The Noteworthy: 4 March 2015

The Human Rights Watch Film Festival, 3 film restoration Kickstarters, a video essay defending Michael Cimino & Gore Verbinski, & more.
Notebook

Edited by Adam Cook

  • The 19th Human Rights Watch Film Festival is returning to the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton from the 18th to the 27th of March. You can find the whole program here, along with a statement from the Festival Director John Biaggi.

"FILM COMMENT: There’s a divide in the film between idle, detached moments and pretty graphic content. How do you negotiate the gap between these very quiet moments and the more extreme situations?

POTRYKUS: My whole theory of making films is that I want to lull audiences to sleep—I almost want to bore them—and then right before they fall asleep, kick them in the balls."

  • Not one, not two, but three successful Kickstarter campaigns to take note of: 

1. Living Los Sures by Uniondocs

2. Restoring Kelly Reichardt's Debut Film, RIVER OF GRASS by Oscilloscope

3. Pioneers of African-American Cinema by Kino Lorber

"The Band Wagon (1953) is an overwhelming sensorium of movement and color, and one of the more convincing arguments in justifying Hollywood’s existence."

  • The Spring 2015 issue of Cineaste is on the shelves now, and additionally you can read some exclusives and previews online, including Leonard Quart on The Lusty Men.

"Kommunisten opens with the most elementary manifestation of Gilles Deleuze’s concept of maximum opacity in cinema: a completely black image. This image is held for several minutes and is accompanied by Auferstanden aus Ruinen, former East Germany’s national anthem. The prologue of the film thus clearly illustrates what Straub himself puts forward as the film’s two main goals. The first goal is to make a film about communism, or to make communist art." 

  • Above: Saul Bass's storyboard for Spartacus, from a 2012 article in The Atlantic that compiles some incredible storyboards from "15 Beloved Films."
  • On his blog, Jonathan Rosenbaum shares an old article on "Ten Underappreciated John Ford Films."
  • Girish Shambu assembles an invaluable assortment of essential reading at his blog.

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NewsThe NoteworthyJohn FordJean-Marie StraubTsai Ming-LiangSaul BassGore VerbinskiMichael CiminoKelly ReichardtMichael MannHuman Rights Watch Film FestivalHuman Rights Watch Film Festival 2015Vincente MinnelliDavid Robert MitchellJoel Potrykusspotlight
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