REFLECTIONS ON FILM CULTURE

Daily | Cinema Scope 56, Van Peebles, Brakhage

Cinema Scope

#56

Some of the new issue of Cinema Scope has appeared in entries on films that’ve just screened in Toronto, such as Blake Williams‘s piece on Tsai Ming-liang’s Stray Dogs, Michael Sicinski‘s interview with Bens Rivers and Russell regarding A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness, and Jay Kuehner‘s review of Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez’s Manakamana. But editor Mark Peranson‘s conversation with Albert Serra about Story of My Death is new, as are Quintín‘s review of Frank Pavich’s Jodorowsky’s Dune, Jordan Cronk‘s piece on Hong Sang-soo‘s Nobody’s Daughter Haewon and Our Sunhi, Jason Anderson‘s review of Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani‘s The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears, and Robert Koehler‘s take on Argyris Papadimitropoulos and Jan Vogel’s Wasted Youth.

Also freshly up: Jonathan Rosenbaum latest “Global Discoveries on DVD” column, Francisco Ferreira on Joaquim Pinto’s What Now? Remind Me, Chuck Stephens on “celebrated ’70s experimental-filmmaking mainstay and current cine-avant-garde Invisible Man Will Hindle,” and Calum Marsh on Chad Hartigan’s This Is Martin Bonner.

More reading. Girish Shambu‘s ranked the films he saw in Toronto; he also links to Blake Williams‘s interview with Wavelengths programmer Andréa Picard.

Frankenstein

‘Frankenstein’

Kimberly Lindbergs, writing at Movie Morlocks, has “come to appreciate [Frankenstein (1931)] as a WWI parable that reflects [James] Whale’s own experiences during the Great War as a second lieutenant in the British Army.”

New York. Melvin Van Peebles, “best known for his pioneering 1971 independent film, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, just turned 81,” writes John Leland in the New York Times, “but for most of those years he has seemed brand-new. Now, in an exhibition called eMerge 2.0: Melvin Van Peebles & Artists on the Cusp, running through Nov. 7 at the Strivers Gardens Gallery, on West 135th Street in Hamilton Heights, he is making his public debut as a visual artist. That adds to a résumé that includes filmmaker, composer, actor, novelist, Wall Street trader, San Francisco cable car driver, playwright, bandleader, vocalist and, by his own account, bon vivant.”

“Between 1927 and 1933, the poet H.D. assisted with the publication of the avant-garde film magazine Close Up, which was edited by Bryher and Kenneth Macpherson. The three writers also lived together in a queer ménage à trois, collectively raising a child, making films, and editing their influential journal.” Tonight at Light Industry, Mal Ahern “will present photographs, letters, and films from the group’s rich (and sometimes risqué) archive.”

The Wooster Group presents Performing China: Contemporary Chinese Film and Media tonight, Wednesday, and Friday, September 27.

Pickpocket

‘Pickpocket’

Los Angeles. AFI Fest‘s announced that guest artistic director Agnès Varda has selected four films to be screened at this year’s edition (November 7 through 14): Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket (1959), John Cassavetes’s A Woman Under the Influence (1974), Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), and Martin Scorsese’s After Hours (1985).

In the works. “After 20 years of great performances in front of the camera, Cate Blanchett is set to make her feature directorial debut on an adaptation of the Herman Koch novel The Dinner,” reports Deadline‘s Mike Fleming Jr.The Messenger scribe Oren Moverman is adapting the psychological thriller which explores just how far some parents might go to protect their children.”

At Montages, Lars Ole Kristiansen reports that a “softcore” Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac will be released in Denmark and Norway (in December and January, respectively); the “already infamous hardcore version… shall be ‘saved’ for next year’s Cannes festival.”

Listening. Experimental Cinema‘s posted a recording of Pauline Kael talking with Stan Brakhage about his work.

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