Daily Briefing. Cinema Scope and Film Quarterly, Dorsky and Kaufman

New issues, an interview with Nathaniel Dorsky that turned into "a genuine exploration" and the latest on Charlie Kaufman's next projects.
David Hudson
The DailyThe Clock

You'd think that Team Cinema Scope, having just covered Toronto 2011 more extensively — surely! — than any other single publication has ever covered a film festival in the histories of films and festivals combined, would take a month or two off to recover. But no, here's Issue 48, solid as any other.

Of Thom Andersen's 30 "Random Notes on a Projection of The Clock by Christian Marclay," here's the first: "The Clock is certainly dumb: a 24-hour movie made entirely from other movies in which the depicted screen time corresponds precisely to the actual time of the screening with plenty of clock inserts and shots in which clocks appear, sometimes incidentally. I'm sure I'm not the first to ask, why didn't I think of that? But is The Clock dumb enough?" Marclay, at any rate, is smart enough to have made not one, not two, but six editions of the piece, the last one available selling to MoMA just a few days ago.

For the cover story, Robert Koehler talks with Nicolas Winding Refn about Drive; the other interview online is Michael Sicinski's with Alex Ross Perry (Impolex and The Color Wheel). Also: Gabe Klinger on Nicholas Ray's We Can't Go Home Again, Richard Porton on David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method, Mark Peranson on Frederick Wiseman's Crazy Horse, Olivier Père on Nadav Lapid's Policeman, Jay Kuehner on Valérie Massadian's Nana, Robert Koehler again, on Gonçalo Tocha's It's the Earth Not the Moon, Andrew Tracy on Sean Durkin's Martha Marcy May Marlene, Andréa Picard on Nicolas Klotz and Élizabeth Perceval's Low Life and, of course, Jonathan Rosenbaum's "Global Discoveries on DVD." This issue's column is particularly robust as he's just served as a juror for the DVD awards at Il Cinema Ritrovato.

Film Quarterly

New Film Quarterly! The Fall 2011 issue opens with editor Rob White's considerations of Godard's "inscrutable palimpsest" Film Socialisme and Malick's The Tree of Life, "a masterpiece of ambiguity." White also presents a reconsideration of Todd Haynes's Poison (1991). Bruce Kawin riffs on the skies of two shots, one on film (from Abel Gance's La Roue, 1923), the other digital (from James Cameron's Avatar, 2009). And Geoffrey Nowell-Smith sends in notes from Turin on Nanni Moretti's Habemus Papam and Emidio Greco's News from the Ruins.

For the Spanish publication Lumière, Francisco Algarín Navarro and Félix García de Villegas have spoken with Nathaniel Dorsky for three hours and they've posted the first of three parts (55'07") with an introduction from Dorsky himself: "Right from the beginning our conversation drifted toward the subject of film language and what I found inspiring within the American avant-garde and in films in general. This train of thought developed in many directions. I am happy that through the lucky coincidence of all present, something that began as an interview, quickly turned into a thing more marvelous, a genuine exploration."

For Vulture, Kyle Buchanan rounds up all that's known so far about two projects Charlie Kaufman's working on, "a satire about conniving world leaders set to star Joaquin Phoenix and be directed by Spike Jonze, and Frank or Francis, a Hollywood send-up that Kaufman himself will direct." On Friday, Kaufman gave a talk as part of the 2011 BAFTA and BFI Screenwriters' Lecture Series and the Guardian runs an extract: "Storytelling is inherently dangerous."

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Cinema ScopeThom AndersenChristian MarclayNicolas Winding RefnAlex Ross PerryFilm QuarterlyNathaniel DorskyCharlie KaufmanDailyDaily BriefingColumns
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