REFLECTIONS ON FILM CULTURE

Daily | Rivette, Zavattini, Emigholz

Jean-Pierre Léaud in Rivette's 'Out 1'

Jean-Pierre Léaud in Rivette’s ‘Out 1’

The Melbourne International Film Festival has posted the first part of an audiovisual essay on Jacques Rivette’s Out 1 (1971) by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin, who’ve written an accompanying essay for the Notebook. They note that in Rivette’s “monumental” work, we see two theatrical works “collapse. Yet what we witness are not, in any conventional or normative sense, rehearsals. They are more like what Jerzy Grotwoski called paratheatre: playing without a stage, without an audience ever in mind or in attendance, playing for the sake of playing itself, for the process of working it out and working it through…. Out 1 is an extraordinary, synthesizing document of many experimental movements in theatre, dating from the immediate post-war period and surviving through to our day, in performance workshops grand and small across the globe.”

MORE READING

“The prolific screenwriter and sometime filmmaker Cesare Zavattini (1902-89) was the chief theoretician of Italian neorealism,” writes J. Hoberman in the New York Times. “‘I want to meet the real protagonist of everyday life,’ Zavattini declared. His 1953 production, Love in the City, newly out from Raro Video in an excellent Blu-ray transfer, tried to broker that encounter. A critical and commercial failure on its release, Love in the City was little seen thereafter. Yet this compilation of short film essays directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini and four other soon-to-be-prominent Italian directors, is of great historical significance: a precursor to Lionel Rogosin’s staged documentaries, as well as the founding work of cinéma vérité, Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin’s Chronicle of a Summer (1961), not to mention the American television reportage of the 1960s.”

“‘Film is an imaginary architecture in time,’ says 66-year-old German filmmaker Heinz Emigholz. ‘Architecture is the most popular mode through which to express human life. With it you can show all possible breeds of human activity: love, hate, care, loss. You just have to look carefully.’ Emigholz is speaking about The Airstrip (2013), his most recent feature, which (provisionally) concludes a series of films devoted to architecture that took more than 20 years to make.” Aaron Cutler interviews him for Sight & Sound.

John Waters on Frank Tashlin’s The Girl Can’t Help It (1956)

“I wonder how many conscious references there are to the work of Rainer Werner Fassbinder in Richard Linklater‘s films,” writes the Chicago Reader‘s Ben Sachs. “Linklater cites the German actor-playwright-filmmaker as one of his chief creative influences… I enjoy looking for Fassbinder allusions in Linklater films as a sort of cinephilic variation on Where’s Waldo?”

The Believer‘s posted the inaugural essay for the Twin Peaks Project, Shya Scanlon‘s reflection on rewatching David Lynch’s series at various times in his life.

Seeing Dawn of the Planet of the Apes has got Nick Pinkerton thinking—and quite a bit, too—about war movies.

For Criterion, Michael Koresky revisits Robert Altman‘s Nashville (1975), specifically Lily Tomlin’s Linnea Reese, who “may be the least eccentric, most subdued major character in Altman’s panoramic satire of the country-music capital. Tomlin is an emotional anchor in a film full of wayward souls and pompous pills.”

In the New Statesman, Ryan Gilbey finds that, “after all the years of contentious debate about [Michael Cimino’s] The Deer Hunter [1978], there’s so much in the picture that is generous and understated.”

From Catherine Grant comes word that Volumes 4 through 11 of the Manchester University Press publication Film Studies will be freely available throughout August.

BOOKS

The Pink Book: The Japanese Eroduction and Its Contexts, a collection of eleven essays edited by Abé Mark Nornes, is available for free. Via Jasper Sharp.

Grantland‘s running a generous excerpt from Amy Nicholson‘s Tom Cruise: Anatomy of an Actor. The focus here is on Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia (1999), which Cruise was eager to throw himself into after the grueling shoot with Stanley Kubrick (Eyes Wide Shut, 1999).

For the TLS, Philip French reviews Hitchcock’s Partner in Suspense: The Life of Screenwriter Charles Bennett, edited by Bennett’s neglected son, John Charles. All in all, Bennett worked with Hitch on seven screenplays before he was forgotten and eventually rediscovered by Pat McGilligan, author of Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light, which French calls “the most extensively researched of Hitchcock biographies.”

“My new book, Hollywood Vault: Film Libraries before Home Video, is about the history of how old movies became valuable,” writes Eric Hoyt. Via Catherine Grant.

IN OTHER NEWS

“Hayao Miyazaki, the iconic Japanese anime creator ‘may make something again,’ said Toshio Suzuki, the veteran Studio Ghibli producer whose remarks on a Sunday TBS documentary stirred up speculation about the studio’s demise.” Mark Schilling: “‘This is my guess, but I’m thinking it will be something short.’ He explained that Miyazaki had talked to him about making a short film for the Ghibli Musuem in Mitaka, Tokyo.”

Trailer for The Director’s Chair hosted by Robert Rodriguez

Also in Variety: “The San Sebastian Film Festival, the most prestigious film event in the Spanish-speaking world, unveiled Thursday the first seven international titles that will vie for a Golden Shell in competition,” reports Emiliano De Pablos. “They are François Ozon’s The New Girlfriend, Bille August’s Silent Heart, Mia Hansen-Løve’s Eden, Phoenix, by Christian Petzold, Shim Sung-bo’s Haemoo, Michael R. Roskam’s The Drop and Casanova Variations, by Michael Sturminger.”

GOINGS ON

Los Angeles. “With its pared-down lineup and friendlier weather, Sundance’s NEXT FEST is such a good idea that it may discourage Angelenos from attending the festival proper.” The fest’s on through the weekend and Michael Nordine‘s got recommendations in the LA Weekly.

Austin.Roger Corman‘s reputation as a filmmaker precedes him,” writes the Chronicle‘s Louis Black. “More than simply the ‘King of the Bs,’ Corman was also known as the ‘Pope of Pop Culture.’ Friday, the Austin Film Society kicks off a miniseries of four Corman films that will run on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons throughout August.”

IN THE WORKS

“After nearly two decades of aborted attempts and frustration, Terry Gilliam seems like he will finally bring The Man Who Killed Don Quixote to life.” Jordan Zakarin reports for TheWrap.

ENDNOTES

More links? See the Film Doctor and Vadim Rizov (Filmmaker).

Listening (135’05”). Illusion Travels By Streetcar #25: “Bruno Dumont and The New French Mistake.”

Viewing (7’15”). In conjunction with Sight & Sound‘s new “Greatest Documentaries of All Time” poll, Robert Greene presents a “video essay [that’s] an attempt to collect a few of the sublime, upsetting, euphoric and poetic moments from a few of the greatest (and sometimes lesser known but still greatest) nonfiction films ever made.”

And then there’s this bit of viewing (0’12”) via Matt Fagerholm at RogerEbert.com:

For news and tips throughout the day every day, follow @KeyframeDaily. Get Keyframe Daily in your inbox by signing in at fandor.com/daily.

Did you like this article?
Give it a vote for a Golden Bowtie

0

Keyframe is always looking for contributors.

"Writer? Video Essayist? Movie Fan Extraordinaire?

Fandor is streaming on Amazon Prime

Love to discover new films? Browse our exceptional library of hand-picked cinema on the Fandor Amazon Prime Channel.