Edited by Adam Cook
News.
- Opera and theatre director, filmmaker, and actor Patrice Chéreau has passed away at the age of 68. From David Hudson's Daily:
"In 2001, Chéreau’s Intimacy won the Berlinale’s Golden Bear and the prestigious Prix Louis Delluc, and two years later, he won a Silver Bear for Best Director for Son frère. At Cannes, he won the Jury Prize in 1994 for La reine Margot (Queen Margo, with Isabelle Adjani), then a César for Best Director in 1998 for Ceux qui m’aiment prendront le train (Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train, with Pascal Greggory, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Charles Berling, Jean-Louis Trintignant, and on and on)."
- Via Variety, Bong Joon-ho hinted publicly that he's not too happy with The Weinstein Company and the cuts Snowpiercer has had to undergo for its North American release.
- Jonathan Rosenbaum has found a new (internet) home: follow him to jonathanrosenbaum.net.
Finds.
- For the Vancouver International Film Festival, David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson have been doing their annual Pacific Northwest reportage with pieces on the two-shot in Asian films and the Film & Television Forum, among others.
- Above: the new poster for Claire Denis' Bastards.
- For Film Comment, Nicolas Rapold interviews Jia Zhangke about A Touch of Sin. Also, Tony Rayns adds some valuable context to the film.
- Above: The Film Society of Lincoln Center has assembled a selection of pictures of "this year's filmmakers on their previous trips to Lincoln Center."
- Above: a trailer for NYFF's epic Jean-Luc Godard retrospective, "The Spirit of the Forms".
From the archives.
- Speaking of Godard, Film Comment has resurrected a captivating interview from 1996 conducted by Gavin Smith:
"In Germany Year 90 Nine Zero and Histoire(s) du cinéma you regard cinema as a fallen medium.
Yes, that’s my opinion.
What moments defined that fall?
The First World War and the Second World War. World War I was an opportunity for American cinema to beat French cinema, which at the time was more powerful and well known. Pathé, Gaumont, Méliès; Max Linder was a huge star. The French were weak after the war, and it was a way for Americans to disembark in European cinema for the first time. And they had linked to German cinema. Half of Hollywood was filled by [Germans]; Universal was founded by Carl Laemmle.
The Normandy beaches were the second invasion; World War II was a way to take Europe definitively. And now, as you see in politics the way Europe is incapable of doing anything without the OK of the U.S. government, now in the movies America has taken control of the whole planet. So what was democratic in a lot of its ideas disappeared at a time that I will study in my next [Histoire(s) du cinéma]—a very specific time, with the fact of the concentration camp, that it was not shown [by cinema], it wasn’t answered.
What does Schindler’s List mean to you in this context?
It means nothing. Nothing is shown, not even the story of this interesting German, Schindler. The story is not told. It is a mixed cocktail."