Edited by Adam Cook
Tony Scott, 1944-2012
News.
- The shocking news of Tony Scott's suicide is something we're all still trying to process. I recommend visiting David Hudson's round-up, but rest assured the Notebook is and will be actively involved in commemorating the Hollywood auteur, and doing his great work justice. Coincidentally we've had a project in the works, in which Tony Scott plays no small role. For now, I'll just link this Tumblr which is acting as a lead-up/warm-up to what we'll be doing. In fact, we're open to accepting submissions at Vulgar Auteurism, especially if you've a Tony Scott image you feel like sharing.
- Sight & Sound unveiled their new poll earlier this month, and while the overall list is worth a look, the greater pleasure is navigating the individual top tens from all the critics who submitted a list, including our own Daniel Kasman and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky.
Finds.
- If you were wondering why The Noteworthy was absent the last couple of weeks, it was because I was at the Locarno Film Festival as part of the Critics Academy. Indiewire has aggregated some of the work produced by my colleagues and myself, and much of our work was integrated into the Locarno round-up at Keyframe. For a rare shameless plug, here's my "best of the fest" piece for Cinema Scope.
- Above: the new trailer for Takeshi Kitano's Outrage Beyond.
- "Shooting schedule, notes and scene breakdowns for Pierrot Le Fou" from Walt Disney with Blood
- Wes Anderson shares his "Criterion Top 10" but in unique fashion also shares small snippets from letters he's written to Criterion about the films. "Who is this Tag Gallagher?" indeed.
- Via Movies.com, a collection of outtakes from the documentary Side by Side in which filmmakers offer their takes on the digital filmmaking revolution and the role of celluloid in the present and future of cinema. Above is a clip featuring Steven Soderbergh.
- Above: a lovely little interview with Abel Ferrara from Télérama
- Nathalie Morris, writing for the BFI, details some wonderful photographs of Alfred Hitchcock at work.
Via Homages, Ripoffs and Coincidences: Perpetuating the enigma that is Stanley Kubrick, above is a TV commercial about which the auteur had this to say back in 1987:
"TV commercials have figured that out. Leave content out of it, and some of the most spectacular examples of film art are in the best TV commercials. [For example:] the Michelob commercials. I'm a pro football fan, and I have videotapes of the games sent over to me, commercials and all. Last year Michelob did a series, just impressions of people having a good time -- The big city at night -- And the editing, the photography, was some of the most brilliant work I've ever seen. Forget what they're doing -- selling beer -- and it's visual poetry. Incredible eight-frame cuts. And you realize that in thirty seconds they've created an impression of something rather complex. If you could ever tell a story, something with some content, using that kind of visual poetry, you could handle vastly more complex and subtle material. "
- Laurence Olivier in a photo by Terry O'Neill via everyday_i_show. The gallery of O'Neill's photos includes other stellar images of Monica Vitti, Brigitte Bardot, Robert Mitchum, Orson Welles and more.
- With Vertigo pulling a public upset in the Sight & Sound poll, Alfred Hitchcock is also in the spotlight in a far less flattering way. The Girl, a new HBO film set to premiere in October, chronicles his controversial, troubling relationship with star Tippi Hedren—a story of obsession and dominance every bit as bizarre and disturbing as one of his films. As with any biopic or docudrama on a popular figure, you can expect a debate to follow. In the meantime, be sure to check out this interview with Hedren herself, in the UK's Financial Times.
From the archives.
- A newly translated piece by Serge Daney on Jerry Lewis:
"A (double) star was then born. The total idiot and the cynical star, the one rejected by the others on the campus and the shrewd businessman, Lewis the actor and Lewis the producer. Will they be reconciled one day? Will one kill the other? Or will the merger of the two create a synthetic “Jerry Lewis”, more serene as years go by? This underestimates our auteur. A great comic doesn't just give people “what they want” because he loves them; he distributes – with no hope of getting anything in return – a surplus of energy and an excess of love. This is why the great comics are often our "accursed share". This is why Jerry Lewis has never been accepted at home."