A project I shot and edited for the fashion blog, The Hourglass, in collaboration with thingsshemade. It was a real pleasure to help execute Jackie LeBrun’s energetic Valentine’s Day vision. (utilize quality! 1080please)
‘Silent Bell,’ a tonally opposite experimental short utilizing some of the shoot’s unused footage, will also appear shortly.
Teaser trailer for an upcoming project with The Hourglass (utilize quality! 1080please).
A short piece I shot and edited for the hip San Francisco fashion blog, The Hourglass, featuring dresses from Lulus.com. A real treat work to with the creative talents of Jackie at The Hourglass and Danielle at thingsshemade.com.
Happy holidays!
I have long admired directors who push themselves to the limits during the shooting process. We’ve all heard stories about actors being terrorized by directors on set, but what about directors who get terrorized by their own productions? There are two amazing documentaries that illustrate the impossible, never-ending nightmare of trying to make a movie, and they star two of cinema’s most egomaniacal (and entertaining) directors: Francis Ford Coppola in ‘Hearts of Darkness’ (1991) and Werner Herzog in ‘Burden of Dreams’ (1982). In ‘Hearts of Darkness’ we witness the endless horrors that plagued the shooting of ‘Apocalypse Now’ (1979): monsoons destroying sets, a lead actor suffering a heart-attack (Martin Sheen), another actor arriving on set severely overweight and without having read the script (Marlon Brando), and the Filipino military re-routing helicopters mid-take to fight off communist rebels.
Martin Sheen celebrates his 36th birthday in front of Coppola’s cameras. Sheen was later sidelined by a heart-attack during shooting and temporarily left the production.
Meanwhile, ‘Burden of Dreams’ captures Herzog lost in his own jungle with his own set of problems. During the shooting of his epic character study, ‘Fitzcarraldo’ (1982), he loses one lead actor to dysentery (Jason Robards) and another to a Rolling Stones tour (Mick Jagger originally played Robards’ assistant). The madness escalates when a frighteningly unstable Klaus Kinski arrives as Robards’ replacement, further disrupting the shoot with his frequent, frenzied outbursts (Peruvian natives propose to kill him, an offer Herzog considers). But all this is nothing compared to the production’s biggest challenge (and the film’s main set-piece), the actualization of Herzog’s most burdensome dream of all — hauling a steamship up and across an Amazon isthmus.
The trailer for ‘Burden of Dreams.’
Here’s a surprising little treat for Kubrick scholars: an eleven-minute excerpt from an interview with the media-shy director conducted by French film critic Michel Ciment. In this rare audio clip, Kubrick explains technical details regarding ‘Barry Lyndon’ (1975), ‘The Shining’ (1980) and ‘Full Metal Jacket’ (1987).
In 2003 Ciment published the all-encompassing book, ‘Kubrick: The Definitive Edition,’ a must-read for any fan of the great director. Also worth checking out is the feature-length documentary, ‘Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures’ (2001).
Of David Lynch’s early films, ‘The Elephant Man’ (1980) is the most appropriate for those interested in a more formal introduction to the famously strange filmmaker. Yes, David Lynch is definitely out there, and so is ‘The Elephant Man,’ but consider this: his second feature — and first job on a Hollywood production — garnered eight oscar nominations, including best director (also nominated that year was Martin Scorsese for ‘Raging Bull’). This was an amazing leap for the man who spent the majority of the seventies working on an intensely personal art film, the magnificently weird ‘Eraserhead’ (1977). ‘The Elephant Man’ is based on the touching true story of the physically deformed Joseph Merrick (John Hurt), who went from being a freak-show attraction to an admired intellectual in Victorian England. Anthony Hopkins co-stars as the doctor who befriends Merrick after rescuing him from his abusive owner.
The film’s unforgettable opening sequence.
Director David Lynch explains the origins of the film’s production.
Fresh off the success of his biting Hollywood satire, ‘Sunset Boulevard’ (1950), writer-director Billy Wilder turned his focus to the dark side of the American news industry with 1951’s ‘Ace in the Hole.’ Kirk Douglas stars as Chuck Tatum, a ruthless, frustrated journalist in search of a story that will re-spark his career. When he happens upon a shocking tragedy — a man trapped in a cave — he sensationalizes the story and does everything in his power to keep it a headliner for as long as possible. An easy candidate for greatest anti-hero in film history, Douglas’ performance is downright bone-chilling. Wilder and writing partner Charles Brackett deliver another impeccable script.
The film’s original theatrical trailer.
Woody Allen’s greatest film was, interestingly enough, chronologically sandwiched by stylistic impressions of the two directors he admired most. The almost unbearably bleak ‘Interiors’ (1978) saw Allen channeling Ingmar Bergman with a freakishly convincing pen and eye, which resulted in the comedic auteur’s first film drama. Following this cold tonal detour, Allen re-stabilized his aesthetics with a marvelous salute to his beloved home city, 1979’s superb ‘Manhattan.’ With this film, I think Woody Allen succeeded in making the definitive Woody Allen movie, an American treasure, heartfelt, hilarious, and one of the greatest movies about New York ever made. But then what? What next? How does one follow one’s personal best?
Allen defends Bergman in a scene from ‘Manhattan.’
Allen responded to that question with an astounding answer, his most personal work to date, which also served as a nod to his other major cinematic hero, Federico Fellini. What better film to look to in the midst of artistic uncertainty than 1963′s ‘8 1/2’? ‘Stardust Memories’ (1980) tells the story of a disillusioned director (played by Allen) caught in a mid-life, creative crisis while attending a week-long retrospective of his work, work he no longer cares about. While it’s not intended to be as powerful as ‘8 1/2,’ it explores the same bold, central question: how can a ‘great’ director seem to fail so miserably at directing his own life? But make no mistake, the differences between ‘8 1/2’ and ‘Stardust Memories’ are as important as the similarities; where Fellini dreams along at a leisurely pace in his two-and-a-half hour film about filmmaking, Allen seems to take equal pride in his characteristic conciseness. Though they are very different films and should be seen as complements rather than competitors, Allen deserves some serious credit by finishing the race in under ninety minutes and delivering an equally entertaining, if not rewarding picture. The real treat for Fellini die-hards is how well Allen parodies someone who was also so funny; he triumphs in amplifying Fellini’s outrageousness.
If you don’t have the desire to watch ’8 1/2′, you could do a lot worse than experiencing Allen’s take on it. In the end, ‘Stardust Memories’ serves as a wonderful chapter in what was probably Woody Allen’s most remarkable period, and it’s a more than worthwhile film, with or without having seen the cinematic landmark that influenced it.
‘Stardust Memories’ plays at the Castro Theatre November 16 as part of a double feature with ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona.’
Martin Scorsese’s fascination with rock and roll music is practically as well-known as his passion for movies. In 2003 he executive produced a lengthy series on blues music (Martin Scorsese presents ‘The Blues’) and his feature documentaries that focus on music have become standards of rock cinema: ‘The Last Waltz’ (1976), ‘No Direction Home: Bob Dylan’ (2005), and ‘Shine a Light’ (2008). His latest is ‘George Harrison: Living in the Material World,’ and in many ways it goes deeper than his previous music explorations, as a character study it’s as psychologically thorough as his portraits of Jake la Motta in ‘Raging Bull’ (1980) or Howard Hughes in ‘The Aviator’ (2005). Scorsese examines Harrison not so much as a member of the world’s most famous pop group as he does an artistic individual struggling to find his identity; a humble and hungry spiritual searcher.
The key difference between Scorsese’s prior rock-docs and his latest is that music seemed to be the very life of his previous subjects, whereas with Harrison it comes off as simply an aspect of it, and as the documentary reveals, at many times a distraction. Harrison’s discovery and devotion to Hare Krishna chanting is depicted with as much significance as his most pivotal musical accomplishments. And like all of Scorsese’s best work, internal struggle is at center stage. Considering Harrison as another deeply complex character in the director’s canon, the Scorsese film ‘Living in the Material World’ reminds me of most isn’t the obvious comparison, the Dylan documentary (as inarticulate and mysterious as Dylan comes off, he always knows exactly who he is, unlike Harrison), it is isn’t even one of his other rock movies, it’s one of his other religious epics, 1988′s ‘The Last Temptation of Christ.’ Scorsese’s bold interpretation of Nikos Katantzakis’ novel portrays the Messiah as a hesitant, doubtful, guilt-ridden spiritual leader who hallucinates a normal life for himself as he dies on the cross. These intense, often private crises on display in Scorsese’s Christ and Harrison are the clearest illustrations of each character’s humanity, but they are what also declares them lonely and tortured protagonists.
Almost a decade after ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’ Scorsese directed his sprawling Dalai Lama film, ‘Kundun,’ (1997) his second major religious picture. Though it is tempting to say the Harrison documentary completes Scorsese’s spirituality trilogy, it would be a temporary/premature statement considering the filmmaker’s future. ‘Silence,’ a seventeenth-century period piece about two priests who witness the persecution of Christians in Japan, looks as if it will be Scorsese’s next major project, with Daniel Day-Lewis and Benicio del-Toro set to star. But for now, Scorsese’s latest offering is as thorough a piece of personal filmmaking the director has given us. The musically obsessed maverick has once again presented us with much more than just another rock-doc.
In ‘George Harrison: Living in the Material World’ Martin Scorsese examines one of rock and roll’s quietest icons.
Like most film lovers, and all students of film history, I am eagerly anticipating director Michel Hazanavicius’ latest work, ‘The Artist.’ Since its May premiere at Cannes (where star Jean Dujardin won the festival’s best actor prize), this silent film about the birth of the talkies has garnered praise from critics and audiences around the world for its technical ambition and crowd-pleasing charm. If you’ve never had the chance to watch a silent film in a theater make sure to mark your calendars; the experience of becoming immersed in a story through imagery alone is a rare and enchanting one. The silent masters are surely smiling upon Mr. Hazanavicius.
‘The Artist’ opens in U.S. theaters November 23.
