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NEWS
I’m drawn to the physical beauty of celluloid, to its grain, texture, tactility, its colors and tones. I find film to be the most challenging and rewarding visual form to work in. Not only celluloid but the mechanisms and optics of film cameras and projectors as well. Zoom lenses, anamorphic and wide angle lenses present all sorts of directions in which to find images. There’s a very intense, emotional charge to shooting on film where there’s rarely a moment when one’s not aware of its fragility, a sense that everything could be for nothing, and certainly the serious cost of film also remains in one’s peripheral awareness. It makes the process feel both exciting and grave.
- We are heartbroken to hear of the death of San Francisco-based director Paul Clipson, a great filmmaker and a friend of the Notebook. We interviewed Paul about his work in 2017—the quote above is from that conversation—and over the years Clipson has created several wonderful movie soundtrack mixes for us. Many of Paul's beautiful films can be found on his Vimeo page, including his film Tenderness (2017), above. A fundraiser has been started to assist his family after his unexpected death, and The Daily has been collecting remembrances.
- Uma Thurman has broken her silence and spoken on the abusive tendencies on the set of Kill Bill, Harvey Weinstein, and more with The New York Times.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
- One of cinema's most (belovedly) productive talents already has a new movie bound for the Berlin International Film Festival. Here's the trailer for Hong Sang-soo's Grass:
- We were ecstatic when we heard that Filipino director Lav Diaz's new film (also premiering at the Berlinale) would be a musical. Here's the trailer Season of the Devil, which of course delivers on the promise of this new genre experimentation for Diaz:
- One of our favorite films from last year's Locarno Festival, a restoration of the late Raúl Ruiz's previously incomplete The Wandering Soap Opera, mounted by his wife and collaborator, filmmaker Valeria Sarmiento, gets a beguiling trailer. It was made by New York's Film Society of Lincoln Center, which is hosting a retrospective devoted to Ruiz.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
- At Film Comment, Apichatpong Weerasethakul discusses his immersive and entrancing installation SLEEPCINEMAHOTEL, which was constructed at this year's International Film Festival Rotterdam.
RECOMMENDED READING
- Two film journals have launched new issues. Previously online-only Another Gaze has debuted its ambitious print edition, whilst La Furia Umana has published their 33rd issue.
- At The Ringer, K. Auston Collins takes Netflix down a peg with a fiery pan of The Cloverfield Paradox, which received a surprise experimental release to the platform on Sunday evening.
- VMan paired together two disparate talents, Frank Ocean & Timothée Chalamet, to discuss celebrity, craft, and their respective cities in an altogether charming conversation.
EXTRAS
right: Sergei Eisenstein's 'October' pic.twitter.com/xBBfQinkv8
— The Discourse Lover (@Trillburne) February 5, 2018
- A Superbowl-Soviet cinema parallel we didn't realize we needed in our lives.