!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ah, that should be really awesome. His last three features have been so funny. I’m really excited to see what he does in The Day He Arrives and now this!
Another amazing Asian collaborating with a high-class European individual from a cinematically and financially “typical” European country? DISLIKE!
Kiarostami and Hsiao-hsien have tried this to no avail with the same actress, now Huppert has become “cosmopolitan” herself?
I think Huppert just recently completed a film with Brillante Mendoza here in the Philippines.
@DIMITRIS, my understanding is that Hong’s films make next to no money and have cost less and less each time round — no doubt he’s jumping at the chance for some financing. Let’s at least applaud him for shooting in his own country, something that can’t be said about the Hou (which is a masterpiece). Don’t forget he already made a movie with explicitly French financing / subject / location (Night and Day) and it’s among his very best.
Hou hou, if Hou’s Red Balloon is a masterpiece, then Lamorisse’s idea is even better than what Little Prince represents in child’s minds ;)
(frankly, the worst I’ve seen from Hou and same goes for Kiarostami)
If we count how much French financing directors and countries have received since the 50’s-60’s, then we can easily deem them all as masterpieces and stop being so disapproving no matter what.
Kiarostami has been traveling the world in terms of his filmmaking for a while… and Certified Copy is probably his best film, I’ve seen, since Through the Olive Trees (and I’m not someone that dislikes his digital phase, either).
I mean does it really matter?
If Certified Copy was made in Iran would it have been better? Probably not, really considering a huge part of the film is the plurality of culture and art.
And if Hong made the same film he’s making right now and used some unknown French woman that just happens to live in Korea would that be a better choice than one of the world’s most highly respected actor’s?
So, Hou can go to Japan and make a film with big name Japanese actors but not France? What difference does it make where the film is made? Hell, his current Taiwanese muse makes big bucks appearing in Hollywood action films (and she got her start working in softcore movies)… Not really all that purely realist or honest…
Who cares as long as the material itself is good (though… honestly… I’m not big on anything Hou’s done since around 1998)?
The fact is, cinema is moving into a global direction. Things like this are going to become increasingly more common place. Thank God, for it.
“The fact is, cinema is moving into a global direction.”
Hong will make a film with a French cast and crew but Hong will never make such a film in Romania or Egypt…period!!!
International is a “heavy” word because international would imply all sorts of combinations…..the “I go to France” or “France arrives in my country” combination, whether it’s directors, actors / actresses etc has been on the run for 50+ years now. Enough already.
The “Taiwanese muse” has a name first and foremost (it’s convenient to monopolize that Natalie Portman name but not Shu Qi?) and she’s one of the many examples of “foreign” actors / actresses who have been to and fro between Hollywood and their countries, that’s not something new you’re mentioning.
“Things like this are going to become increasingly more common place.”
Name examples….and when I mean examples, I mean i-n-t-e-r-n-a-t-i-o-n-a-l examples.
Hong will make a film with a French cast and crew but Hong will never make such a film in Romania or Egypt…period!!!
Uhhh… The issue is financing. Hence why many Romanian and Egyptian filmmakers are also subsidized by French money. The point is now those filmmakers can get names outside their own nation. Filipino, Korean, Romanian, etc. filmmakers can work with larger, “boring,” “typical,” Anglophone actors that may give them a wider audience without distorting their own personal vision.
Really, I’d rather Hong gain bigger audiences by hiring Hupert rather than the Jia method… he’s had such an enormous crisis in his career because he can’t get an audience… now he’s making a wuxia film to get it. He’s had to compromise who he is. Hong doesn’t. That’s a good thing.
Name examples….and when I mean examples, I mean i-n-t-e-r-n-a-t-i-o-n-a-l examples.
Munyurangabo
Let Each One Go Where He May
How many times in the past was the first feature a young American filmmaker made a fiction/documentary hybrid in Africa? Especially considering how respectful and deep those filmmakers got.
Stephane Breton. T. Trinh Minh-ha. Geyrhalter (at least with Elsewhere… which wouldn’t have been possible without a digital camera). Ottinger. The rise in ethnographic filmmakers in the last thirty or so years is telling, I think. As the gap between our worlds gets smaller so does the gap in cultural bounds explored by filmmakers.
Isabelle Huppert is hardly boring and typical.
Maybe this will be the first time one of Hong’s films actually gets distributed instead of just being shown in film festivals.
^ Instant dislike if this happens just because a “European” individual will be the lead (European aka the typical countries)
“The issue is financing.”
Therefore populist power prevails…
U.S.A. and Suriname is hardly an example since it’s well…yet again U.S. of fucking A.
“How many times in the past was the first feature a young American filmmaker made a fiction/documentary hybrid in Africa? Especially considering how respectful and deep those filmmakers got.”
You’re talking about Africa in a way which makes you a prodigy in all things European cinema where all European filmmakers have equal chances in making “international” films like your international examples above. No, that’s definitely NOT the case in all of Europe.
“The rise in ethnographic filmmakers in the last thirty or so years is telling, I think.”
Specific names from specific countries. That doesn’t mean shit.
“Therefore populist power prevails…”
Therefore, the poor can get money from the rich… You know like my example of filmmakers from African nations and Eastern European nations and Asian nations getting money from Western European nations.
Hell, the Hubert Bals Fund for God’s sake! How many important, beautiful perfect films never would have been made without subsidized funding from that tiny festival in the Netherlands. Wang Bing, for example, could not have finished Tie Xi Qu without that “boring,” “typical” European money.
Thank God for those typical countries money.
“Specific names from specific countries. That doesn’t mean shit.”
I gave specific names from specific countries.
Just let me know… Would a filmmaker have been able to literally travel the entire earth to make a film in 1950? Geyrhalter did it in 2000.
“U.S.A. and Suriname is hardly an example since it’s well…yet again U.S. of fucking A.”
The point is it didn’t happen from the U.S. or anywhere else in the past. In fact, it’s incredibly important for U.S. filmmakers to become much less insular than they have been.
A Vietnamese filmmaker, as an arbitrary example, has a much better understanding of their place in the world than an American. The fact that white filmmakers are actually exploring the world beyond them is something I would think you’d celebrate given your constant denouncement of the opposite ideology so oft present in American filmmakers and audiences.
Oh… and a Korean/American son of immigrants traveling to Rwanda to explore how a nation heals itself in a free-form/improv, “nonnarrative, ‘unplayed,’” and engaged manner… What is more global than that?
Come on, Dim… that doesn’t mean shit and you know it.
“You’re talking about Africa in a way which makes you a prodigy in all things European cinema where all European filmmakers have equal chances in making ‘international’ films like your examples above. No, that’s definitely NOT the case in all of Europe.”
No, it isn’t the case.
The point I’m making is the less of a deal we make over borders the less we’ll see them as a roadblock in funding, distributing and watching films. Financing will never be perfect. Sorry. It just will never happen.
If we reject an opportunity outright merely because it doesn’t have the chance of being 100% fair we destroy an opportunity to come to a richer, deeper understanding of cinema, ourselves and the world therein…
“What is more global than that?”
It’s easy to assist filmmakers from “Third World countries” as those global institutes would have you think (and they themselves KNOW it, for what it’s worth) but it’s obvious they won’t waste their time to offer the chance to a willing Albanian or Bolivian to travel to Norway and Iraq respectively and achieve what he / she wants just like Geyrhalter.
“Would a filmmaker have been able to literally travel the entire earth to make a film in 1950?”
No, but do we really need all this capitalist assistance just because the world’s modus operandi is under control from the boneheads of economy? Why shouldn’t an Albanian filmmaker be able to work within the spectrum of Mongolia like Ottinger did but without himself / herself being a German or without working with the French, German, English first in a movie funded by them WITH an English, French, German, whatever capitalist country cast and crew? Why can’t the Albanian filmmaker ask directly the German assistance to work in Mongolia? Does he / she really have to have German roots like Fatih Akin???
“The fact that white filmmakers are actually exploring the world beyond them is something I would think you’d celebrate given your constant denouncement of the opposite ideology so oft present in American filmmakers and audiences.”
But Greeks are (generally) white too and they’ve only gotten these opportunities BECAUSE they used cast and crew from the said “assistance” countries e.g. Gavras LIVED there in order to do as he pleased and Angelopoulos could have easily worked in Bosnia and Albania with Bosnian and Albanian cast and crew but he had to choose Mastroianni, Moreau, Josephson too (although it would have been Gian Maria Volonte before his untimely death), as if it’s more bankable this way, to use an Huppert just because she has a fucking French name. Yeah, I guess you’re obliged to do that since you’re working with their name but the capitalists from Germany and France can work in Philippines and Senegal because they don’t have to prove shit.
I’m not sure by the way if that’s true about Jia because I am aware of Kar Wai’s attempt on a wuxia film but I didn’t know Jia was into it as well.
Who the fuck cares whether or not Angelopoulos used Mastroianni in a film, as long as the film was good and Mastroianni was suitable for the role. You’re basically saying if a non-Western filmmaker features a Western actor in one of their films they’re sacrificing their artistic integrity, and I think that’s a bit presumptuous. Everything you’ve written in this thread is presumptuous. Perhaps he cast Huppert because she was perfect for the role in his mind. Is that such a sin?
teapot calling the kettle black anyone?
“It’s easy to assist filmmakers from “Third World countries” as those global institutes would have you think (and they themselves KNOW it, for what it’s worth) but it’s obvious they won’t waste their time to offer the chance to a willing Albanian or Bolivian to travel to Norway and Iraq respectively and achieve what he / she wants just like Geyrhalter.”
Uhhh… I was actually talking about a Korean/American traveling to Rwanda in that sentence, but yeah…
So, let me get this straight, Dim. You, rightfully, criticize the vast majority of western audiences and filmmakers for almost never moving outside a western mindset; for never getting beyond the U.S., western Europe and Japan, right? The U.S. in particular is guilty of this insular mindset, correct?
But when a citizen of the U.S. goes outside of the western world to make a film about a country he knows probably very little about (and his own president says he ignored in the 90’s) that is inherently worthless because he’s a citizen of the U.S.?
So, I can’t win in your eyes… I’m either worthless because I don’t watch the right films or think about them in the right way, or I’m worthless just simply because I’m from the U.S.. I don’t know, I’ve defended you a lot on here, Dim, but that just seems like the same “typical,” “boring” U.S. bashing we always get in spite of what may or may not be done; in spite of what is and isn’t being done. There’s no intellectual basis for it; you hate the western world because it’s the western world. That’s as far as it seems to be going in this instance.
Here’s the info on Jia Zhangke’s new film… Produced by Johnnie To… guarantees to be a big commercial blowout. Maybe if he’s lucky Jia won’t end up like Zhang Yimou in a decade…
And that’s why I’d rather a filmmaker just hire a large name actor rather than sell himself for commercial gains and think he can go straight back to who he was years before (Jia has been working on this film for four years)…
I’m more than okay with this. The fact is that most of the stars in Hong’s films, while not as well-known as Isabelle Huppert to Western audiences, make as much if not more money than she does. The stars in his films are very well-known in Korea and in other parts of Asia and earn super salaries from their TV work. They work without guarantees simply for the privilege of working with Hong. On the other hand, Hong’s 2008 film Like You Know It All was made for under 100 million won, which is well under $100,000. And no, that’s not a typo.
If Huppert wants to be in Hong’s film, it’s certainly not for the money. Whether she is famous or not, she is a good actress, and most directors would nab the chance to work with her. Unless the film itself somehow turns out to be disingenuous material that aims for nothing but popularity and acceptance, I say that we withhold our judgment and see. Hong deserves that much, considering the extremely genuine approach he has so far taken in his career.
“Perhaps he cast Huppert because she was perfect for the role in his mind. Is that such a sin?”
No but Huppert is bankable, a Turkish actress in a Kaplanoglu film is not unless of course a Zhang Ziyi type of star appears and becomes famous thanks to the wuxia / drama combination she possesses.
“There’s no intellectual basis for it; you hate the western world because it’s the western world. That’s as far as it seems to be going in this instance.”
There’s a difference between hating the Western world’s “invading” philosophy and its “superior intellectuality” over cultural products from other countries and between loving the cultural products it publishes and promotes to us earthlings ;)
Dude, if I were to detest a U.S. filmmaker directing an ethnographic film about the Amazon’s exploit from stockholders or his / her attempt to analyze Kerala’s industrialization and the demographics of advanced Indian communities, I’d be a fool to criticize the work in hand. My beef against this philosophy is that only directors from major countries / companies can afford or be afforded to do that whereas it’s the luck of the Irish for a guy like Bela Tarr who lives in Hungary and who dozens of Hungarian filmmakers would die to snatch the chance to work in an international level like he could have but there goes another director in retirement…compare the number of Hungarian filmmakers who can do that and the number of American, German, French, what-have-you filmmakers who can do that, with or without the roots combination in front of it e.g. Korean/American, Italian/American etc.
So Hong decided to work with an actress like Huppert because she IS famous in the art-house world and the same had been going on with Lancaster, Romy Schneider, Mastroianni, Schygulla etc etc etc and forgive me if I’m not the least bit blasted off from this major announcement but I’d be more thrilled to hear of a collaboration between a director who seeks international fame WITHOUT the assistance of a popularly beloved French/American/the usual suspects “authority” because in about 100 years from now, nothing will have changed and the next Hong or Kiarostami or Jia or whatever will be doing the same thing to get a fucking commercial release because that’s how the System works no matter the 50% chances of them turning into future classics or great films or simply duds. Yes, the critical assessment is beyond the point because there will be more Binoches and Mastroiannis and Hupperts in the future and either way, the Western philosophy analogy will not change at all.
“You’re basically saying if a non-Western filmmaker features a Western actor in one of their films they’re sacrificing their artistic integrity, and I think that’s a bit presumptuous. "
Well, I hardly said that because then I’d have to spit on Zulawski’s collaboration with his darling Marceau and the artistic result in some of their collaborations was a staggering ornament.
A bit surprised by this move but elated nonetheless. I agree with Blue. Hong deserves the benefit of the doubt; he’s used popular actors for a long time (of course, no one with Huppert’s reputation). Frenchness and popularity aside, I am looking forward to a film that will, in my mind, at least implicitly, address Korean understandings on issues of expatriation and foreigness.
For some reason, if non-Anglophone filmmakers seek to work outside their home nation, and they don’t enter the English-speaking film industry, they always look towards the Francophone world. And I don’t think filmmakers are driven by money when looking towards the French-speaking world, I think it’s more of an artistic attraction, due to French cinema’s stature among film lovers. Kiarostami making a film with Binoche. Bunuel making his later films in France. Pedro Costa and Ne Change Rien. De Oliveira’s slew of French films. Jules Dassin, and many more I’m sure. Hou hsiao hsen.
CH!
Hong Sang-soo’s upcoming film, the one after [The Day He Arrives], will feature Isabelle Huppert. Male actor is Yoo Joon-sang from [Hahaha]. They’re shooting at the coastal town in Korea right now.