Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.
NEWS
Stars at Noon (Claire Denis, 2022).
- Claire Denis is currently location scouting in Cameroon for her next film, which she completed writing a couple of weeks ago, according to the Guardian. (The full interview, conducted by Claire Armitstead, is worth a read: “Everything about film-making is frightening,” Denis says. “I’m scared before about making a bad movie, about not being true to the actors, to the story, to the image of the world. But on a set it’s too late. There is no time for fear.”)
- The BlackStar Film Festival, taking place from August 2 through 6 in Philadelphia, has just announced their lineup. The slate includes new films by Ja’Tovia Gary, Kevin Jerome Everson, and Darol Olu Kae.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
- A special mini-season of the MUBI Podcast involves conversations with filmmakers at Cannes. The first of these sees host Rico Gagliano talk to legendary director Wim Wenders (Paris, Texas) about one of two films he premiered at the festival: Anselm, a 3D documentary about the work of German fine artist Anselm Kiefer.
- We’ve partnered with FILMADRID for our annual collaborative series, “The Video Essay.” Last week, we premiered seven brand-new video essays by innovators of the form. You can browse the full selection at the series tag, and watch one of the essays below, Vasco Vasconcelos’s “Fading Apparition.”
- Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things has a new trailer ahead of its September 8 release in the US.
RECOMMENDED READING
Iron Man (Jon Favreau, 2008).
- Granted tremendous levels of access by Disney, Michael Schulman goes in-depth for the New Yorker on the various “carnival rides” that together make up the “shared fictional canvas” that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the success of which, Schulman argues, has totally “sucked the air out of” more human-scaled entertainments” in favor of an “I.P.-driven ecosystem” in which “most plots boil down to ‘Keep glowy thing away from bad guy.’”
- Two significant interview pairings this week. The Atlantic had Judd Apatow talk with Mel Brooks, the latter of whom will turn 97 years old in a few weeks time; while in Interview magazine, Twins (1988) co-stars Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger were reunited for a varied conversation about life, bodybuilding, music, movie stars, and more besides.
- Writing in her latest Metrograph column on unconventional desires in cinema, Beatrice Loayza makes the claim that as well as being an “introduction to the kind of body horror that actually stings,” Takashi Miike’s Audition (1999) is in part “a women’s revenge story—the type that challenges our sympathies by the grotesque, unjustifiable nature of the revenge itself.”
- “The capacity of the workers to endure the miseries of their condition, to find joy and love within the factory walls, is a testament to both their vigour and naiveté–what Wang calls the ‘delusions’ of youth.” For the New Left Review’s Sidecar vertical, James Wham reviews Wang Bing’s Youth (Spring), a recent Cannes premiere from the acclaimed director of Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks (2002).
- “If the life wisdom espoused by self-improvement columns and my grizzled colleagues was “Do the hardest thing first,” I was taking the opposite approach. I was beginning my day doing the most pleasurable thing.” Jeff Oloizia writes convincingly for the Atlantic about the pleasures of seeing movies in the early morning hours.
RECOMMENDED EVENTS
The Very Eye of Night (Maya Deyen, 1955).
- Chicago, June 14: Tonight at the Comfort Station, the Chicago Film Society presents a program of short films by Maya Deren. The films are playing outdoors, “where they belong,” on 16mm prints.
- Toronto, June 22: Black Gold—a “semi-monthly series celebrating Black life onscreen and off,” curated by Sarah-Tai Black—now has a new home after five years at the Royal Cinema. Forthcoming screenings will take place at the Paradise Theater, the first of which will be a presentation of the 4K restoration of Drylongso (1998), followed by a virtual Q&A with director Cauleen Smith.
- Marseille, July 4 through 9: FIDMarseille has announced the selections for its forthcoming 34th edition, which looks, on paper, like a particularly exciting lineup. Among the many names listed are Graham Swon, Deimantas Narkevičius, Annik Leroy and Julie Morel, and Riar Rizaldi, all of whom have world premieres in competition.
- Bristol, July 26 through 30: Cinema Rediscovered, the Watershed’s festival for classic cinema, returns this year with more than 50 events. Some highlights include screenings of restorations of György Fehér’s Twilight (1990), Wayne Wang’s Life is Cheap...But Toilet Paper Is Expensive (1990), and Sofia Coppola’s debut The Virgin Suicides (1999).
RECENTLY ON NOTEBOOK
Werckmeister Harmonies (Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky, 2000).
- "Even in a muddy and rundown town, one might brush up against the mechanics of the universe, and even glimpse moments of grace." As a new restoration of Werckmeister Harmonies tours the US, Robert Rubsam writes about the films of Béla Tarr, editor/co-director Ágnes Hranitzky, and novelist László Krasznahorkai, who find a state of grace in the deepest grime.
- Following the Cannes premiere of The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed, director Joanna Arnow met with Christina Newland to discuss the comic rhythms of her film, onscreen BDSM, the influence of Tsai Ming-liang, and more.
- “I hope that we can manifest that [Arnold] Schönberg thing, “Every look can become a poem, every sigh might become a novel,” because that's what happens with singing and music, just a note can become your life.” Also from Cannes—Christopher Small speaks with the one and only Pedro Costa about his phantasmagorical new short, The Daughters of Fire,a musical set on a volcanic island.
- “Kalas's VHS recordings are not only an important part of the trans community's collective memory in Argentina, but also a gesture of resistance against oblivion.” Agustina Comedi introduces her film Playback, now showing on MUBI.
EXTRAS
- “While waiting for a film, I make ceramics…” reads the Instagram bio of filmmaker Trần Anh Hùng. Scroll his grid to see some of the beautiful pieces he made over the seven years between his feature Eternity (2006) and his acclaimed Cannes selection The Pot-au-Feu (2023).
- Jean-Pierre Léaud and his wife have fallen on difficult times, and a fundraising campaign has been launched to support them. You can donate at this link, and more information is quoted below:
When with some cinephile friends, we created Les Amis de François Truffaut in 1988, his favorite actor, Jean-Pierre Léaud, despite his sadness, responded and encouraged our initiative. He is now a discreet but benevolent observer of our exchanges on Facebook and his wife Brigitte is a faithful member. Today, despite an exceptional career, Jean-Pierre is going through a difficult time morally, physically and materially. His friend Serge Toubiana, witness of this worrying situation, has just decided to mobilize his many contacts in the film industry and appeal to their generosity. The funds he will raise will be entirely donated to Jean-Pierre and Brigitte to meet medical needs, rest and probably administrative and life assistance. I thought that we could also show our friendly and grateful solidarity to Jean-Pierre and that is why we are opening a Leetchi money pot, whose profit will be donated to him.
—Armand Hennon, Les Amis de François Truffaut.