will bear fruit, enabling me to meet my own needs in terms of curiosity and play, and to contribute with more films.”

The half-and-half of human kindness: on screenwriting in LA cafs

Lisa Rosen goes gonzo java in her contemplation of LA coffeehouses and public screenwriters in Written By: “There are so many coffeehouses in Los Angeles… it’s hardly believable that they could each garner enough customers to stay in business. Until you figure in the equally astonishing numbers of screenwriters in Los Angeles… While many of those laptop-toters may be screenwriters in the way the barristas serving them are actors, a surprising number are making a living at it, are even household names, at least in the households where screenwriters have names. Some of them even have offices of their own. So why seek out the noise and disruption and human population that’s found in a café? … Ed Solomon has been writing in coffee shops since before the café era. “Chris [Matheson] and I wrote Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure almost entirely in coffee shops. Our primary one was Ships, in Westwood. There was Norms in Santa Monica. Dolores’, we got kicked out of there.”… He often leaves his office on Montana Avenue to write at Café Dana around the corner. “But I especially like to go down to Koreatown and sit somewhere where there’s no English spoken or written anywhere. I feel like being in a different place gives me a clearer perspective.” … “A lot of people ask me how I can write in coffee shops, it’s so noisy, there are people working,” says [writer Dan] Wilson. “But in a way, especially when you’re working on something solo, there’s a lot of energy involved in coffee shops. It excites me. It makes me want to work too.” Another screenwriter observes this at a Westside Starbucks: “[A famous writer still] brings his little notebook, no laptop, sits there, and sort of stares somewhat angrily at the wall for about a half hour, then gets up and leaves. I think, So it’s still tough, huh. It’s good; it gives you hope.”

You have no idea: Jeremy Irons, tingling and shredding

Rachel Halliburton has a Bloody Mary with Jeremy Irons in the FT: “Jeremy Irons will always be embedded in the… imagination as an elegant romantic,” she ventures, “But to understand his approach to acting it helps to look at the buzz he gets from riding monster BMW motorbikes. Since 1999 Irons has been a member of the Guggenheim Motorcycle Club, which rides in pursuit of art to locations that include Lisbon, St Petersburg, Novograd and Las Vegas. Members include Thomas Krens, the director of the Guggenheim foundation; Frank Gehry, the architect, and Dennis Hopper… Describing a journey to the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Irons declares: “By the time you get there you’re tingling, absolutely in the right condition to look at art. Your skin has been shredded off and your nerves are exposed.”

Promise Lands at Warner Indie

Warner Independent’s plotting a May release for Chen Kaige‘s The Promise, picking up one of the shorter, Westernized cuts of the epic, according to CRI Online. The third highest grossing title in mainland China (behind Titanic and Hero) was re-cut by Weinsteinco several times between Cannes 2005 and December, when the Weinsteins “returned distribution rights to producers Moonstone Entertainment and China Film Group after a difference of opinion over awards strategy. Now Harvey [Weinstein]’s former Miramax lieutenant Mark Gill, who heads WiP, has the spoils. It is understood WiP will release a shorter, 102-minute Western cut. The Asian [version is] 121 minutes.”