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NEWS
- Filmmaker Ricky D'Ambrose, who has made several excellent video interviews with directors for the Notebook, is kickstarting his feature debut, Notes on an Appearance. Above is a beguiling, cryptic teaser for the project.
- The Tribeca Film Festival wrapped last week (read our coverage) and the many awards have been announced, including Keep the Change for U.S. Narrative, Son of Sofia for International Narrative, Bobby Jene for Documentary, and TREEHUGGER : WAWONA for the immersive storytelling Storyscapes Award.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
- Speaking of Tribeca, the festival hosted a The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II reunion and on-stage conversation with director Francis Ford Coppola, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and more. Lucky for us, they broadcast and recorded the whole thing.
- Bill and Turner Ross's stellar documentary 45365, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at SXSW in 2009, is now free to stream online. Highly recommended!
- Paul Thomas Anderson has directed this lovely, simple video for HAIM's "Right Now".
- The English-subtitled trailer for Philippe Garrel's new film, Lover for a Day, bound for the Directors' Fortnight in Cannes.
- A new trailer for Lav Diaz's Golden Lion winner from the Venice Film Festival, The Woman Who Left. Our critic described it as "in essence an old school noir stretched to its maximum durational limits".
RECOMMENDED READING
- Scholar Tag Gallagher has updated his seminal critical biography ("700+ new pictures, a new filmography, new research and a mostly-rewritten text") on John Ford and made this new edition available as an e-book. Everyone who loves film should read this tome.
- The tributes to American director Jonathan Demme, who died last week, have been popping up all over the world, and one of the nicest is by David Byrne, remembering the production of 1984's Stop Making Sense:
Stop Making Sense was character driven too. Jonathan’s skill was to see the show almost as a theatrical ensemble piece, in which the characters and their quirks would be introduced to the audience, and you’d get to know the band as people, each with their distinct personalities. They became your friends, in a sense.
- The design firm Pentagram has written about its work with the rebuilt and re-launched Quad Cinema, New York's first multiplex.
- A new issue of Film Comment is on newsstands, and some of it is available to read online, including Molly Haskell on Robert De Niro, Aliza Ma on Fassbinder's newly restored miniseries Eight Hours Don't Make a Day, and Nick Pinkerton on the textures of Twin Peaks.
- Jonathan Rosenbaum has written on James Schamus's Indignation and its adaptation of Philip Roth's novel:
Schamus’s dexterity in navigating both commercial film production and academia has served him well on this project, enabling him to honor his source while rendering it both accessible and personal. Even though the film’s action unfolds during the Korean War (1950–53) and Schamus wasn’t born until 1959, his handling of period is as nimble and evocative as his grasp of Jewish American speech patterns, and he combines this sensitivity with certain elements and inflections that make the film seem contemporary as well. Part of what gave the book currency when it came out in 2008 was the Pentagon’s ban on photographing the homecomings and burials of dead American soldiers shipped back from Iraq and Afghanistan.
EXTRAS
- Kino Slang has posted an ambitious tribute in collage to May Day, including an astounding article by Marguerite Duras about Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet's 1970 Corneille adaptation, Othon (also known as Eyes Do Not Want to Close at All Times, or, Perhaps One Day Rome Will Allow Herself to Choose in Her Turn):
Attention! Othon, the fifth and latest film of Jean-Marie Straub, opened on 13 January in Paris. You have two weeks to see it. When that time is up, if the box office receipts aren't high enough, Othon will close. Attention! It is difficult to believe that professional critics are capable of judging Othon. Very likely they can neither see nor hear nor perceive in any way the nature of Straub's project and work. This is a kind of film they will not recognize. A text of pure intelligence that they will not recognize. The choice is theirs, and from their judgment there is no appeal. But they shun the freedom they've been given. Don't be stupid, go see Othon.
- Brad Pitt, photographed by Ryan McGinley for GQ.