Arthur Penn, Director of ‘Bonnie and Clyde,’ Dies - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com. He was 88. One of America’s finest.
Douglas Trumball is working on a documentary on the making of the greatest movie ever made. Second one down, under “All Videos”.
Can’t wait to see this one. Thanks to Daring Fireball and Coudal Partners for the link.
"It was on the sound mixing stage when we were expecting a wire transfer that they called to say they needed more time to think about it. The mixer was literally looking at us, saying “are we starting?” and we said “We need the money NOW.” It turns out they were showing the completed cut on video to one of the investor’s 12 year old son. He turned to his dad and said “This is better than ‘American Pie’.” And that was it, they wired the money. Literally my career, my whole life’s work, was in the hands of a 12 year old. And thankfully, he loved it."
— The Aughts (and The Aught-Not- Haves) | Mediaite - I’m not a fan of Eli Roth’s movies, and until this article I wasn’t really a fan of him either. But I can’t help but have some respect for the guy after reading this article (written by him) about breaking into the film industry.
The self-destructive romanticism, the artistic self-consciousness, the frenetically unhinged form, the blend of emotional extravagance and cool self-mocking, the vanished boundaries between irony and sincerity and between symbol and reality, the overt cinematic breakdown and breakup, were all of their moment. Pierrot le fou was the last of Godard’s first films, the herald of even more radical rejections and reconstructions to come—for Godard and for the world around him.
Pierrot le fou: Self-Portrait in a Shattered Lens - From the Current - Buy it while you can. I did.
"Ingmar didn’t like spontaneous meetings with his children,” recalls Rodell, who was also Laretei’s accompanist, “but at the cinema, there was always something to talk about, and you met in some kind of structure. He liked that. Everyone lived in their own house, a little bit apart from one another, and then we met at specific hours.” As Rodell’s partner, Benny Marcel, another close friend of Bergman’s, saw it, “getting quality time with their father wasn’t easy. So on a fantastic afternoon when the sun was shining, they had to sit in a dark cinema to meet with him."
— Ingmar Bergman: Art & Design: Wmagazine.com - A considered and perceptive piece about Bergman the person rather than the legend. He was a brilliant filmmaker, but by no means was he a role model for a good person or father.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
A 75-minute interview with Stanley Kubrick from 1966. Candid and insightful look at how he got started in photography and filmmaking.
To Cameron, making a movie is going to war, and he is a Spartan general: he comes home carrying his shield or on it. It is a posture that requires a good deal of self-parody. Before beginning production on “The Abyss” (1989), the most ambitious underwater movie ever attempted, he went to see Leonard Goldberg, then the president of Fox, which was financing the film. “He said, ‘I want you to know one thing—once we embark on this adventure and I start to make this movie, the only way you’ll be able to stop me is to kill me,’ ” Goldberg told me. “You looked into those eyes and you knew he meant it.”
James Cameron and “Avatar” : The New Yorker
If you have even the slightest interest in the man who brought us Terminator 2, Aliens, Titantic, and now Avatar, this is an article you must read.
The man has an amazing track record that involves constantly pushing the technological envelope in filmmaking while telling good stories that appeal to mass audiences. Cameron’s not a Godard or a Kubrick by any means, but he is unquestionably an auteur, a filmmaker with a vision, and that’s why I believe if you care about movies or filmmaking, reading this bio piece about him is a must.
On a side note, I kept thinking while I was reading this that Michael Bay must wake up every morning wishing he were as badass as James Cameron.
