Over the course of one hot summer, a group of children in the rural south are forced to confront a tangle of difficult choices in a decaying world. An ambitiously constructed, sensuously photographed meditation on adolescence, the first feature film by director David Gordon Green features breakout performances from an award-winning ensemble cast. —The Criterion Collection
David Gordon Green (born 9 April 1975) is an American filmmaker.
His films, which are usually coming-of-age tales set in small rural towns, have been categorized as belonging to the Southern Gothic tradition. Green’s dialog often has an obtuse, semi-poetic quality.
While in university, he made the two short films, Pleasant Grove and Physical Pinball, at the North Carolina School of the Arts prior to his feature film debut in 2000, the critically-acclaimed George Washington, which he both wrote and directed. He followed that in 2003 with All the Real Girls and Undertow in 2004. In 2007, Snow Angels, his first film created from a screenplay rather than his own writing, was adapted from a Stewart O’Nan novel. The film debuted at Sundance in January 2007 and stars Sam Rockwell and Kate Beckinsale. It was released by Warner Independent Pictures.
Green was set to direct a film version of the John Kennedy Toole novel… read more
Novelistic beauty, tragedy and oddity. I'm taken aback...if I was looking for something I hadn't experienced before, this was it. These characters are with me, their world still lingering, swirling inside my head and filling my eyes.
Never thought the neorealist approach would work these days, but it still seems to be an effective tool. Even with a lot of camerawork and lighting preferences that gave ode to Malick, it doesn't come off as too lush and sensuous visually (which can be a distraction), but still approaches the truth of the matter. A great American contemporary classic.
Its evocative, impressionist cinematography and use of narration is reminiscent of Malick’s To the Wonder but this doesn't feel like a cheap rip-off as DGG creates something minimal but highly emotive that very much stands on its own two feet. Centred around one, unexpected plot point (the only real plot point in the film), it’s impact is told through it’s cinematography. A picture really can paint a thousand words.
This debut film by David Gordon Green is a massive work of art. Photographed in golden browns and sun-lit hues, the film features a group of teens (all non-actors) in a rundown southern town as they… read review