the making of, by greg allen
Gus Van Sant, Elias McConnell, and Dany Wolf at Cannes 2003, image: festival-cannes.com There he is, scorched in Death Valley and on the Saltflats of Utah; in a mold-closed school with a barebones crew on scooters; and on the Palais steps of Cannes, where he accepted the Palme D’Or this year for Elephant. Gus Van … Continue reading “Gus Van Sant’s Go-to Guy”
I’ve been rewatching Gerry this past week, partly to prepare for an interview (stay tuned), partly to imagine a remake, and partly to just understand what Gus Van Sant & Co. were up to. The dialogue keeps catching my ear, and not just because there’s so little of it. GVS, Casey Affleck and Matt Damon … Continue reading “Talking like a gamer”
EXT. SATURDAY NIGHT – WASHINGTON, DC A WEEKENDING NEW YORKER approaches the entrance to Agua Ardiente, an “upscale,” “hip tapas restaurant” on the “DC Latin circuit.” He is wearing a vintage suede jacket, black cashmere turtleneck, black Prada Sport loafers with that silly little red stripe that he neverthless insists be cleaned with glycerine every … Continue reading “M Street, or DC Eye for the NY Guy”
Them’s fightin’ words. In his Cinema Militans Lecture, Greenaway thought he’d rile up his audience at the Netherlands Film Festival with his opening, “Cinema died on the 31st September 1983.” (Killed by Mr. Remote Control, in the den, if you must know.) But it’s his claim that Viola’d trump Scorsese that’s the real “they bought … Continue reading ““We can easily believe that Bill Viola is worth ten Scorseses.””
Matthew Barney’s Cremaster cycling through the red states. C1‘s playing in Boise, where it was shot (and Barney’s hometown), and C3 has apparently won the Strangest Movie Shown In Nashville Award. (Heads up, bootleggers: The Tennessean’s Kevin Nance has a screener tape!) Gerry reviewed in the Guardian (“If you can imagine Dude, Where’s my Car? … Continue reading “Things I want to write about, given world enough (or time)”
If karma were an Islamic teaching, the blackout map would’ve included Washington, DC and the Pentagon. And there’d be a teeny, gerrymandered congressional district-style finger reaching down to Crawford, Texas. As it is, though, the blackout hit New York and war-opposing Canada. NPR’s Anne Garrels sardonically shares thoughtful Iraqis’ tips for surviving a blackout in … Continue reading “Bloghdad.com/Blackout”
Don’t know how I missed this; in Feb., Gus Van Sant talked to The Onion A.V. Club about making his films. The sequential filming mode from Gerry was used again on Elephant; with a small, light crew, Van Sant was practically flying along, shooting whatever he wanted. It was an approach he’d missed since his … Continue reading “Shoot sequentially, post asynchronously”
The Cremaster Cycle is now playing in LA, Berkeley, SF, and Chicago. Wider exposure goes hand in hand with wider discussion, as these two very interesting links show: Wayne Bremser’s article, “Matthew Barney versus Donkey Kong”, for the video game magazine GameGirl Advance takes a look at video game character, mythological, spatial and narrative elements … Continue reading “Cremaster Roundup”
Insanely great article by Steve Silberman in Wired on John Gaeta and the CG–no, virtual cinematography–they developed for the Wachowskis’ Matrix sequels. They created ESC, a “CG skunkworks company” for (at least) one fight scene, where Neo kung fu wire-dance fights with 100+ Agent Smiths. To shoot it, they created the world’s largest motion capture … Continue reading “On Matrix Reloaded, aka The Burly Man“
My bad. If only I’d watched Access Hollywood before posting about Gerry. Michel Marriott has an article in the NYTimes about the convergence between video games and films. Actually, it’s about Enter The Matrix, the video game. If anybody gets it, it’s the Wachowski brothers, who wrote the game script to intertwine with their upcoming … Continue reading ““A Thin Line Between Film and Joystick””