Cineaste articles from March 2009

Cineaste archives from March 2009

The art and craft of film editing.(Editorial)
March 22, 2009... In a military office in Cairo, a young British soldier raises a flaming match to his lips in close-up and, as he blows it out, a jump cut transports us to the view of a sunrise over the sand dunes of the Arabian Desert. A recent college...

Gance's films have not dated.(Abel Gance)
March 22, 2009... Many years ago in London I was lucky enough to see Abel Gance's Napoleon, with the accompaniment of Carl Davis's score played by a live orchestra. It was the most memorable filmgoing experience of my life. But even that extraordinary film did...

An Internet-illiterate critic.(Letter to the editor)
March 22, 2009... While I found Cineaste's recent symposium on "Film Criticism in the Age of the Internet" quite illuminating, I must admit to being slightly perplexed by Richard Schickel's contribution. It is of course his right to remain willfully ignorant of...

Stanley Kubrick's history lessons: a great deal of reading, from a variety of unusual perspectives, into the life and work of the late great filmmaker.(books about Stanley Kubrick)(Book review)
March 22, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Although Stanley Kubrick was as obsessed with history as he was with filmmaking, the extent and importance of this fact has rarely been the central focus of those who write about his work. The tasks of researching a...

Inside "the System": an interview with Matteo Garrone: the director refashions a bestselling account of the Camorra syndicate for a cinematic mob hit.(Interview)
March 22, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Before Gomorrah (winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and winner of the Best Film Prize at the 2008 European Film Awards) was released to great acclaim in Europe, the director Matteo...

"Under the table": Michael Wilson and the Screenplay for The Bridge on the River Kwai: for audiences, a screen masterpiece. For its blacklisted screenwriter, a saga of futility and bitterness, in epic proportions.
March 22, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Michael Wilson's first screenplays, written in the early 1940s when he was still in his twenties, included a romantic comedy and several Hopalong Cassidy Westerns. They were an inauspicious beginning, especially for...

The human body as political weapon: an interview with Steve McQueen: telling the Bobby Sands story, with a focus on the raw physical experience of prison and the hunger strike, with the partisan politics replaced by a more humanist perspective.(Interview)
March 22, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Before receiving critical acclaim and festival awards last year for his debut feature film, Hunger--scheduled for a March 2009 theatrical release in the U.S.--British filmmaker Steve McQueen was best known for his...

Cutting rhythms in Chicago and Cabaret: razzle-dazzle editing style keeps a pair of energetically conceived musicals on their toes.
March 22, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Editors take pride in their craft being invisible to audiences and their artistry being intuitive. But, as technology and film production practices change, editors need people to be able to see what good editing is...

Cutting remarks on W.: an interview with Julie Monroe, Joe Hutshing and Wylie Stateman: all the president's editors discuss the editorial strategy and the layering of music and sound effects for Oliver's Stone's portrayal of Bush 43.(Interview)
March 22, 2009... Director Oliver Stone is no stranger to controversy, and his 2008 film W., as usual, raised a few eyebrows. Released in the last months of the president's tenure in office, W. provides a realistic yet poignant treatment of the life and work of...

Editing for subtext: altering the meaning of the narrative: how editing techniques can reveal underlying themes that enrich a film's narrative.
March 22, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Editing is all about telling the story with images and sounds, just as screenwriting is telling the story with words, and directing is telling the story with performance and camera. Editing can have straightforward...

"Invisible" or "visible" editing: the development of editorial styles and strategies: should we see the "hand" of the film editor?
March 22, 2009... Before motion pictures were edited, the movie camera was little more than a recording device. The elements of the editing process--storyline, location or setting, exploration of space, framing, and mise-en-scene, or action-to-action within the...

The editing of Lawrence of Arabia: an interview with Anne V. Coates: across the sands of time, a film editor's personal history of the shaping and texturing of a classic screen epic.(Interview)
March 22, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Lawrence of Arabia would undoubtedly rank very high on anyone's list of the best-edited motion pictures of all time. Given its protracted, alternately notorious and celebrated editorial history, it would probably...

The art and craft of film editing: a Critical Symposium featuring commentary by Richard Chew, Anne V. Coates, Alan Heim, Joe Hutshing, Walter Murch, Pietro Scalia, Arthur Schmidt, Thelma Schoonmaker, Tim Squyres, Christopher Tellefesen and Dylan Tichenor: observations on the editorial art from some of the most talented film editors at work today.(Discussion)
March 22, 2009... A Critical Symposium has been an essential component of most of the special supplements Cineaste has published over the years. We believe that no matter what subject or issue we're examining, it's vitally important to complement the feature...

Waltz with Bashir.(Movie review)
March 22, 2009... Waltz with Bashir Produced by Ari Folman, Serge Lalou, Gerhard Meixner, Yael Nahlieli, Roman Paul; directed and written by Ari Folman; art direction by David Polonsky; animation direction by Yoni Goodman; edited by Feller Nili; original music...

Waltz with Bashir: an interview with Ari Folman.(Interview)
March 22, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Cineaste: Why did you want to make this film? Ari Folman: I never planned to make this kind of film. During an interview for Made in Israel, the last question was why I hadn't done a film about my army service. I...

Frost/Nixon.(Movie review)
March 22, 2009... Frost/Nixon Produced by Brian Glazer, Ron Howard, Tim Bevan, and Eric Fellner; directed by Ron Howard; screenplay by Peter Morgan, based on his play; cinematography by Salvatore Totino; production design by Michael Corenblith; costumes by...

Milk.(Movie review)
March 22, 2009... Milk Produced by Bruce Cohen, Dan Jinks, Michael London; directed by Gus Van Sant; screenplay by Dustin Lance Black; cinematography by Harris Savides; production design by Bill Groom; costumes by Danny Glicker; edited by Elliot Graham; original...

Revolutionary Road.(Movie review)
March 22, 2009... Revolutionary Road Produced by John N. Hart, Jr., Scott Rudin, Sam Mendes and Bobby Cohen; directed by Sam Mendes; screenplay by Justin Haythe, based on the novel by Richard Yates; cinematography by Roger Deakins; production design by Kristi...

Slumdog Millionaire.(Movie review)
March 22, 2009... Slumdog Millionaire Produced by Christian Colson; directed by Danny Boyle; co-directed (India) by Loveleen Tandan; screenplay by Simon Beaufoy, based on the novel Q&A by Vikas Swarup; cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle; production design by...

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters.(Video recording review)
March 22, 2009... Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters Directed by Paul Schrader; produced by Mata Yamamoto and Tom Luddy; written by Paul Schrader and Leonard Schrader, with Japanese script by Chieko Schrader; music by Philip Glass; cinematography by John Bailey;...

Perils of the New Land: Films of the Immigrant Experience (1910-1915).(Video recording review)
March 22, 2009... Perils of the New Land: Films of the Immigrant Experience (1910-1915) Two discs, 194 mins. Silent, B&W and tinted. A Flicker Alley/Blackhawk Films Collection release, www.flickeralley.com. In the early years of the twenty-first century, the...

An Autumn Afternoon.(Video recording review)
March 22, 2009... An Autumn Afternoon Directed by Yasujiro Ozu; screenplay by Yasujiro Ozu and Kogo Noda; cinematography by Yuharu Atsuta; art direction by Tatsuo Hamada; music coordinator, Kojun Saito; edited by Yoshiyasu Hamamura; starring Shima Iwashita,...

Bottle Rocket.(Brief article)(Video recording review)
March 22, 2009... Bottle Rocket The story behind Bottle Rocket is much like the story of its characters, none of whom ever think of reaching for the clouds--just for the ceiling. Wes Anderson's first feature, according to the commentary on this new...

le Doulos and le Deuxieme Souffle.(Brief article)(Video recording review)
March 22, 2009... le Doulos and le Deuxieme Souffle Criterion adds more Jean-Pierre Melville to the Collection with two films linked by the theme of informing. In an affectionate video interview that accompanies le Deuxieme Souffle (1966), the publicist of...

The Bill Douglas Trilogy.(Brief article)(Video recording review)
March 22, 2009... The Bill Douglas Trilogy Bill Douglas (1934-1991) was a Scottish writer-director who never garnered the recognition he deserved during his lifetime. But in this trio of striking, low-budget, semiautobiographical films dealing with his...

Natalie Wood Collection.(Brief article)(Video recording review)
March 22, 2009... Natalie Wood collection Natalie Wood's life, career, and untimely death took shape with her start as a child actor who would become the last of the studio-manufactured stars. Torn between her identity as "star," encouraged by her...

Transsiberian.(Brief article)(Video recording review)
March 22, 2009... Transsiberian Embedded in this mostly conventional train thriller (from Beijing to Moscow, with unexpected stops along the way) are several compelling character studies performed by a superb A-list cast. Another benefit therein: Emily...

Andrei Tarkovsky: Elements of Cinema.(Tarkovsky)(Book review)
March 22, 2009... Andrei Tarkovsky: Elements of Cinema by Robert Bird. London, U.K.: Reaktion Books (Distributed in the U.S. by the University of Chicago Press), 2008. 254 pp., illus. Paperback: $25.00. Tarkovsky Edited by Nathan Dunne. London, U.K.: Black...

Hollywood Under Siege: Martin Scorsese, The Religious Right, and the Culture Wars.(Book review)
March 22, 2009... Hollywood Under Siege: Martin Scorsese, The Religious Right, and the Culture Wars by Thomas R. Lindlof. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 2008. 394pp., illus. Hardcover: $32.50. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] For those of us who...

The New Face of Political Cinema: Commitment in French Film Since 1995.(Book review)
March 22, 2009... The New Face of Political Cinema: Commitment in French Film Since 1995 by Martin O'Shaughnessy. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2007. 195 pp. Hardcover: $80.00. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Before 1968, debates concerning politics and...

Hollywood Goes to Washington: American Politics on Screen.
March 22, 2009... Hollywood Goes to Washington: American Politics on Screen by Michael Coyne. London: Reaktion Books (Distributed in the U.S. by the University of Chicago Press), 2008. 229 pp., illus. Paperback: $25.00. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In W.,...

Joseph P. Kennedy Presents: His Hollywood Years.(Book review)
March 22, 2009... Joseph P. Kennedy Presents: His Hollywood Years by Cary Beauchamp. New York: Random House, 2008. 512 pp., illus. Hardcover: $35.00. Cari Beauchamp had a very good idea for a book and she has wrung sweat and blood out of her subject, the...

The Border Wall.(SHORT TAKES)(Video recording review)
March 22, 2009... If the 109th Congress's failure to pass real immigration reform marked new heights in legislative ignominy, its fall-back "Border Security" plan-the quixotic Secure Fence Act that authorized a 700-mile barrier between the United States and...

Damages.(SHORT TAKES)(Brief article)(Video recording review)
March 22, 2009... Damages begins with a promising premise: director Thomas Balmes sets his camera down in front of lawyers from the successful firm Koskoff, Koskoff and Bieder in order to capture the conversations that lead to dollar amounts placed on the lives...

Frontrunners.(SHORT TAKES)(Brief article)(Video recording review)
March 22, 2009... Stuyvesant High is an elite, intensely competitive public high school located in Manhattan's Battery Park City. Its student body is extremely bright and articulate, and obsessed with augmenting their extracurricular resumes, so they can get a...

Harvard Beats Yale 29-29.(SHORT TAKES)(Brief article)(Video recording review)
March 22, 2009... I don't know much about football, I have no connection to Harvard or Yale, but this documentary had me on the edge of my seat. Director Kevin Rafferty (Atomic Cafe) has added another engrossing chapter--a quirky one--to the story of the...

Mardi Gras: Made in China.(SHORT TAKES)(Brief article)(Video recording review)
March 22, 2009... Filmmaker Michael Redmon's debut documentary Mardi Gras: Made in China presents two worlds--the United States and China brought together by cheap, plastic beads created for the annual bacchanalia on Bourbon Street. Although the film aims to...