NEWS
Lillian Schwartz
- Martin Scorsese's much-anticipated (and long-in-the-making) 16th-century drama set in Japan, Silence, finally has a release date this year.
- Director Herschell Gordon Lewis, the so-called "godfather of gore," has died at the age of 87.
- In New York, the Magenta Plains gallery has opened an exhibition dedicated to early computer art pioneer Lillian Schwartz, whose films are truly delightful.
- You are no doubt familiar with the video essays of Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin, in no small part due to their work here on the Notebook. Next week can hear the two speak about their critical practice at London's Essay Film Festival.
- News, yes, but also recommended viewing: the third edition of the free, streaming avant-garde program Kinet is now available, including two wonderful short films by New York filmmaker Gina Telaroli.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
- Truly the Golden Age of Hollywood: A 1925 tour of MGM studios at its height.
- One of cinema's greatest epics and most unforgettable in-theatre viewing experiences, Abel Gance's Napoleon will be back in cinemas—digitally, alas—from the BFI.
- Gathering a quiet but strong amount of buzz after its premiere in competition at the Locarno Film Festival, Romanian director Radu Jude's Scarred Hearts now has an international trailer.
- And speaking of English-language trailers, Paul Verhoeven's wickedly sinister Elle finally has one targeted for American audiences.
RECOMMENDED READING
- One of cinema's greatest composers, Angelo Badalamenti, talks Vulture through five of the best known compositions from his Twin Peaks score:
It’s so dreamy. It’s melodically and harmonically a little off-centered, like you can’t place what exactly is off with it. For this song, I got involved in the use of suspensions. I had been working with them in music for a bit beforehand. Suspensions are dissonant notes that work in chords that rub against the melody. They rub against it and create a nice tension, and sometimes you take that dissonance, resolve it, and go to another melody. For ‘Audrey’s Dance,’ David sent me something for her specifically. He wanted the song to be slightly dreamy, but slightly upbeat. Something creepy-beautiful.
- The latest issue of Cinema Scope is out—with Elle on its cover—and much of it has been made available to read free online, including an interview with Paul Verhoeven.
- Netflix's latest show is by an American indie staple: Joe Swanberg. The director talks about his episodic non-serial Easy with the Chicago Tribune:
Q: How did Netflix react when you described your idea for the show, as individual stories unrelated to one another? The whole idea was to make a show that I would have time to watch. Here's how I consume media: I have kids that I'm dealing with until 9:30 every night. Then I usually have 2 hours of work to do, from 9:30 to 11:30. It's not urgent work I have to get done during the day, but still stuff I have to get done. And then from 11:30 to midnight or 12:30 or 1, that's my window — I have an hour and a half at the end of the day, if I'm lucky. So that's either one movie or maybe one or two episodes of TV. So when I went into Netflix I was like, "Listen, here's how I consume TV and I know I'm not alone. I know there's a lot of us out there who want to watch something at the end of the night but don't want to have to take on a big time commitment." So I was like, let me make a show that I would actually watch.
- Online film magazine Reverse Shot has just launched their new symposium, dedicated to the one-of-a-kind Agnès Varda.
RECOMMENDED LISTENS
- How can we (or should we, or shouldn't we) watch old movies now? On Film Comment's latest podcast, featuring Violet Lucca, Mark Harris, Farran Smith Nehme and Imogen Sara Smith discuss.
EXTRAS
- Jim Jarmusch graces the latest cover of Cahiers du cinéma.
- Actress Nadine Nortier in the arms of director Robert Bresson on the set of Mouchette (1967).