Philip Hoare, author Leviathan or, The Whale (2008) and The Sea Inside (2013), among other books, and co-curator of the Moby-Dick Big Read, tells the story of the making of Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel‘s Leviathan (2012), “an extraordinary collision of genres: an art film made by a pair of British and French anthropologists that works as a stupendous cinematic spectacle…. But above all, the brute force of Leviathan is itself a reflection—or perhaps a refraction—of modern-day New Bedford, a city with which I’ve become familiar on my own work in New England.”
Also in the Guardian, Phil Hoad talks with Mike Leigh and actor Greg Cruttwell about making Naked (1993). And Alex Cox argues that “the best JFK conspiracy movie isn’t, strictly speaking, about the Kennedy assassination.” That’d be Alan J. Pakula’s The Parallax View (1974). “Created at a time when Hollywood still dared to challenge the ‘official’ version of events, this is not a feel-good film. Instead, it’s one of the high points of the New American Cinema, that brief decade when American film was still an art form—and a challenging, subversive art form at that.”
From Swedish artist Anders Ramsell: “This animation consists of 12 597 handmade aquarelle paintings, each painting is approximately 1,5*3cm in size. Together they form my 35 minute long paraphrase on the motion picture Blade Runner (1982) by Ridley Scott.”
MORE READING
In the Notebook, Daniel Riccuito sings the praises of Bebe Daniels, who gave “voice to a new cine-poetics” during the Great Depression: “Rapidly decaying monuments to art, the Silents were finding themselves displaced and exiled by truly popular sentiment—cheapies, whose sex and slang carried the potential for ruptures, zigzags and general ‘mishigas.’ These weren’t screen goddesses tearing at your soul but tootsies and chorines chasing money, always poised with gab or a gat.”
“We asked 60 of the world’s best documentary filmmakers for one piece of advice. Then we took their picture.” That’s the tagline of a new book by Jessica Edwards, Tell Me Something, and Indiewire‘s running an excerpt. Albert Maysles: “These are the words that keep coming up for documentary; empathy, experience, open-mindedness.”
“I’ve taught 48 classes and shown a total of 170 unique movies in the past four-and-a-half years.” Michael Smith presents “a list of all the films I have screened to date… along with the average ratings given by my students…. I’m always surprised at how much student ratings tend to fluctuate from one year to the next—as evidenced by a comparison between the current ratings with the 2012 and 2011 editions of the tomato-meter.”
Girish Shambu‘s posted notes on the recently wrapped Savannah Film Festival and attached a round of links.
Monty Python‘s reuniting for a stage show; here, via The Seventh Art, is Terry Jones on Jacques Tati
IN OTHER NEWS
“Bong Joon-ho’s sci-fi blockbuster Snowpiercer won best film at the 33rd Korean Association of Film Critics (KAFC) Awards on Monday.” Lee Hyo-won has more in the Hollywood Reporter.
China will likely go ahead with this month’s domestic release of Jia Zhangke‘s A Touch of Sin—but will ban coverage and reviews. Patrick Frater reports for Variety.
Rotterdam (January 22 through February 2) has teased the third film in its 2014 lineup: Claire Simon’s Gare du Nord.
“Paul Wright’s For Those In Peril has won best film and George MacKay Best Actor at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Scotland Awards.” Naman Ramachandran has the full list of winners at Cineuropa.
IN THE WORKS
“I’m going to try to do Don Quixote‘ again,” Terry Gilliam’s told Silas Lesnick at Coming Soon. “I think this is the seventh time. Lucky seven, maybe. We’ll see if it happens. This is kind of my default position, going back to that. I actually just want to make it and get rid of it. Get it out of my life.”
Richard Brody on Fassbinder‘s World on a Wire (1973)
ENDNOTE
Viewing. The Hollywood Reporter carries on hosting roundtables. The writers (54’18”) are George Clooney and Grant Heslov (The Monuments Men), Jonas Cuarón (Gravity), Julie Delpy (Before Midnight), Nicole Holofcener (Enough Said), John Ridley (12 Years a Slave), and Danny Strong (Lee Daniels’ The Butler). And the cinematographers (46’03”) are Barry Ackroyd (Captain Phillips), Sean Bobbitt (12 Years a Slave), Bruno Delbonnel (Inside Llewyn Davis), Phedon Papamichael (Nebraska), and Stuart Dryburgh (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty).
For news and tips throughout the day every day, follow @KeyframeDaily on Twitter and/or the RSS feed. Get Keyframe Daily in your inbox by signing in at fandor.com/daily.
