Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.
NEWS
Jean-Luc Godard and Claude Chabrol at the Cahiers du Cinéma offices in 1959. (Photo by Jack Garofalo)
- Seven out of nine of the editorial staff of Cahiers du cinéma, which recently announced its new ownership by a group of "bankers, tech entrepreneurs, and film producers," have resigned. The writers have cited a conflict of interest regarding the publication of critical reviews.
- This year's Berlinale has come to an end. A complete catalog of coverage can be found here, along with a list of the festival's winners.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
- Netflix has released a teaser for Damien Chazelle's Paris-set miniseries, The Eddy.
- Václav Marhoul's The Painted Bird, an adaptation of the controversial Jerzy Kosiriski novel, follows the wanderings of a young boy in Eastern Europe at the end of World War I. Read our review of the film here.
- A harrowing official trailer for Midi Z's Nina Wu, a portrait of a young woman's paranoia as she faces the pressures of stardom and the repressed memories of her past.
RECOMMENDED READING
Japanese poster for Jia Zhangke's Xiao Wu (1997).
- For the 50th anniversary of the Berlinale, Jia Zhangke tells the story of his 1997 film Xiao Wu's premiere at the 1998 Forum.
- Critic Tag Gallagher has a new website, making available a rich archive of articles and video essays on subjects ranging from Mizoguchi and freedom to the films of John Ford.
- "Seeing the camera itself was an inspiration, because it looked like some treasury that contained all sorts of magical riches within it." Experimental filmmaker Jerome Hiler provides an in-depth look into his "lyrical cinema," from his religious upbringing to his meeting his creative collaborator and partner Nathaniel Dorsky.
David Cronenberg in Clifton Hill (2019).
- In a brief interview with Vulture, David Cronenberg (who stars in Albert Shin's latest Clifton Hill) discusses the rhythm of binge-watching, the distinct view of dystopia from a Canadian perspective, and what comes next for the auteur, who is "not finished with film."
- Nancy Meyers reflects upon a career of romantic comedies and an awkward reunion with her former husband, along with an unexpected happy ending.
- Film Comment's Michael Koresky considers the ongoing "threats" to film culture, including an arsenal of franchise products and homogenization, and the preservation of cinema's precious form: "What we as cinephiles can continue to rely on is the same thing we’ve always had, and which will never go out of fashion: our passion."
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
- For NTS, Florence Scott-Anderton explores the sonic world in the films of Gregg Araki for the latest edition of Sounds on Screen.
RECENTLY ON THE NOTEBOOK
- At the world premiere of his latest Days in Berlin, Tsai Ming-liang and the film's two stars, Lee Kang-sheng and Anong Houngheuangsy, talk the origins of the film, its documentary elements, Lee's recent illness, and cinema's love of faces and bodies.
- Ela Bittencourt reviews Dau. Degeneration and Dau. Natasha, two abject parts of Ilya Khrzhanovsky and Ilya Permyakov's sprawling project.
- Diao Yi'nan's The Wild Goose Lake is "an entrancing, neon-bathed study of crime and capitalism," writes Leonardo Goi. Diao Yi'nan's The Wild Goose Lake is being shown exclusively on MUBI from February 28 - March 28, 2020 in the United Kingdom in the series The New Auteurs.
- Lourdes Portillo, whose 1994 film The Devil Never Sleeps is showing at London’s Essay Film Festival, discusses the development of the unambiguously self-aware documentary film, which investigates her multimillionaire uncle's death.