tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77628465658129848152024-03-21T21:39:10.390-07:00MOVIES ON THE BIG SCREENWhat's new at the American Cinematheque's Egyptian and Aero TheatersAmerican Cinemathequehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15291044638493392837noreply@blogger.comBlogger297125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762846565812984815.post-39767777959608062962019-09-11T16:01:00.000-07:002020-05-26T13:59:59.956-07:00JOHN TRAVOLTA PLAYS A 'FANATIC' IN NEW FILM FROM LIMP BIZKIT'S FRED DURST, by Judith Resell<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“You are not going to believe what you’re about to see,” said director Fred Durst to introduce the L.A. premiere of his film <i>The Fanatic</i> at the Egyptian Theatre on Aug. 22, 2019. “It wouldn’t have happened without John Travolta. He is the superstar,” Durst continued, with Travolta at his side.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“It all started years ago with Fred’s idea,” Travolta said during the Q&A following the screening, adding that he contacted a few friends to finance the film for a small budget. “It can happen. We got it done,” Travolta said. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Durst recounted that the idea was born when he was out to dinner with his co-writer Dave Bekerman, and a waiter they particularly liked asked Durst for his autograph. Durst and Bekerman spun out a story of what someone who collected celebrity autographs might be like. The script was a dark comedic thriller about a fan obsessed with a famous actor. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Travolta said, “We ALL have it, that celebrity we love and the dream that they would love us back. We all identify with that.” That formed the basis of Travolta’s character, Moose. Then came the fun of building the character. “That’s why we’re here. We love to act.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There came a time in his text messaging with Travolta when Durst realized that he was no longer communicating with John Travolta. He was communicating with Moose. When Travolta arrived on the set the first day, he was Moose. Durst knew that the minute he saw him. “John was Moose.” Travolta stayed in character throughout the 17-day shoot. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Bill Paxton was originally cast in the role of the celebrity actor and the film is dedicated to him. When Paxton died from complications during heart surgery, Travolta suggest Devon Sawa to play the part. Durst was in Birmingham, Alabama at the time, so Sawa had to send him an audition tape. “I put the whole damn thing on tape,” Sawa laughed. He sent it to Durst, who quickly saw he had the character down cold, including all the lines off-book. But Durst toyed with Sawa when he called. Durst said, “I loved the tape and wish you luck in your future.” Sawa thought Durst was passing on him, but then Durst laughed and offered him the part. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For the part of Leah, Durst needed an actor who would be believable as a friend to the lovable but limited Moose. “We were getting a lot of interesting people thrown at us, but I didn’t want to settle,” Durst said. At the last minute, he found Ana Golja. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Golja recalled that when she met Durst she was in full makeup with perfectly-coiffed hair. Gorgeous, but “I didn’t look anything like Leah.” Golja changed clothes, toned it all way down and taped two pages of material, which Durst sent to Travolta. Golja got the part based on the audition tape. Durst praised Golja’s performance: “I always believed Ana’s relationship with Moose.” Travolta added that he appreciated “the beautiful choices she made caring for Moose. She responded to his vulnerability.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A lengthy climatic scene where Moose ties his idol to his own bed challenged everyone. Durst found it difficult to shoot in such a tiny room with so much action in just five days. “The scene on that bed went on for hours. I was on that bed for days,” Sawa said. Travolta surprised Sawa with a variety of improvised actions. He jumped on Sawa’s chest and did an imitation of Pennywise the Clown. As Moose, he felt like crawling in bed with his idol - so he did, much to Sawa’s surprise. In an earlier scene, Travolta kisses Sawa’s forehead. “I felt a wetness,” said Sawa, again surprised by the great actor’s choice. Travolta even imitated LL Cool J’s rapping on the set — and in the Egyptian Theatre, to the audience’s delight. “I loved working with John Travolta like that,” Sawa concluded. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Travolta shared that he likes working in independent films because “the independent movie is freer. It lets us go outside the norm. I grew up when story and character and acting were central. It’s different now and I was happy to get back to that.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“Casting is 90 percent of movie making,” Travolta observed. The great directors he has worked with like Tarantino and Altman “just let you go. The more the director does that, the more outside the box we can go. We never felt like we were making a bad or wrong choice, just a different choice. That is so important to the actor.” He concluded with a compliment to Durst: “Fred really excelled at that.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“I feel like an actors’ director,” Durst replied. “I do character-driven pieces.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Durst began his career as a musician with the band Limp Bizkit. His musical background shines through in <i>The Fanatic</i>. He knew David Fincher and Martin Scorsese had directed music videos, so he thought he could achieve success as a film director if he started in music. In fact, Fincher helped him transition from music to movies. “If it wasn’t for Limp Bizkit, I never would have had this opportunity,” Durst concluded. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The director said he sees <i>The Fanatic</i> as a comment on celebrity. “You need to be a great celebrity if you put yourself out there in that way,” Durst said. He noted that the character of Hunter was a great father, a successful actor, but a bad celebrity. So in the end, the audience ends up rooting for Moose.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The evening closed with questions from the audience, most directed to Travolta.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"The actors I would most like to work with in the future? Myself - I would like to direct a movie and act in it too," Travolta said. "And I really like the work of Sam Rockwell. I like people who change it up, go for it fully like he does. Sam is one of the actors who really builds a character like it was done in the past."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">He also recounted two startling experiences he'd had with his own obsessive fans: a girl who hid in his closet scared him when she jumped out, and a man who once interrupted a family dinner.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Travolta appeared at the American Cinematheque at the Aero Theatre on January 8, 2020 to talk about some of his career highlights. He even performed a dance medley, demonstrating dances for various of his films. <i><span style="font-size: x-small;">(video owned by the American Cinematheque).</span></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Judith Resell is a volunteer for the American Cinematheque.</i></span></div>
American Cinemathequehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15291044638493392837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762846565812984815.post-49938690999372347982020-02-07T16:36:00.001-08:002020-05-04T16:52:29.922-07:00Editor Thelma Schoonmaker on Making THE IRISHMAN With Martin Scorsese: "My Tastes Are His Tastes" -- by Judith Resell<div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Joi McMillon and Thelma Schoonmaker at the Egyptian Theatre. Photo by Lee Christian</td></tr>
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“It was very devoted of them to struggle that long,” editor Thelma Schoonmaker said of the seven years Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro spent looking for the right material and getting financing for THE IRISHMAN (2019). Three-time Oscar winner Schoonmaker was interviewed by Joi McMillon, editor of the Oscar-winning film MOONLIGHT (2016), at the Egyptian Theatre on January 28, 2020. A screening of THE IRISHMAN followed their conversation. <br />
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“I can’t imagine three young actors who could play the young Pacino and the young De Niro and the young Pesci,” Schoonmaker explained regarding the choice of using de-aging technology in the film. The technology required three cameras and three people pulling focus for each actor. When all three were in the same scene, that meant nine cameras and nine focus-pullers. But the results were extraordinary. <br />
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“I’ve never seen acting like this,” Schoonmaker said of De Niro’s performance. “I’m disappointed that he wasn’t nominated.” She recalled editing the opening sequence with the song “The Still of the Night” as the camera moves through a nursing home setting and ends on De Niro’s face and his exceptional voiceover narration begins. Both Al Pacino and Joe Pesci received multiple nominations for their performances in supporting roles, including competing against each other for the 2020 Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role.<br />
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The de-aging element of production necessitated bringing a body coach to the set to make sure body movements were age-appropriate. When the body coach saw movements by one of the actors that were "too old" for the de-aged character, he went to Scorsese and said “You better tell him. I’m not going to.” <br />
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“Scorsese has an incredible genius. There is no one else like him. Editing for him is a great joy,” Schoonmaker continued. They have collaborated for more than 50 years on more than 20 films. Schoonmaker added that Scorsese trusts her because he knows she will do what is right for the film. <br />
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When McMillon asked her what prepared her for editing, Schoonmaker stressed the importance of music. She played a number of instruments, including flute and piano. <br />
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Schoonmaker became a film editor by accident. Raised abroad, she planned a career as a diplomat in the foreign service. A newspaper ad to edit classic European films (Truffaut, Godard, Fellini) caught her eye and she took the job. When fellow NYU student Martin Scorsese’s class project was butchered by a negative cutter, a professor suggested to Scorsese that Schoonmaker could repair what seemed like irreparable damage. She did so, and went on to edit his first film. <br />
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Some of Schoonmaker’s best editing experiences were on RAGING BULL (1981). As an example, she cited the superlative, emotional fight scene where Jake takes a brutal beating. “The light goes down, all we can see is the beating,” Schoonmaker continued.<br />
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McMillon wanted to know how editing comedy differed from editing crime or drama genres. “Comic timing is different,” Schoonmaker replied. When they were making THE KING OF COMEDY (1982), Jerry Lewis said, “Before you answer me, count to three.” Editing THE KING OF COMEDY is a fond memory for Schoonmaker. “I just laughed so hard when I was making it,” she recalled. <br />
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“Marty taught me everything I know about editing,” Schoonmaker concluded. “Because he trained me, my tastes are his tastes. It’s very fascinating, very stimulating being in the room with him. We talk about religion, art and music while we’re editing. He was the best film course in the world. I’m very lucky.” American Cinemathequehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15291044638493392837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762846565812984815.post-34441512033111808702020-01-23T16:10:00.002-08:002020-01-23T16:10:39.132-08:00Exciting Awards Season Events Added! <div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; line-height: 11.75pt; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
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Like the rest of Los Angeles, we at the Cinematheque are fully immersed in awards season. In addition to our usual repertory screenings, we've added a slew of events that feature films nominated for the 2020 Academy Awards, many of which include Q&As with filmmakers. You won't want to miss these.<br />
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For a full list of these just-added screenings, along with the full calendars for January and February and beyond at the Aero and Egyptian Theatres, see our website. We hope you'll join us for these spectacular films on the big screen, as they were meant to be seen.<br />
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<b><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">At the Aero:</span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="color: black;">Saturday, January 25, 2:30pm TOY STORY 4 </span></b><span style="color: black;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0in;">Matinee Screening! In the new </span><b><span style="color: black;">TOY STORY 4</span></b><span style="color: black;">, new member of the toy collection Forky (Tony Hale) declares himself as “trash” and not a toy, and Woody (Tom Hanks) takes it upon himself to show Forky why he should embrace being a toy. <b>Discussion following TOY STORY 4 with director Josh Cooley, screenwriter Stephany Folsom, and producers Jonas Rivera and Mark Nielsen.</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://americancinemathequecalendar.com/content/toy-story-4-0&source=gmail&ust=1579908697039000&usg=AFQjCNEk9MUnH_Z6HnReZuavPTHUnm5SXQ" href="http://americancinemathequecalendar.com/content/toy-story-4-0" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://<wbr></wbr>americancinemathequecalendar.<wbr></wbr>com/content/toy-story-4-0</a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0in;">Sunday, January 26, 1:00pm LITTLE WOMEN</span></b><span style="color: black;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0in;">On 35mm! The new </span><b><span style="color: black;">LITTLE WOMEN</span></b><span style="color: black;"> draws on both the classic novel and the writings of Louisa May Alcott to tell the story of the four March sisters in the wake of the Civil War. <b>Discussion following with director Greta Gerwig and producer Amy Pascal!</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0in;">Monday, January 27, 6:30pm HARRIET </span></b><span style="color: black;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0in;">Based on the thrilling and inspirational life of an iconic American freedom fighter, </span><b><span style="color: black;">HARRIET</span></b><span style="color: black;"> tells the extraordinary tale of Harriet Tubman's (Cynthia Erivo) escape from slavery and transformation into one of America’s greatest heroes. <b>Discussion following with actress Cynthia Erivo. This program is free with RSVP.</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0in;">Tuesday, January 28, 7:30pm AMERICAN FACTORY </span></b><span style="color: black;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0in;">In Oscar-nominated documentary </span><b><span style="color: black;">AMERICAN FACTORY</span></b><span style="color: black;">, hopes soar when a Chinese company reopens a shuttered factory in Ohio. But a culture clash threatens to shatter an American dream. <b>Discussion following with co-director Julia Reichert. This program is free with RSVP.</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0in;">Wednesday, January 29, 7:30pm I LOST MY BODY </span></b><span style="color: black;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; padding: 0in;">Romance, mystery and adventure intertwine as a young man falls in love and a severed hand scours Paris for its owner in mesmerizing animated feature </span><b><span style="color: black;">I LOST MY BODY. Discussion following with director Jérémy Clapin. This program is free with RSVP.</span></b><span style="color: black;"></span></span></div>
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<b>At the Egyptian:<br /><br />Monday, January 27, 7:30pm ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD<br />ONCE UPON A TIME … IN HOLLYWOOD </b>visits 1969 Los Angeles, where everything is changing, as TV star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his longtime stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) make their way around an industry they hardly recognize anymore. <b>A conversation with director Quentin Tarantino precedes the film.</b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Note: </b><span style="background-color: white;">We are sold out online for the conversation with Quentin Tarantino with ONCE UPON A TIME... IN HOLLYWOOD. We did reserve some for tickets for American Cinematheque upper level members. If you are interested in getting one of these tickets, and are a Friend level ($175) or above member, please contact andrew@americancinematheque.com You can still join (online via our website) and gain access to this limited number of tickets. There will also be a standby line on the day of the show, when box office opens.</span></span></div>
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<a href="http://americancinemathequecalendar.com/content/once-upon-a-time-%E2%80%A6-in-hollywood-0">http://americancinemathequecalendar.com/content/once-upon-a-time-%E2%80%A6-in-hollywood-0</a></div>
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<b>Tuesday, January 28, 7:30pm THE IRISHMAN</b></div>
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During her 50-plus-year career, editor Thelma Schoonmaker has crafted some of the greatest scenes and sequences in the cinema, celebrated for her work on nearly all of Martin Scorsese’s filmography. This conversation with the Oscar winner about her work will be followed by a screening of the new <b>THE IRISHMAN</b>, an epic saga of organized crime in post-war America.</div>
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<a href="http://americancinemathequecalendar.com/content/a-conversation-with-thelma-schoonmaker">http://americancinemathequecalendar.com/content/a-conversation-with-thelma-schoonmaker</a></div>
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<b>Friday, January 31, 7:00pm PARASITE</b></div>
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L.A. Premiere of Black & White Version! In the Oscar-nominated <b>PARASITE</b>, Kim Ki-woo (Woo-sik Choi) agrees to take over from his friend as English tutor for the daughter of a wealthy family, setting the stage for an epic showdown as class warfare meets black comedy, with the stakes deadlier than you could ever imagine.</div>
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<a href="http://americancinemathequecalendar.com/content/parasite-bw-version">http://americancinemathequecalendar.com/content/parasite-bw-version</a></div>
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American Cinemathequehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15291044638493392837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762846565812984815.post-51468874739776473562020-01-23T14:39:00.000-08:002020-01-23T14:39:15.432-08:00NOAH BAUMBACH AT THE AERO, by Judith Resell<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“I always thought of it as a love story,” writer-director Noah Baumbach said of his Oscar-nominated film <i>Marriage Story </i>(2019). Baumbach talked to lawyers, judges, and couples - both longtime, happy couples and divorced ones - in researching the project. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Marriage Story</i> opened a five-film retrospective of Baumbach’s work at the Aero Theatre on January 18 and 19, 2020. Baumbach appeared in person both days for Q&As.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">When he first began discussing the project with actor Adam Driver, Baumbach described it as “a love story, maybe a divorce.” Later, when Baumbach got to the point where “this is what I am writing now” with <i>Marriage Story</i>, he started asking questions like “what would be a good occupation?” The choice of theater director was perfect for Driver’s lead character because “everything becomes a performance” as the story develops. The lawyers are performers and the couples take on relationship personas as they communicate more and more through the legal system. Driver’s character finds himself in the end through performance - singing Sondheim’s “Being Alive.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Scarlett Johansson told Baumbach she was currently going through a divorce before she knew what <i>Marriage Story</i> was about. “She was immediately engaged with the character and story,” Baumbach recalled of their lunch meeting. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Baumbach was friends with Laura Dern, whose portrayal of a divorce lawyer earned multiple awards, before <i>Marriage Story</i>. “She’s just such a great collaborator,” Baumbach said of Dern. “She had so many ideas about her character.” Both Laura and her parents went through divorces, so it was as personal for her as for Johansson and Baumbach. <i>Marriage Story</i> is informed by how people experience divorce, because “it’s something that happens to so many families,” Baumbach concluded.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“When I felt I could write the movie, I thought it should be a two-hander so we get to know who both of the people are,” Baumbach recalled. He opened the movie with two monologues to show the love the main characters had for each other. Both characters are in each other’s monologue - one as subject and the other as voice-over narrator. This “prologue of sorts,” Baumbach feels, reveals a marriage where there is so much unsaid. The relationship is so intimate, yet there is a lot each doesn’t know about the other. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Dern’s character also has a monologue. Baumbach explained that this lawyer entered her profession for all the right reasons, but the system changed her. That’s what the monologue reveals.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Including a young child in the story makes it a triangle. For the adults, there is a struggle for individuation within the marriage, but with their son, they are both driven to protect him and spend time with him. “They love their child more than anything, but the process makes even simple things so hard,” Baumbach explained. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“It’s about communication—the couple, the lawyers, the child,” Baumbach said regarding themes in the movie. <i>Marriage Story</i> also explores the notion of home, which the characters are transforming all of the time. Baumbach sees relevance to our contemporary political culture as well. “People with totally opposing opinions need to find compromise.” With <i>Marriage Story</i>, Baumbach raises the question “How do people find compromise, bridge an unbridgeable gap?”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Marriage Story</i> is Baumbach’s second collaboration with cinematographer Robbie Ryan. He and Ryan visited all of the locations in both New York and Los Angeles. “I felt he saw it,” Baumbach concluded about Ryan’s work on the film.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Baumbach wanted his cast to know all of their lines before coming on the set for <i>Marriage Story</i>. He rehearsed a lot and wanted them to be able to concentrate on learning blocking and then, when the camera rolls, to just rely on “muscle memory.” He didn’t want them thinking about “what’s my character’s motivation?” or working on lines. He was looking for a cast who was “just excited and eager to say it.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Asked what movies influenced <i>Marriage Story</i>, Baumbach thought about how to shoot couples in conversation. He mentioned <i>Dr. Strangelove </i>(1964), which had an absurdist tone that influenced Baumbach’s portrayal of the absurdities in the divorce process, especially the set design of the lawyer’s offices and their dialogue. Baumbach’s favorite gangster films reminded him that he wanted the audience to be engaged with the characters and not judge them or their actions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Other screenings in the retrospective included Baumbach’s first film <i>Kicking and Screaming </i>(1995) and <i>The Squid and the Whale </i>(2005), for which he received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Two films he made with current partner Greta Gerwig as star and co-writer, <i>Frances Ha </i>(2012) and <i>Mistress America </i>(2015), screened together.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Baumbach was just 24 when he made <i>Kicking and Screaming</i>. “I would do something totally different now,” he commented. He observed that there are “also some things that only the me I was at that time could do. There are some things you know when you’re young that you don’t when you’re older.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">After <i>Kicking and Screaming</i> and his second film <i>Mr. Jealousy</i> (1997), Baumbach went into a seven-year period he described as like <i>Frances Ha</i>. He made no films, but really focused on himself. “During that period, I grew up a lot,” he explained. When he started writing <i>The Squid and the Whale </i>(2005), he wrote in a way he hadn’t before. “I discovered the filmmaker I was.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“There’s a kind of honesty in this writing that I hadn’t been able to achieve before,” Baumbach said of <i>The Squid and the Whale</i>. He also described a sense of urgency, of all-or-nothing. He had only twenty-three days to shoot the film and he was turned down by many actors for the male lead role. He had always loved Jeff Daniels’ acting and was happy when he accepted the role. But the first rehearsal didn’t seem like a total fit. Jeff was all he had, so Baumbach was worried. Daniels came back to the set on Monday and told Baumbach he had been thinking about his part a lot. Jeff said he had to be more honest about the way he played his character “and that turned it around,” concluded Baumbach.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Baumbach received the best advice he’s ever gotten while working on <i>The Squid and the Whale</i>. It came from Ethan Coen. Baumbach told Coen about the movie he was making and mentioned using a friend’s cat. “Hire a professional cat,” urged Coen. So he did. There’s a scene where the cat must run down a flight of stairs and under a car. The first professional cat just sat there. “You need the other cat, the running cat,” the cat wrangler told him. The “running cat” did the scene just fine and it is pivotal to the story. </span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Judith Resell is a volunteer with the American Cinematheque.</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Photos by Silvia Schablows</i></span>American Cinemathequehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15291044638493392837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762846565812984815.post-80355516587261133262020-01-08T19:21:00.000-08:002020-01-08T19:21:30.962-08:00ED NORTON AND HAWK KOCH AT THE AERO, by Judith Resell<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“Noir reminds us that behind the American narrative we trust in, there is a shadow side of power machinations,” explained Ed Norton of his choice to make <i>Motherless Brooklyn </i>(2019) full-on film noir. “Noir is a tradition in American cinema. There’s a kitsch version, but the best of it - films like <i>Reds </i>(1981) or <i>Unforgiven </i>(1992) - look at the shadow side of life.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In <i>Motherless Brooklyn,</i> Norton adapts a Jonathan Lethem novel about an orphan with Tourette’s syndrome who has matured into a hard-nosed detective. His pursuit of the murderer of his mentor leads to an unscrupulous New York developer who is covertly destroying the city. The developer’s huge projects make money at the expense of working class people, many of them people of color, and line the pockets of a tiny minority of very rich individuals. While the theme has contemporary relevance, Norton reminded the audience that he began the project in 2012 and his “inspiration goes much deeper than current affairs.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“It’s wonderful that Edward got this film made,” producer Hawk Koch interjected. Koch and Norton appeared in person for a Q&A between screenings of <i>Motherless Brooklyn</i> and <i>Primal Fear </i>(1996) at the Aero Theatre on December 15, 2019.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Koch, who produced Norton's debut film <i>Primal Fear</i>, had a surprise for Norton and for the audience at the Egyptian - a three-minute tape of Norton’s audition for <i>Primal Fear</i>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“We were looking for someone to play opposite Richard Gere,” Koch recalled. There were open auditions and Norton was chosen from 2,400 young men seeking the part. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Koch brought Deborah Aquila and Trish Wood onto the stage to share their memories of being the casting team that discovered Norton. Wood recalled that she started early in the morning and had sixty audition tapes to view that day. She was struck by Norton’s transformation from a vulnerable, stuttering boy to an ice-cold killer, his split personality. By nine that morning, Norton was chosen. Norton recalled that he knew, in order to get to Gere’s slick lawyer character, he had to “grab him by the balls,” so that’s what he put into the audition tape. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Some people can act, some can write screenplays, some can direct, some can produce, Koch continued, “but only a few at the top—Barbra Streisand, Warren Beatty—can do all of these.” With <i>Motherless Brooklyn,</i> Norton became one of this group at the top.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“I don’t mean to be facetious, but it’s been done,” Norton said. He pointed out that Orson Welles made <i>Citizen Kane </i>(1941) at age 25 and Spike Lee made <i>Do The Right Thing</i> (1989), which set the aspirational bar for directors at that time, at 27. Norton is 50 and has made forty films. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“If you’ve done it a few times, you know what the dynamics are,” Norton continued. “There are people who you know will do what you need. There are people you trust.” Cinematographer Dick Pope, who worked on <i>The Illusionist </i>(2006) with Norton, was expert at making a quality period film on a small budget. Music director Daniel Pemberton explored the relationship between jazz and what goes on in the lead character’s head. “If you make a film set in the 50s, jazz is a beautiful landscape for it,” Norton concluded.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Norton hired actors experienced in the New York stage. “This was a tight budget. There was no time for notes. No time for pre-rehearsal. This was like a method acting ban,” Norton explained. The actors had to know what to do and "just come in and do their job. A film is a layer cake of talent. If it works, everyone is reinforcing each other, is on the same frequency.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Asked if the character of the developer, played by Alec Baldwin, was based on a particular individual, Norton replied that, like Charles Foster Kane in <i>Citizen Kane</i>, it’s not important that he be based on one, two or three real people, but just that he be a manifestation of power.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The character Norton plays, the detective with Tourette’s syndrome, appealed to Norton when he read Lethem’s book. “From page one, you care about him, feel empathy with him. So people will go a long way with him.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Norton concluded with a compliment to Koch. Norton listed three Hollywood biographical books he thinks everyone should read: <i>The Kid Stays in the Picture </i>by Robert Evans; <i>How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime </i>by Roger Corman; and Koch's new book <i>Magic Time: My Life in Hollywood</i> (Post Hill Press, 2019). He said he would recommend the book for many reasons, but especially because of how it humanizes the great legendary filmmakers. He makes you realize that the greatest films you admire are all “half-baked, chaotic, full of mistakes. It makes us realize these legends were just guys like us swinging hard at what they wanted. It illuminates the activity of how those movies got done and makes it seem doable for us.”</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Judith Resell, Ph.D. is a volunteer for the American Cinematheque.</span></i>American Cinemathequehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15291044638493392837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762846565812984815.post-9804856079610296492020-01-03T15:50:00.001-08:002020-01-03T15:50:22.145-08:00ADAM DRIVER AT THE EGYPTIAN, by Judith Resell<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“The thing I don’t understand is making a living as an actor,” Adam Driver commented. “Just thinking about it is an embarrassment of riches. I’ve been incredibly lucky - just that I get to do it.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Driver spoke following a screening of <i>Marriage Story </i>(2019) at the Egyptian Theatre on December 15, 2019. Driver received a Screen Actors Guild award nomination a few days before and already has a Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of Charlie Barber in the film.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“Charlie the theater director is so used to having control,” Driver said of his character. “Now everything in his life has been upended. He can’t find his new self except through performance.” The process of going through a divorce with his actress wife, played by Scarlett Johansson, and a custody battle over their son, changes Charlie’s perspective - on people he knows, on things he took for granted, on what he wanted his whole life, on what he could have done, on what he lost. He begins to mourn near the end of the film, when he sings Steven Sondheim’s “Being Alive” at a bar for his friends. By the end of the song, Driver feels, Charlie has transformed into someone different.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“He is an excellent communicator, not just with actors, but with everyone on the set,” Driver recalled of working with director Noah Baumbach. “He has such specificity in what he’s after.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Driver and Baumbach talked socially about the story and characters for many months before the filming. Driver also talked with lawyers, friends, and others who experienced the divorce process. These conversations went into the writing of what Driver described as “tight, lean, high-stakes” dialogue - to make it exciting and interesting to watch.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“The script is so sure, you just have to say it and mean it,” Driver continued. “The people are not somewhere else - they’re right in front of you. The blocking is very choreographed and thought-through. You have to know your lines so well you forget them and are available for relationships.” Then that “conscious and unconscious” part happens, which Driver described as “why I love acting.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“With good writing, it opens up - the layers,” said Driver. In addition to strong writing, <i>Marriage Story</i> had sets that were so detailed and specific, that Driver didn’t have to go inside for ideas and actions. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“I like lots of rehearsal,” Driver asserted. “It’s like theater. At the end of a play you want to do it again because you finally have a good idea of how to do it.” With lots of takes, you do it many times. “There is no right way to do a scene. No correct version,” he concluded.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">He also liked the stress of the long takes Baumbach used in the film, although “sometimes it doesn’t help.” The camera followed the actors to an unusual degree in <i>Marriage Story</i>. Driver recalled only two times that the camera moved independently of the actors.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In reading a script, actors often identify a scene that they see will be particularly challenging to perform. In <i>Marriage Story</i>, Driver felt all of the scenes were like that. “All the scenes were so lean and so raw, they all seemed too early to shoot,” he said. “The fight scene was longer, but all the scenes were that challenging.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Driver developed the stamina for such an emotionally-demanding film in his unique training which combined Juilliard and the Marines. At Juilliard, he worked from seven in the morning until midnight for four years.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">An audience member asked Driver what his favorite part of filming was. “When it’s over,” he replied. “Whenever a job is over, I always want to move on, be over it, because it affects your life in ways you haven’t anticipated,” Driver explained. “It starts taking over everything.” When the movie is done, Driver described an effort to “just try to flush it out of you and go back to real life.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“We left our families to work with people we are forced to be intimate with for four months—what are we doing?” Driver joked. “We hope to make it interesting and if it’s not, we’ve failed. What a great opportunity to f*ck up!” </span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Judith Resell, Ph.D. is a volunteer for the American Cinematheque.</span></i><br />
<br />American Cinemathequehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15291044638493392837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762846565812984815.post-50841048773345928022019-11-20T13:01:00.001-08:002019-11-20T13:01:46.511-08:00Cinematheque Members Give THE IRISHMAN a Warm Welcome by Judith Resell<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Martin Scorsese “wanted the technology to be invisible,” said cinematographer Rodirigo Prieto of THE IRISHMAN(2019). “Every camera angle has three cameras, not one, so that Scorsese could direct how he wanted, the actors could act as they wanted and I could light it any way I wanted.” <br />
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Prieto and IRISHMAN producer Emma Tillinger Koskoff appeared for a Q and A following a screening of the film at the AERO theatre on October 23, 2019, the night before its LA premiere. <br />
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“It was a blessing in disguise,” Tillinger Koskoff said of the difficult twelve years it took to get the film made. “The new technology made the time right.” When Netflix agreed to finance the project, motion capture technology was highly-developed and the remarkable cast headed by Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci signed on. <br />
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“It was so amazing,” continued Prieto, “when you watch the performances, you totally forget they’re de-aged.” <br />
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“O my God, I can act for thirty more years!” Tillinger Koskoff laughed as she recalled the actors’ response to de-aging. <br />
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Because the story spans a long period of history, Scorsese wanted the feel of an old movie. A color scientist went to Kodak to get the color process right for different eras, Prieto recalled. Kodacolor for the fifties, Ectochrome for the sixties and the process of color in 2000. <br />
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Another important visual choice was when to move the main characters from CGI to just regular make-up. Prieto and Scorsese wondered “when do we do the transition?” They decided on sometime in the sixities and used make-up and prosthetics for the characters who survive to old age, including DeNiro and Pesci. <br />
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The car sequences, a significant part of the film, were shot in the studio. Prieto explained that allowed him to shoot through the windows and to use billboards they “drove” past as lighting. Neither could happen on location. <br />
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“He’s not a typical director,” Prieto said of Scorsese. He made comments like “I’d like it to be more extreme,” leaving the specifics of how to do that up to Prieto rather than telling Prieto what lenses and camera angles to shoot. “Now I know what he likes and doesn’t like,” Prieto explained. <br />
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“The relationship between the cinematographer and director is huge,” Prieto continued. “Every single shot is the two working together.” <br />
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Prieto mused that, in a sense, everthing the actors do and everthing the audience sees has to go through a lens. So it’s crucial that the cinematographer knows what the director wants. You have to “really listen, really carefully, to the director, try to understand it, why he wants it. I’m the one who has to be flexible,” Prieto concluded. <br />
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As an example, he gave the type of shooting required to communicate the DeNiro character’s clockwork methodology. A Mafia hitman, he has to time it perfectly and make sure all the pieces are in place in the right sequence for a successful kill. He visually notes that everything and everyone is where they should be when they should be so he can complete the hit. <br />
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“It plays,” Tillinger Skoskol said when asked about the over three-hour length of the film. She added that an intermission was never contemplated and that “we got absolutely no negative feedback from Netflix” about it. <br />
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Prieto commented that there was no conscious effort to look like GOODFELLAS(1990) or any of Scorsese’s other movies. “But every filmmaker has his style. I have things I like and he has things he likes. It’s definitely there—his signature.” For example, graphic direct shots. <br />
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Asked if she believes that Frank Sheeran murdered Jimmy Hoffa as the book on which THE IRISHMAN is based contends, Tillinger Skoskol replied with a smile “I don’t know.” <br />
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“It doesn’t really matter,” interjected Prieto, whether the story is factually true or false. “Since we are telling it the way Frank sees what happened and it is told from his point-of-view.” <br />
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American Cinemathequehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15291044638493392837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762846565812984815.post-77168672352500298262019-09-18T10:37:00.002-07:002019-09-18T10:37:26.919-07:00ELI ROTH, SCOTT BECK, AND BRYAN WOODS 'HAUNT' THE EGYPTIAN WITH NEW HORROR FILM, by Judith Resell<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“It’s more about the silence than the in-your-face effects,” commented Bryan Woods about writing and directing horror films. No one can say that with more authority than Woods and his long-time writing partner Scott Beck - they wrote the script for <i>A Quiet Place</i> (2018). “Sound design is as important as anything,” Woods concluded.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Woods and Beck appeared in-person for a Q&A following an advance screening of <i>Haunt</i> (2019) on September 7, 2019 at the Egyptian Theatre. Woods and Beck teamed as directors as well as screenwriters on <i>Haunt</i>. Eli Roth, one of the film’s producers, moderated the discussion. A screening of <i>A Quiet Place</i> capped the evening. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Woods and Beck have known each other for 20 years. They’re in-sync. They grew up in the same small Iowa town, seeing the same movies. “We thought we should see <i>Dead Poets Society</i> (1989), but <i>Friday the 13th Part VIII</i> sounded so much cooler,” laughed Beck. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Regarding their creative process, they shared that they tend to start with concept, then transition to theme. For <i>Haunt</i>, a producer requested a film about a Halloween haunted house. "We asked ourselves, 'What is Halloween about?' It’s about wearing a mask and pretending to be someone you’re not." This train of thought resulted in Harper, the main character in <i>Haunt</i>. Harper is introduced at a mirror putting on makeup to disguise the black eye her abusive boyfriend gave her so that no one would know about it. The theme of putting on a mask, a false face, to meet the world is established from the start.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>A Quiet Place</i>, similarly, began with the concept of, “you make a sound, you die,” and went on to explore silences and unspoken tensions in families. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Woods and Beck remembered the haunted houses that sprang up in their Iowa hometown every Halloween. Abandoned warehouses were transformed into scary labyrinths and local actors played Halloween characters: assorted ghosts, monsters, vampires, zombies, murderers and witches. These shared memories became the basis of <i>Haunt</i>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“I was blown away by your camera work, by your use of negative space,” Roth told the directors. “The camera work and directing is so important.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Woods turned the compliment around, looking at Roth and saying, “<i>Haunt</i> is very much an Eli Roth production. First and foremost, Eli, everything we directed was from watching your work.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">All three men readily agreed that it is a tough task for a director to make a film on a small budget that looks good. Beck and Woods were quick to acknowledge the key role of art director Austin Gorg. Gorg is known for such films as <i>La La Land</i> (2016), <i>The Neon Demon</i> (2016) <i>Midnight Special </i>(2016), and <i>Her</i> (2013), as well as top television work. Beck emphasized how thrilled they were to get him for the movie. They talked with him about Mario Bava. They told him what they wanted for <i>Haunt</i> was that gorgeous, Italian giallo horror look—the evocative colors, the operatic sensibility. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What Woods and Beck wanted in terms of casting and characterization was the Richard Linklater ensemble style, as in his <i>Dazed and Confused</i> (1993). They discussed this with their casting director, Nancy Nayor. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“Acting - this is what it takes to make a movie,” Beck continued. He said the cast for <i>Haunt</i> had “such a spirit.” When one actor was on-camera, the off-camera actor would do the full performance of their character for the benefit and support of the on-camera actor, even though that off-camera performance obviously would never be seen. “You gave us characters we care about,” concluded Roth. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">One of the unique aspects of casting <i>Haunt</i> was the use of local actors for the monsters that populate the haunted house. “That’s creepy!” exclaimed Roth with a chuckle. “The actual manager of the Waffle House is a serial killer!” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Casting the lead monster, Clown, was challenging. Justin Marxen was someone Woods and Beck had known for a long time. Marxen really wanted the part and auditioned four times. Woods and Beck said they just couldn’t get past the Justin they knew. They called in someone who didn’t know Marxen to watch him audition, and that person hired him on the spot. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Beck and Woods don’t have a lot of conflicts over the 21-day shoot; they commit to resolving disagreements among themselves before they present anything to a third party. They wrote the scripts for <i>Haunt</i> and <i>A Quiet Place</i> at the same time and didn’t expect either one to get made. “No one was asking for a quiet movie,” Beck recalled. They decided a long time ago (they have written about thirty scripts) to write what they feel passionate about rather than to cater to the market. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">After the stunning success of <i>A Quiet Place</i>, producers offered to buy their next script off just a logline. “We said no,” Woods reported, although he worried that they might regret that. They decided to write the script they wanted to write and then show it to the producer, instead.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Roth closed the discussion of <i>Haunt</i> with a producer’s accolade: “All the money is on the screen.”</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Photos by Mario Jennings</span></i><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Judith Resell is a volunteer for the American Cinematheque.</span></i></div>
American Cinemathequehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15291044638493392837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762846565812984815.post-85392058665274462792019-08-27T17:33:00.000-07:002019-08-27T17:33:07.604-07:00'SATANIC PANIC' ROCKS THE EGYPTIAN THEATRE IN L.A. PREMIERE, by Brian Carmody<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The stage was set for the Los Angeles premiere of Chelsea Stardust's <i>Satanic Panic</i>, presented by BeyondFest and Fangoria, and red was the theme. Not simply of the carpet, though the parade of guests certainly did get some attention there. The whole theater was set, with an eager audience and a special Satanic photobooth courtesy of Flipbook Frenzy, complete with costumes and props for the audience to imitate dark ceremonies of their own. Temporary tattoos with the film's title and logo were distributed and subsequently displayed on fresh flesh. Cinematic Void was present with an ample selection of horror films on sale. A ritual night all around.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">That audience certainly appreciated the film, responding to its unique tone and splatstick with glee. Stardust appeared pleased, as did the cast and crew who joined her on stage, including actors Rebecca Romijn, Jerry O'Connell, Hayley Griffin, Ruby Modine, Arden Myrin, Hannah Stocking, AJ Bowen, Clarke Wolfe, and Jeff Daniel Phillips, as well as producers Amanda Presmyk and Adam Goldworm. Chelsea took us into what her process was before, during, and after making this film. She cited such influences as <i>Jennifer's Body</i>, <i>Evil Dead</i>, <i>Drag Me to Hell</i>, <i>Deathgasm</i>, and, of course, "motherf---ing SOCIETY."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Chelsea was first slipped the script in 2017. She was already a fan of writer Grady Hendrix's books, and when she read the screenplay, she knew she wanted to direct it, struck by how it was run by bad-ass women while making a comment about classism. She worked closely with Griffin and Modine, appreciating the female dynamic that makes the movie work, recommending <i>Rosemary's Baby</i>, <i>My Best Friend's Exorcism</i>, and other influences for them to watch. Goldworm knew that Stardust would be the one to make this story sing. Presmyk, who found the script to be a real page-turner, agreed, and the rest is history. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Romijn, the archvillain of the evening, admitted how fun it was to play someone "relentlessly evil." Though she has been a lifelong fan of horror films, this was her first experience starring in one, and she relished the experience. She also found the difference between practical and digital effects interesting, sharing that she had a lot of fun with <i>Satanic Panic's</i> reliance on practical effects.The actress' horror exposure will continue, as she is soon to be featured on the cover of <i>Fangoria</i>. Her co-star/husband O'Connell said he enjoyed his role. He joked that even though they've been married for years, "I ask her all the time to throat-fist me!" -- a request never granted until this film.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Everyone acknowledged that Griffin held the film together. This was her first feature film. She admitted it was "stressful as hell" at first, and even had a panic attack before filming, but the set was such a calming and welcome atmosphere that she thrived, she said.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Asked about working in "splatterstick," Bowen said it was "just another day at the office." He was already a big fan of Romjin, and their unique interaction here was an interesting way to meet her. His scenes kept him on the floor, where he was exposed to O'Connell's bare midriff. Arden Myrin informed the audience that O'Connell had the habit of hanging around set, even when he wasn't being filmed, wearing a crop-top. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Filming in Dallas, where the locals were eager and welcoming, was quite different than shooting in Los Angeles, where money is always such a factor, the crew said. They felt that everyone in Dallas was excited to be part of the process. On such a low budget, that was welcome. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Stardust talked about the post-production process, as well. She wanted the opening animation to evoke styles similar to those used for <i>Creepshow</i> and <i>The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys</i>. For the John Carpenter-esque synth score, she reached out to Wolfmen of Mars on Instagram, and it paid off. She even hinted at the possibility of a vinyl release. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Satanic Panic</i> hits theaters on September 6, the same day as <i>It: Chapter 2</i>. Chelsea, a big fan of the <i>It</i> films, still hopes that fans will continue to support indie films. Ideally, the audience would have horror on the brain that weekend, and treat themselves to a double feature.</span></div>
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American Cinemathequehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15291044638493392837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762846565812984815.post-1596164305711705482019-07-31T18:31:00.000-07:002019-07-31T18:31:10.585-07:00ROSANNA ARQUETTE AND JULIE CARMEN CELEBRATE SCORSESE AND CASSAVETES AT THE EGYPTIAN, by Judith Resell<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">On May 23, 2019, Rosanna Arquette appeared at the Egyptian Theatre to talk about her role in Martin Scorsese’s <i>After Hours </i>(1985) along with Julie Carmen, who discussed her role in John Cassavetes’ <i>Gloria</i> (1980), as part of the "Scorsese/Cassavetes" series. Both actresses noted that their daughters were in the audience to enjoy the screenings of their mothers’ performances.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Arquette kicked things off with her memories of shooting with Scorsese. “It’s fun. I like the film. We shot it entirely at night. When you shoot at night, there’s a kind of energy—you’re kind of exhausted and it adds to it,” Arquette said. “He is such an incredible cinematographer and has such an incredible energy on the set,” Arquette said of Scorsese.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Similarly, Carmen spoke highly of her time working with Cassavetes. “He said ‘jump and I’ll be there,’” she said of the director. “I saw the way John worked with Gena and he had so much love for her,” Carmen recalled of Cassavetes and his star and wife Gena Rowlands. Seeing their relationship on the set helped Carmen to trust Cassavetes, she said.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“Sometimes things just drop out of the sky. I didn’t really do anything to get it,” Carmen said of being cast by Cassavetes. A friend set up a cold read and Cassavetes said, “It’s yours.” Carmen was incredulous. “I just did a McDonalds’ commercial and he offered me <i>Gloria</i>! I think he just liked my type.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“He’s the most caring director I ever worked with,” Carmen continued. “I felt very safe with him. He wanted the audience to be in Gena’s dilemma, not just watching it. I think that was the turning point. It became a landmark film.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“John gets the results. When he was working with the little boy, he would manipulate him in a compassionate way to get the performance he wanted. There’s a little leprechaun in him. Sometimes he would do things. We didn’t know what would happen or why. He had a clear idea of what he wanted. It grew and evolved in layers,” Carmen explained. “I got the impression it didn’t go through his brain. It went from his gut to his heart to you.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“Scorsese and John Sayles were both inspired by Cassavetes. He made everything very real,” added Arquette. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“Cassavetes cast real gangsters!” interjected Carmen. Then, on a more serious note, Carmen said, “He just came from a place of love and we got that and it made me want to work triple hard to get close to my subconscious. It’s never been as great, as good a time. The entire experience—I’ve never been able to top that.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Arquette echoed that sentiment. “For me, it was the best experience I had, working with Scorsese. Marty likes to do a lot of takes. He continues until he gets exactly what he wants. I grew up around theatre. My whole family comes from that.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“I could see the black humor in it,” Arquette said of <i>After Hours</i>. And Griffin Dunne “has such a great sense of humor. He tells the best stories. He makes me laugh.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Asked how filmmaking in the 1980s differed from today, Arquette commented that “the '80s were different because there were a lot more filmmakers who really loved the art. Less greed and more love for cinema.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Carmen said that now in the film industry, as opposed to in the '80s, “things are a committee decision. You have to audition for everything. In your own room. In front of a camera and it’s a committee decision. An algorithm on a machine shows where the heat is—which performance has the most followers and cast them.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Judith Resell is a volunteer for the American Cinematheque.</i></span>American Cinemathequehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15291044638493392837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762846565812984815.post-46101911302809273072019-06-27T20:36:00.000-07:002019-06-27T20:36:14.334-07:00ART DIRECTORS GUILD BRINGS JOE ALVES AND CLOSE ENCOUNTERS TO THE EGYPTIAN, by Judith Resell<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“I sort of lucked out. The little shark movie became a bit hit,” said legendary production designer Joe Alves, the man who made the shark for <i>Jaws</i> (1975). Alves appeared for a Q&A hosted by the Art Directors Guild after a screening of <i>Close Encounters of the Third Kind</i> (1977), the second film he worked on with Steven Spielberg, at the Egyptian Theatre on June 23, 2019. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Alves is the recipient of the 2020 Art Directors’ Guild Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition to screening Alves’ BAFTA-award-winning work in <i>Close Encounters</i>, the Egyptian showed a short film about his career in production design. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The original script for <i>Close Encounters</i> did not include Devil’s Tower as the key image like the final film does. Alves personally visited potential sites: Mt. Rushmore, Shiprock, Chimney Rock, and finally, Devil’s Tower. He recalls how he endangered himself for the sake of the movie with the producers at Columbia. They looked at his model for the production design and asked him what he thought. Alves bravely said, “It should be bigger.” The execs asked how much bigger, and Alves said, “four times bigger.” The budget went from $3 million to more than $20 million, a big budget at that time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Alves shared that he grew up in Hayward, Calif., and decided to move to Hollywood after he saw the movie <i>An American in Paris</i> (1951) and was informed that it was not filmed in Paris. Paris was created in Hollywood. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">At one point early in his career, he said, Alves was asked if he was an illustrator or a production designer. He said he didn’t know. A studio executive showed him the truly brilliant illustrations for <i>Cleopatra</i> (1963) by Emil Kosa Jr. Alves took one look at the great art and decided he was no illustrator. He told the exec he was a designer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">His early career highlights began by working on the monster in <i>Forbidden Planet</i> (1953). He later worked with Alfred Hitchcock on <i>Torn Curtain</i> (1966). “Hitch knew exactly what he wanted,” recalled Alves. “He was a pleasure to work for.” Alves finds it frustrating to work with directors who don’t know what they want. He has worked with directors who had him build beautiful sets and then changed their minds so that the sets he worked so hard on were never seen. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Alves said his best experience on a film was Spielberg’s <i>Sugarland Express</i> (1974). “It was pure fun,” he explained. “The others were all mixed.” Alves’ frustration with <i>Jaws</i> had to do with its production schedule. He was hired for the movie before Spielberg was. He made 30 shark drawings and presented them to the studio. They asked him if he could build a shark and he told them it would take two and a half years. That was November of 1973. The book came out in February of 1974 and the studio decided they needed to start shooting in three months. I told Steven, “give me a year and it would have worked perfectly!” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Asked what his best trait as a production designer is, Alves replied: “persistence.” He never gives up. He never says it can’t be done. He’s always confident he can find a way to get the job accomplished. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Alves has written two books on production design. An update on his well-known <i>Designing Jaws</i>, including more pictures and storyboards, is due out in November. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The American Cinematheque will be screening <i>Jaws</i> as well as and <i>Jaws 3-D</i> (1983), which he directed, in July! See the full July schedule <a href="http://americancinemathequecalendar.com/calendar/2019-07" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />Judith Resell is a volunteer at the American Cinematheque.. </span></i></div>
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American Cinemathequehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15291044638493392837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762846565812984815.post-30075383179798024512019-06-14T21:01:00.003-07:002019-06-14T21:01:54.968-07:00THE AMERICAN CINEMATHEQUE HONORS AMC THEATRES CHIEF EXECUTIVE ADAM ARON WITH THE 2019 SID GRAUMAN AWARD PRESENTED BY HILL VALLEY<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Photo by frankieleon</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The American Cinematheque announced today that AMC Chief Executive Officer and President Adam Aron will receive the 2019 Sid Grauman Award on behalf of AMC Theatres. The American Cinematheque Sid Grauman Award is Presented by Hill Valley. AMC Theatres will be honored for its achievements in the motion picture industry at the top of the American Cinematheque’s annual benefit award show where, this year, the non-profit organization will present its 33rd annual career achievement award, known as the American Cinematheque Award. The 2019 American Cinematheque Award recipient is Academy Award-winner Charlize Theron. The presentation of both the Sid Grauman and American Cinematheque awards will take place Friday, November 8, 2019 at The Beverly Hilton (9876 Wilshire Blvd.).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">American Cinematheque Chairman Rick Nicita said, “The American Cinematheque is pleased to present this year’s annual Sid Grauman award to AMC Theaters and its CEO Adam Aron for its outstanding contributions to theatrical exhibition. It is the world’s biggest and most productive exhibitor with the highest attendance of moviegoers and acclaimed as the most innovative in the services that it provides for the moviegoing audience. AMC has and will continue to lead the remarkable evolution of the theatergoing experience.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Hill Valley founder and CEO Éric Nebot said “Hill Valley is extremely proud to be the presenter of the American Cinematheque’s Fifth Annual Sid Grauman Award to Adam Aron on behalf of AMC Theatres."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The American Cinematheque Board of Directors created this award in 2015 to honor an extraordinary individual who has made a significant contribution to the Hollywood film industry in the continuing advancement of theatrical exhibition. Previous recipients have included Doug Darrow on behalf of Dolby Laboratories (2018), Richard Gelfond and Greg Foster on behalf of IMAX (2017); Sue Kroll (2016); and Jeffrey Katzenberg (2015).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Sid Grauman (1879 – 1950) was a master showman in the early days of film exhibition and a founder of the Egyptian Theatre (owned and operated by the American Cinematheque since 1998), where the first Hollywood “premiere” was held in 1922. He went on to be part of the world-famous Grauman’s Chinese Theatre as well. He was a pioneer in the theatrical exhibition of movies and a founding member of the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences, from which he received an honorary Academy Award for his work. His legacy is carried on today through the big screen movie viewing experience provided by the American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>About Adam M. Aron, Chief Executive Officer and President of AMC</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Mr. Aron has served as Chief Executive Officer, President, and a director of the company since January 2016. From February 2015 to December 2015, Mr. Aron served as Chief Executive Officer of Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, Inc. Since 2006, Mr. Aron has served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of World Leisure Partners, Inc. a personal consultancy he founded for matters related to travel and tourism, high-end real estate development, and professional sports. Mr. Aron served as Chief Executive Officer and co-owner of the Philadelphia 76ers from 2011 to 2013, and remains an investor in both the Sixers and the NHL’s New Jersey Devils. From 2006 to 2015, Mr. Aron served as Senior Operating Partner of private equity leader Apollo Management L.P. Mr. Aron currently serves on the boards of directors of AMC, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, Ltd., and both the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils. Formerly Mr. Aron served as CEO of Vail Resorts (1996-2006) and CEO of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, Ltd. (1993-1996), as well as Chief Marketing Officer of United Airlines (1990-1993) and Chief Marketing Officer of Hyatt Hotels & Resorts (1987-1990).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Mr. Aron received a Master of Business Administration degree with Distinction from the Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude from Harvard College. Mr. Aron has a significant record of business and executive leadership, including valuable insight into consumer services. He has more than 25 years of experience as a Chief Executive Officer, more than 30 years of experience serving on a broad variety of corporate boards of directors, and more than 40 years of consumer engagement experience.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>About AMC</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">AMC is the largest movie exhibition company in the United States, the largest in Europe, and the largest throughout the world with approximately 1,000 theatres and 11,000 screens across the globe. AMC has propelled innovation in the exhibition industry by deploying its signature power-recliner seats; delivering enhanced food and beverage choices; generating greater guest engagement through its loyalty and subscription programs, web site, and mobile apps; offering premium large format experiences; and playing a wide variety of content, including the latest Hollywood releases and independent programming. AMC operates many of the most productive theatres in the United States' top markets, having the #1 or #2 market share positions in 21 of the 25 largest metropolitan areas of the United States. AMC is also #1 or #2 in market share in 12 of the 15 countries it serves in North America, Europe and the Middle East. For more information, visit www.amctheatres.com</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>About Hill Valley</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Hill Valley, the leading product placement agency founded by Éric Nebot, and based in Los Angeles and Paris, represents luxury brands such as Chanel, Ladurée, Hennessy, Piper-Heidsieck, world class wine Chateau Haut Brion, and many others.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Benefit Tickets:</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Tickets to the Cinematheque Tribute, an elegant black-tie dinner followed by a multi-media award presentation, start at $650. Call Mann Productions for tickets and further information: 323.314.7000. <i>Please note that this event was formerly known as the Moving Picture Ball.</i></span>American Cinemathequehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15291044638493392837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762846565812984815.post-78315335078391164772019-06-06T17:43:00.000-07:002019-06-06T17:43:27.769-07:00CHARLIZE THERON TO RECEIVE 33RD AMERICAN CINEMATHEQUE AWARD AT GALA TRIBUTE ON NOVEMBER 8, 2019 AT THE BEVERLY HILTON<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />The American Cinematheque announced today that the 33rd American Cinematheque Award will be presented to Academy Award-winner Charlize Theron at the Cinematheque’s annual benefit gala. The presentation will take place Friday, November 8, 2019 at The Beverly Hilton (9876 Wilshire Blvd.) in Beverly Hills, CA. The award presentation will be held in the International Ballroom and will include in-person tributes from some of Theron’s colleagues and friends. Other show participants will be announced as they are confirmed in the coming months. A second honor, the Sid Grauman Award will be bestowed on the same evening. The recipient has not yet been announced. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“The American Cinematheque is extremely pleased to honor Charlize Theron as the 33rd recipient of the American Cinematheque award at our celebration this year," says American Cinematheque Chairman Rick Nicita. “Charlize Theron is making a significant contribution to the art of motion pictures while breaking through outmoded limitations on what an actress and producer can do. She won the Academy Award for transforming herself unrecognizably into a serial killer in <i>Monster</i> and she earned another Oscar nomination for <i>North Country</i>. She showed her fierce physicality in acclaimed action films like <i>Mad Max: Fury Road</i> and <i>Atomic Blonde</i>. She gave us portraits of troubled women in Golden Globe-nominated performances in <i>Young Adult</i> and <i>Tully</i>. She made an immediate and strong impression from the beginning in acclaimed movies such as <i>The Cider House Rules</i>. She recently received rave reviews for her romantic comedy <i>Long Shot</i>. This fall, audiences will get to see her on and off-screen talent at play again in her next film — a behind-the-scenes look at the women of Fox News which she produced and also stars in. It is obvious from her career that her immense talent cannot be categorized or confined. Charlize Theron is an ideal recipient of the American Cinematheque Award."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Charlize Theron was the unanimous choice of the Cinematheque Board of Directors selection committee. Since 1986, the organization has annually honored an extraordinary filmmaker in the entertainment industry, who is fully engaged in his or her work and is committed to making a significant contribution to the art of the motion picture. Funds raised benefit the year-round programming of the non-profit cultural organization, the American Cinematheque.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The executive producer of the show is Paul Flattery. Irene Crinita is the producer. Corrinne Mann is the event producer. Co-chairs and presenters of the event will be announced as they are confirmed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Previous American Cinematheque Award honorees include: Eddie Murphy (1986); Bette Midler (1987); Robin Williams (1988); Steven Spielberg (1989); Ron Howard (1990); Martin Scorsese (1991); Sean Connery (1992); Michael Douglas (1993); Rob Reiner (1994); Mel Gibson (1995); Tom Cruise (1996); John Travolta (1997); Arnold Schwarzenegger (1998); Jodie Foster (1999); Bruce Willis (2000); Nicolas Cage (2001); Denzel Washington (2002); Nicole Kidman (2003); Steve Martin (2004); Al Pacino (2005) George Clooney (2006), Julia Roberts (2007); Samuel L. Jackson (2008); Matt Damon (2010); Robert Downey Jr. (2011); Ben Stiller (2012); Jerry Bruckheimer (2013); Matthew McConaughey (2014); Reese Witherspoon (2015); Ridley Scott (2016); Amy Adams (2017) ;and Bradley Cooper (2018). Please note that this event was formerly known as the Moving Picture Ball.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Hundreds of entertainment industry notables are expected to attend the tribute. This annual event is the American Cinematheque’s most important benefit, providing funds for the non-profit film exhibition organization’s programs throughout the year and operation of the historic landmark Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard as well as the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica on Montana Avenue.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">CHARLIZE THERON BIOGRAPHY</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">South African born and Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron is one of the most celebrated actresses of our time, captivating audiences with her ability to embody a range of characters. Over the years, Theron has appeared in numerous films including <i>The Devil’s Advocate; The Cider House Rules</i>; the critically acclaimed <i>Monster</i> for which she earned an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and an Independent Spirit Award; <i>North Country</i>, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Critics Choice Award; <i>Hancock</i>; <i>Young Adult,</i> for which she garnered a Golden Globe nomination; HBO’s <i>The Life and Death of Peter Sellers,</i> for which she received Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild Award, and Emmy nominations; <i>Snow White and the Huntsman;</i> <i>A Million Ways to Die in the West;</i> <i>Mad Max: Fury Road; Dark Places</i>; <i>Kubo and the Two Strings;</i> and <i>The Fate of The Furious</i>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In 2017, Theron produced (under her production company Denver & Delilah) and starred in the Universal film <i>Atomic Blonde</i>, alongside James McAvoy. Denver & Delilah also produced <i>Mindhunter</i>, the hit Netflix crime drama that same year. The show has since been renewed for a second season. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In 2018, Theron produced and starred in Amazon’s <i>Gringo</i> alongside Joel Edgerton and Amanda Seyfried. Theron reunited with Diablo Cody on the comedy <i>Tully</i> as both an actor and producer. She received a 2019 Golden Globe nomination for her work in the title role. In 2018, she also produced <i>A Private War</i>, a film based on the Vanity Fair article "Marie Colvin's Private War."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Theron most recently starred opposite Seth Rogen and produced the Lionsgate comedy <i>Long Shot </i>that hit theaters in May. Next up, Theron will voice Morticia Adams in the animated revival of <i>The Addams Family</i>, coming October 2019. In December of this year, she will portray Megyn Kelly in the Untitled Roger Ailes Project, which her production company is producing. Theron is currently filming <i>The Old Guard</i>, based on the comic book series by Greg Rucka and illustrator Leandro Fernández that her production company is also producing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In addition to Theron’s acting success and principal involvement with her production company Denver & Delilah, Charlize serves as a United Nations Messenger of Peace and founder of the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project (CTAOP). CTAOP’s mission is to help keep African youth safe from HIV through its support of on the ground, community-engaged organizations. CTAOP serves as a vehicle for communities to empower themselves and their youth in order to prevent the spread of HIV. Learn more about CTAOP at www.charlizeafricaoutreach.org.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Tickets to the Cinematheque Tribute, an elegant black-tie dinner followed by a multi-media award presentation, start at $650. Call Mann Productions for tickets and further information: 323.314.7000.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Established in 1981, the American Cinematheque is a non-profit viewer-supported film exhibition and cultural organization dedicated to the celebration of the Moving Picture in all of its forms. At the Egyptian Theatre, the Cinematheque presents daily film and video programming which ranges from the classics of American and international cinema to new independent films and digital work. Exhibition of rare works, special and rare prints, etc., combined with fascinating post-screening discussions with the filmmakers who created the work, are a Cinematheque tradition that keep audiences coming back for once-in-a-lifetime cinema experiences. The American Cinematheque renovated and reopened (on December 4, 1998) the historic 1922 Hollywood Egyptian Theatre This includes a state-of-the-art 616-seat theatre housed within Sid Grauman’s first grand movie palace on Hollywood Boulevard. The exotic courtyard is fully restored to its 1922 grandeur. The Egyptian was the home of the very first Hollywood movie premiere in 1922. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In early 2005 the American Cinematheque expanded its programming to the Westside with the January 5th opening of the 1940 Aero Theatre on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Both theatres play host to an array of industry guests who share their filmmaking experiences with our audiences.</span><br />
<br />American Cinemathequehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15291044638493392837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762846565812984815.post-22895654958291261262019-05-20T16:48:00.001-07:002019-06-06T17:19:20.924-07:00MIKE LEIGH BRINGS PETERLOO TO THE AERO, by Judith Resell<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: right;">
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“My object is to put on the screen a world you can believe in,” explained director Mike Leigh at a screening of his historical drama <i>Peterloo</i> (2018) at the Aero Theatre in April. “A real, mortal, organic, living world.” Leigh discussed his latest film on the first night of a tribute to his work. He received a standing ovation for <i>Peterloo</i> and his outstanding body of work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“Many of us grew up not knowing about [the events at Peterloo],” Leigh commented. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although he went to school in a town that was only a bus ride away from Manchester, the place where the events of <i>Peterloo</i> took place, he never learned what it was or where it happened. “It’s an enigma,” he said. No one really knows why the historic tragedy was so<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>little-known for so long;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>at St. Peter’s square, a peaceful assembly of thousands of men, women and children demonstrating for universal suffrage was brutally attacked by soldiers on horseback, leaving many of the unarmed civilians dead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When Leigh first read about Peterloo, he thought, “someone should make a movie of this.” He never dreamed that someone would be himself.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Gradually, in 2014, I started to do it,” Leigh recalled. “What we couldn’t know in 2014 was that so much would change all over the world in terms of democracy—certainly in the UK.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">Quite a few of the characters in the film are actual historical figures, Leigh shared. Fictional characters such as the working class family impacted by the events of <i>Peterloo </i>are very much informed by research on how people lived then.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">In the end, Leigh concluded, all of the characters have to be presented in the same way: as three-dimensional and detailed. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“Have you ever though of doing a film in a more conventional way—sitting a room by yourself writing a screenplay and bringing it to actors?” moderator Jim Hemphill asked Leigh.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“No,” Leigh answered. Then, after a pause: “There is no doubt in my mind the result of that wouldn’t be as good.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“Not one frame of it was shot in Manchester,” Leigh chuckled when asked how much of the location shooting was at the actual site of the massacre.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During the reign of Queen Victoria, Manchester was rebuilt as a great Victorian city with none of the Regency period features of the time of the story. So Leigh “shot all over the place” in northern England to find buildings and settings that had the right look.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The biggest question was where to shoot the climactic massacre scenes. Tilbury Fort, built by Henry VIII, was finally located and chosen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Leigh’s crew built a row of houses for the working villagers and also relied on CGI renderings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In the end, Leigh commented, it was about setting it all up with the freedom to make it real. “When I was a kid I went to movies and they were real to me. I want you to believe in it. If you make a film set in the seventh century, it’s very hard to find out how people spoke and lived. But two hundred years ago, in the Regency period, it’s very well documented in plays, novels, newspapers, even caricatures. It’s all very researchable, really,” Leigh concluded.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;">The film's court scenes shed light on</span> how draconian the legal system was vis-à-vis the lower classes. “The Tory government of this period was the most oppressive ever,” Leigh said, noting that the film presents real cases, such as that of one man hanged for stealing a coat. These dramatic scenes were shot in an ecclesiastical court inside the great cathedral at Chester.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The color palette for the movie was drawn from era-appropriate <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>paintings, especially those by J.M.W. Turner. “We did not reference [Johannes] Vermeer, but it just wound up looking like it,” Leigh noted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“A film is made in the editing room,” Leigh asserted when asked about his post-production process.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“Jon Gregory, my editor, really did a great job.” Leigh shot a tremendous amount of film. He would leave it with Gregory on Thursday, return on Tuesday and Gregory would give him an edited version for his approval. Leigh’s reaction to the edited versions was always, “Wow!”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">One audience member asked about the role of speeches in the film. “My job is to show people doing what they do—making speeches, communicating ideas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What are the elements leading to the massacre? It is a risk. I refuse to patronize an intelligent audience,” he concluded.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Written by Judith Resell. Photos courtesy of Amazon Studios.</span></i></div>
<br />American Cinemathequehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15291044638493392837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762846565812984815.post-50510103792419819002019-04-03T16:42:00.000-07:002019-04-03T16:42:23.917-07:00HARMONY KORINE BRINGS "GUMMO" AND "JULIEN DONKEY-BOY" TO THE EGYPTIAN, by Stephen Michaels<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In anticipation of the release of his newest film, </span><i style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The Beach Bum, </i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">writer and director Harmony Korine visited the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood for two nights in March 2019 to discuss his work. For the first night of the retrospective, Korine spoke in between a double feature of his first film, </span><i style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Gummo, </i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">and its follow-up, </span><i style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Julien Donkey-Boy. </i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Korine spoke about his childhood in Nashville, what led him to film, and his beliefs as a filmmaker.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Harmony Korine at the Egyptian Theatre on March 20, 2019. Photo credit: Silvia Schablowski</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“My dad loved movies, so he would take me to movies when I
was young,” Korine explained. “I was a skateboarder, so I’d skate during the
day. At night, I would go [to the theater]…every day you could see a W.C.
Fields movie or a Douglas Sirk film, or Buster Keaton. I just loved it so much.
I just felt early on that I could do it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Korine shared that he always knew he wanted to write his own
scripts. "I felt like I could figure out the technical
part of making movies on my own, but I never wanted to depend on anyone to
write scripts for me. I always wanted to make my own work, I never wanted to be
dependent upon anyone. I wanted to learn to be a writer.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWJg4iEZ5vM-UpP7qNyatgn9l3_06YxWpyMGuqVR_CcS3EZk_YX_py5DmsfMwhagC8Nb_osH0pih4kreIhYOXPa3qXhAldxKsAdcZKowNLY2b2l2m6NY9jw4CaYlFvGeZKJGg9vL9TUzE/s1600/GUMMO+c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWJg4iEZ5vM-UpP7qNyatgn9l3_06YxWpyMGuqVR_CcS3EZk_YX_py5DmsfMwhagC8Nb_osH0pih4kreIhYOXPa3qXhAldxKsAdcZKowNLY2b2l2m6NY9jw4CaYlFvGeZKJGg9vL9TUzE/s640/GUMMO+c.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>A still from Korine's GUMMO, 1997.</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">For Korine, writing was both a tool to tell his story and to experiment with how his story was told: “I was super into the idea of narrative
and deconstructing narrative. I wanted to make movies that felt more like a
collage, or impressionistic. The things that always frustrated me about films
was rarely did I love a whole film; it was usually specific moments or scenes.
With this movie, I was like, 'Why couldn’t I just make a whole movie of that</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">?'"</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> Korine described how his process affected </span><i style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Gummo: </i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">“I wanted it to feel like the images were falling from the sky, like
they were this strange tapestry, and things like sounds and images were
deconstructed in a way where it seemed random, but at the same time it told
this story of this town and these characters.”</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Korine poses with a fan after the screening. </i></span><i style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Photo credit: Silvia Schablowski</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Much of Korine’s early work is notable for its experimentation with physical film and cinematography. More than 30 different types of
cameras were used to shoot </span><i style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Julien Donkey-Boy, </i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">and
Korine credits this to his affection for “the fog of analog.” He later added,
“What I love about film is that there’s a romance to it. There’s soft edges to
it, it’s an alchemy. You can break the image down in a way, you can treat it,
you can expose it in a way. There’s something kind of magical about it.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A celebrated element of Korine’s work is its reoccurring subject matter. Korine’s films often showcase characters and events
that are otherwise absent from traditional cinema, and Korine cited this trend
as part of his goal to highlight “different types of people that you never see
on the screen.” He elaborated, “What I always try to go for, especially
when I was younger, is something I would call beyond a simple articulation.
It’s more of a feeling. It’s like if I see something or I put something
together, and I feel like there’s a power to it. Maybe it’s upsetting,
confrontational, maybe it is provocative, but if it feels like there’s a power
to it, then I want to use it. I like things that you can’t explain. I like
things that take your breath away, and I like looking at people that you don’t
often see on the big screen. I like to be surprised. I hate that we’re starting
to live in a culture where everything is so offensive to everyone, and you
can’t look at anything; discuss things anymore. Life is beautiful, and I want
to explore the complexities and the intricacies of the whole thing.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Korine's friend Alex Rose moderated both evenings' Q&As. </i></span><i style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Photo credit: Silvia Schablowski</i></span></td></tr>
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<br />American Cinemathequehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15291044638493392837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762846565812984815.post-66362959832967009862019-02-22T20:06:00.002-08:002019-03-04T17:58:21.762-08:00OSCAR NOMINEES VISIT THE AMERICAN CINEMATHEQUE, by Judith Resell<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">February 2019 saw a host of special guests visiting both the
Egyptian Theatre and the Aero Theatre to discuss Academy Award-nominated films
in contention. From <i>Shoplifters</i> on Feb. 3 to </span><i style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Roma</i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> on Feb. 17, awards season has
been action-packed at the American Cinematheque.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In anticipation of the big night, we wanted to share some of
the best moments from the Q&As of the past month. Read on for the inside
scoop on <i>Bohemian Rhapsody</i>, <i>Green Book</i>, <i>Roma,</i> and <i>Shoplifters</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #741b47;">BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY</span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">The culmination of a ten-year
effort to bring Freddie Mercury’s legacy to a whole new generation, <i>Bohemian Rhapsody</i> (2018), screened at the Egyptian Theatre on February 16, 2019. Two of
the people behind that effort, producer Graham King and editor John Ottman,
appeared after the screening for a Q&A.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">“You go
through it because you feel so passionate about it. You have the best team.
It’s a labor of love to tell Freddie’s story,” King commented.</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">As a result, he feels “the filmmaking went to
a level far beyond what anyone imagined.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">Ottman added “Because of the iconic quality of
the main character, you want to do it right. It’s a responsibility.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">Ottman was worried about casting.
“You can compress performance,” he explained “but you can’t do much if there is
just one miscast person. Just that one miscast person would bring the movie
down from greatness.”</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">When he saw the
first dailies, “it was a big relief.”</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">The chemistry among the band members cast for the movie was better than
they dared hope. “That is a blessing—and a curse to the editor!” Ottman
recalled a bit ruefully. When the interaction among the actors is that good,
“you want to preserve everything they say, every joke. When I get a sequence
that is working so well, I get pissed off! So it was edited in anger,” Ottman
smiled.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">“People talk about editing in terms
of micro-processes, but the editor has a macro responsibility too,” Ottman
asserted. The editor shapes tone. In the case of <i>Bohemian Rhapsody</i>, Ottman saw
the overall tone as a celebration of Freddie’s life. Although the underlying
story is tragic, what was it like to be with Freddie? “I wanted people to know
even in the darkest moments, we’re allowed to have fun.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #741b47;">GREEN BOOK</span></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">“It
turned out to be funnier than I realized,” commented director </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Peter Farrelly</span><b style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">
</b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">about <i>Green Book</i> (2018) in an interview at the Aero Theatre on February 5, 2019.
Farrelly knew how funny - and how good - the movie was by audience reaction. At the
Toronto Film Festival, for example, “the audience just exploded,” Farrelly
recalled.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Farrelly
attributed some of the humor to his lead actors, Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala
Ali. “These two and their nuanced performances improved the humor. Throughout
the whole thing, they definitely extended it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For example, “the pizza thing.” Screenwriter Nick Vallelonga, son of the
character Mortensen portrays, mentioned at lunch that his father used to order
a whole pizza, fold it in half and eat it like a sandwich. Mortensen wanted to
try it for the movie, and the crew just cracked up. Throughout the filming, in
fact, Mortensen pointed out to Farrelly that the crew, who usually look around
and are distracted when not specifically doing a task - were riveted by what was
going on in <i>Green Book</i>. They just stared and didn’t look away.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">Asked when he knew he had something
special in <i>Green Book</i>, Farrelly said he knew the script was great, but when he
got Mortensen and Ali on board, he was fully confident about the movie.
Mortensen spent a weekend shopping for a “lucky stone” that his character picks
up along the way in the road trip the two leads take through the American
south. He brought in a dozen pieces of Jade and asked Farrelly which one he
liked best. The rock plays an important role in the film and Mortensen was
making sure it was perfect. Ali said he wanted to take piano lessons to play
the part of the genius pianist. “You can’t learn to play at that level in four
months,” said Farrelly. Ali replied that he wanted to be so familiar with how a
pianist behaves that even the best pianist will be comfortable with how Ali
sits at the piano, holds his hands, etc.</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">“That’s when I knew these guys are really good,” concluded Farrelly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“My DP
was a superstar,” Farrelly said of cinematographer Sean Porter. “There were a
lot of things I didn’t know how to do.” For example, how to make Kris Bowers playing the piano look like Mahershala Ali playing the piano. Porter did a face
replacement that was so perfect it caused Steven Spielberg to comment “I can’t
believe how good Mahershala Ali is on the piano.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #741b47;">ROMA</span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">Yalitza Aparacio</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">, a first-time
actor, was catapulted to a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her debut role in
<i>Roma</i>. In fact, she auditioned for the role only because her sister, who had
planned to audition, was sick. She never expected to receive a callback, much
less the lead role in a film by director Alfonso Cuaron, who won the Oscar for
Best Director for <i>Gravity</i> (2013). Prior to the audition, she did not know who
Cuaron was and had not seen his films. She described herself as “camera-shy”
and as someone who “always kept a low profile.”</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">No more!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXG5Nk3CGnSe6h_gJe_KdXAJxITDdGm35cQ-Qisb9-PTsLO1Qiw553fL_Xq3ffi0khltFCDBqiMPHhBzkh15p-qzCcYH9uDVyPLCsOohMXqxqO7oogr1hyphenhyphenoU1wR1OBJ6FUH9acOUUIJk4/s1600/ROMA_02507_RF.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXG5Nk3CGnSe6h_gJe_KdXAJxITDdGm35cQ-Qisb9-PTsLO1Qiw553fL_Xq3ffi0khltFCDBqiMPHhBzkh15p-qzCcYH9uDVyPLCsOohMXqxqO7oogr1hyphenhyphenoU1wR1OBJ6FUH9acOUUIJk4/s640/ROMA_02507_RF.JPG" width="640" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">Aparicio appeared with co-star
</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">Marina de Tavira</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">, nominated as Best Supporting Actress, for a Q&A after a
screening of the film on February 17, 2019 at the Egyptian Theatre.</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;"><i>Roma</i> garnered a total of ten Academy Award
nominations. The Los Angeles premiere of the movie was also at the Egyptian
Theatre.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“He really respected the characters’ journeys,” de Tavira
said of Cuaron’s direction. He facilitated the actors’ ability to relate to
their characters in a very natural way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>De Tavira’s role as Alfonso’s mother in the autobiographical film “came
from a very personal place.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Aparacio commented, via a translator, that
Cuaron’s decision to shoot the film chronologically, which he made in order to
keep it as natural and as real as possible, helped her “get to know my
character little by little.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She felt
her performance was also enabled by “the rising crescendo of how difficult or
complex the scenes were.” Because the scenes increased in difficulty over the
time of the filming, she was more certain of herself and her character when the
most challenging scenes, those closer to the end, demanded the most of her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Aparicio
enjoyed working with children and dogs, but de Tavira added that the family
pet, Borras, was a lot of trouble. Cuaron wanted a dog that looked just like
the dog he grew up with and found that dog on the street. The dog needed to be
cleaned up and trained—so he was difficult.</span></span><br />
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<b style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">SHOPLIFTERS</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“Film
can make the invisible visible and I strongly believe in that power, but I have
no intention to make a message film or a social justice film,” Japanese
director Hirokazu Kore-eda commented at a screening of <i>Shoplifters </i>(2018),a film
about “people we do not normally see in society.” American writer and filmmaker
F.X. Feeney interviewed Kore-eda at the Aero Theatre on February 3, 2019.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwQolq2Pww63pbZPnY_wg6xjgKBpYIAgkBoNWDliFBw3SyGyliAB_5HDBDSpK_b-JNyPCtV1GMwQG_WKKD_J4LZzIJl1OSIBgrzvFy8DFmpAaLPrAmJo53EoKPEZJkzucXaVMZyZGylDY/s1600/4+Shoplifters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1068" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwQolq2Pww63pbZPnY_wg6xjgKBpYIAgkBoNWDliFBw3SyGyliAB_5HDBDSpK_b-JNyPCtV1GMwQG_WKKD_J4LZzIJl1OSIBgrzvFy8DFmpAaLPrAmJo53EoKPEZJkzucXaVMZyZGylDY/s640/4+Shoplifters.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“I never try to make a film about how wonderful family life
is. I create a film that shows what happens when change occurs—how the family
reacts,” Kore-eda concluded.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The
film was shot in one and one-half months. After each day’s work, Kore-eda would
look at what they had done and rewrite the script. “It was that kind of
process,” he said. “I started shooting from the part where the grandmother
died. I hadn’t written the entire script. The winter scenes were shot first. I
felt a little sorry for the actors because they were playing scenes when others
were not written,” he concluded.</span></div>
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American Cinemathequehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15291044638493392837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762846565812984815.post-587262577635403132019-02-13T15:02:00.000-08:002019-03-04T17:52:27.774-08:00SPIKE LEE ON BLACKKKLANSMAN, TERENCE BLANCHARD'S SCORE, AND PRINCE by Judith Resell<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">BlacKkKlansman<i> is nominated for six
Academy Awards this year: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor,
Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Film Editing.</i></span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">How did Spike Lee get
involved with the film <i>BlacKkKlansman</i>? He says, “Jordan Peele called me up with
a six word pitch: ‘A black man infiltrates Ku Klux Klan,’” </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;">Lee told a packed house at the
Egyptian Theatre last December after a screening of his film. The Lee
retrospective also included screenings of his beloved films <i>Malcolm X</i>, <i>Do the Right Thing</i>, and <i>Crooklyn</i>. During the Q&A, Lee introduced two men who have
been members of his filmmaking team for decades: composer Terence Blanchard and
editor Barry Alexander Brown.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">Lee hadn’t heard of
this true story of Colorado Springs detective Ron Stallworth. John David
Washington, the son of Denzel and Pauletta Washington, earned the lead role in
<i>BlacKkKlansman</i>, but his professional association with Lee went back to <i>Malcolm X</i>, in which he
appeared at age six.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">The director went on to discuss the vital role music plays in his work. </span>“I’m always thinking about
music,” Lee emphasized. “Music is one of the main tools the filmmaker has. I
give musicians love,” he concluded.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">“I knew that we
needed a song to end this movie,” said Spike Lee referring to the music used in
the credits of <i>BlacKkKlansman</i>. He went on to relate that the Negro spiritual
“Mary Don’t You Weep,” is Prince on piano with no band backing him. “They found
this cassette in his vault. I think my brother Prince gave me that. He wanted
me to have it,” Lee said of the cassette that he described as having appeared
out of nowhere. “It means a lot because this is what kept our ancestors alive,”
he said, referencing the impact of spirituals on the enslaved Africans working
in the fields.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Lee shared that while preparing
for <i>Malcolm X</i>, he told Blanchard that the score “has got to be big.” The
three-hour biopic of the black Muslim leader did indeed turn out to be epic,
score included.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTccbWuBkm_ti2aNverxOh85xBhSVBlqC5E7LX8SKUMFNF0OQozPpCaRU1bQkI1BB9p0zxnaq7k0-d0C0DDAF_r0O2ecOUwe9dU3QMcuZ-oI-sR6_GGGCarS2ARkxeHD-xAahF0mSr-28/s1600/VX-6167893_1920x1080.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTccbWuBkm_ti2aNverxOh85xBhSVBlqC5E7LX8SKUMFNF0OQozPpCaRU1bQkI1BB9p0zxnaq7k0-d0C0DDAF_r0O2ecOUwe9dU3QMcuZ-oI-sR6_GGGCarS2ARkxeHD-xAahF0mSr-28/s640/VX-6167893_1920x1080.PNG" width="640" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">The director continued to muse about <i>Malcolm X</i>, opining, “Denzel
Washington reincarnated Malcolm,” and sharing that Washington spent four years
preparing his character. “Some of his speeches were better than Malcolm’s,”
joked Lee.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">The tribute concluded with a screening of <i>Crooklyn</i> (1994), a
family drama inspired by Lee’s own upbringing in Brooklyn. Like <i>Do the Right Thing</i> it captures the flavor, the color and the sounds of an inner city
neighborhood, but with more of a focus on the domestic atmosphere.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; text-indent: 0.5in;">“I’m not bragging, but the good shit lasts,” concluded Lee. The
retrospective made clear that the social issues depicted in Lee’s films have yet
to be resolved – for example, the police choke-hold that killed Radio Raheem in
<i>Do the Right Thing</i> is eerily reminiscent of the one that killed Eric Garner in
2014. Extant racial tensions like those depicted in BlacKkKlansman are
highlighted at the end of the film with Lee’s inclusion of documentary footage
from the violent events in Charlottesville, VA, in 2017.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTKONrfzwrDngtZoimOb0y6c0eK626V8CnRhCBP5PerqyDDjgg136ldoMlsLuco1l38ldye2vs6mRutQ8SO1Ethuy3cX8pzlRpi2eDnPpEOUbPV8bRm4zrhj5oYF35tMm0em_fERiJfn0/s1600/DgI2syUW0AA6iNm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTKONrfzwrDngtZoimOb0y6c0eK626V8CnRhCBP5PerqyDDjgg136ldoMlsLuco1l38ldye2vs6mRutQ8SO1Ethuy3cX8pzlRpi2eDnPpEOUbPV8bRm4zrhj5oYF35tMm0em_fERiJfn0/s640/DgI2syUW0AA6iNm.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Standing ovations accompanied both Lee’s entrance and exit
from the Egyptian Theatre.</span></span></span><br />
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<i style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;">See BLACKKKLANSMAN for free Feb. 13
at the Aero Theatre, followed by a discussion with composer Terence Blanchard.</span></span></i></div>
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<i>Additional reporting by Margot Gerber.</i></span>American Cinemathequehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15291044638493392837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762846565812984815.post-16793105095869237382019-02-06T13:54:00.000-08:002019-02-08T13:00:24.050-08:00NORMAN JEWISON TALKS MICHEL LEGRAND AND MOONSTRUCK, by Susan King<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A number of the top directors of the past half-century cut
their directing teeth with live dramatic TV in the 1950s, including
Oscar-winning directors Franklin Schaffner (<i>Patton</i>) and George Roy Hill (<i>The Sting</i>) and such acclaimed filmmakers as John Frankenheimer, Arthur Penn, and
Sidney Lumet.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And so did Norman Jewison, who at 92 is one of the few
filmmakers left who began in the 1950s. But Jewison didn’t go the dramatic
route. He made his name in musical specials and series including the
groundbreaking 1959 <i>Tonight with Belafonte</i>, 1960’s <i>An Hour with Danny
Kaye</i>,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1962’s <i>The Judy Garland Show</i>, which also featured Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, and as an executive producer
for several episodes of the 1963-64 <i>The Judy Garland Show.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-55mml_5tMJY6Lwh6VKoWFojW_IeW0XhkXEXskbuXyyhRLlNd1yy2ozWp0iHpEQkVxhlkFPCe91vAuq6NNm1zculjta5X4s30U7zIRJNvRrFSopp1btntGfHb6vMm8YEdnJQq_v-2x7I/s1600/Norman_Jewison_HeadShot_390.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="390" height="392" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-55mml_5tMJY6Lwh6VKoWFojW_IeW0XhkXEXskbuXyyhRLlNd1yy2ozWp0iHpEQkVxhlkFPCe91vAuq6NNm1zculjta5X4s30U7zIRJNvRrFSopp1btntGfHb6vMm8YEdnJQq_v-2x7I/s640/Norman_Jewison_HeadShot_390.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Music has always played a major part in his films,
especially 1968’s <i>The Thomas Crown Affair</i>, which featured the Oscar-winning
tune “The Windmills of Your Mind” by Michel Legrand and Alan and Marilyn
Bergman, and Lalo Schifrin’s jazz score for his first dramatic film, 1965’s <i>The Cincinnati Kid</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Jewison will undoubtedly be discussing his musical choices
at the American Cinematheque’s tribute to the seven-time Oscar-nominated
director/producer Feb. 8-10 at the Aero Theatre.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The director will appear in person on <a href="http://americancinemathequecalendar.com/content/moonstruck-and-justice-for-all" target="_blank">Friday, February 8</a>, for
the opening double bill of <i>Moonstruck </i>(1987) and 1979’s …<i>And Justice For All</i>.
Jewison will also be on hand on <a href="http://americancinemathequecalendar.com/content/the-russians-are-coming-the-russians-are-coming-0" target="_blank">Saturday afternoon</a> with Eva
Marie Saint for the 1966 comedy hit <i>The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!</i> and <a href="http://americancinemathequecalendar.com/content/fiddler-on-the-roof-1" target="_blank">Saturday evening</a> for <i>Fiddler on the Roof</i> (1971). Rounding out the
tribute are screenings of <i>The Thomas Crown Affair</i> and <i>The Cincinnati Kid</i> in a double
feature on <a href="http://americancinemathequecalendar.com/content/the-thomas-crown-affair-the-cincinnati-kid" target="_blank">February 10</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Jewison, who is a master storytelling even over the phone,
chatted with the American Cinematheque following recent <a href="https://variety.com/2019/film/news/michel-legrand-dies-dead-oscar-winning-composer-1203119247/" target="_blank">the death of Legrand</a> about the
music in his movies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">American
Cinematheque: Did your experience on musical specials help you when you started
making films, in terms of looking for composers and the type of music you wanted
for your films?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Norman Jewison: I think it did help me a lot, because I was
so used to moving the camera with the music and music was an integral part of a
lot of my work in television. And it always played an important part in my
films. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1DN8Y25YAN3sAV7LiUWwX1EKMof_EuI7oyfkYhb0kP6ZHufU9V81YO0Fe1K-5Cbyto51yxtwYN3zb33UZVkJJLpxPsu37yFX3RcqwdMgbf-hB2-y095l88DmcvEsGH9V1Mfclny3Zbtk/s1600/THE+THOMAS+CROWN+AFFAIR%252C++paul+burke+faye+b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="867" data-original-width="1600" height="346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1DN8Y25YAN3sAV7LiUWwX1EKMof_EuI7oyfkYhb0kP6ZHufU9V81YO0Fe1K-5Cbyto51yxtwYN3zb33UZVkJJLpxPsu37yFX3RcqwdMgbf-hB2-y095l88DmcvEsGH9V1Mfclny3Zbtk/s640/THE+THOMAS+CROWN+AFFAIR%252C++paul+burke+faye+b.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">AC: Michel Legrand,
who died in January at the age of 86, wrote that gorgeous score to your 1968
hit <i>The Thomas Crown Affair</i> and won the Academy Award with lyricists Alan and
Marilyn Bergman for the “The Windmills of Your Mind.” How did you select him
for the movie?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Jewison: When you look at <i>The Umbrellas of Cherbourg</i>, he always
excelled in love story songs, very romantic songs. I thought Steve McQueen and
Faye Dunaway had a very special relationship. I wanted him to come to Los
Angeles from France and do the film. I found out that he could speak a little English
and he was very close to the Bergmans. I asked Alan and Marilyn if they would
do a song for the film. We discussed it and where was it going to come in the
film and what would be behind it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I ended up saying, “I want to put it over a gliding sequence.”
“The Windmills of Your Mind” came out of that discussion. I thought it was an
incredible piece. I think the score of <i>The Thomas Crown Affair </i>is probably one of
the best-scored films of all my films. That’s how good Michel was, because he
wrote two of three themes for the film.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">AC: Though it’s not
part of the Cinematheque tribute, your 1967 Oscar-winning <i>In The Heat of the Night</i></b><b> has a fabulous jazz/R&B score by Quincy Jones and a classic title
tune sung by Ray Charles.</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Jewison: I thought Quincy would be perfect for <i>In the Heat of the Night</i> and, again, the Bergmans knew Quincy well. So, I got the two of
them together and they came up with the title song. I said to Quincy, “This is
such a great blues song. Who is the best blues singer in the world?” He said,
“Ray Charles.” I grew up with Ray.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I’ll never forget the story of when Ray Charles called me.
He said, “well, I’ll have to see the film.” I thought, “God, he’s blind! What
does that mean, he has to ‘see’ the film?” I called Quincy and he said, “You’re
going to sit with Ray and you’re going to tell him what’s happening on the
screen visually and he’s going to listen to it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">AC: Was there a
certain scene that sealed the deal?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Jewison: When the scene came where Sidney Poitier confronts
this white Southerner about the investigation, the guy slaps him and without
any hesitation Sidney slapped him back. Ray Charles heard the slap and then he
heard the second slap and he said, “Did he hit him?” I said yes. And he said, “Maximum
green. Maximum green.” I didn’t know what it meant. He was so hip and cool that
I never knew what he was saying, but he loved the whole idea that Sidney was
the smartest person in the picture. So, he just threw himself into that song.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">AC: John
Williams won his first of five Academy awards for </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">your
1971 blockbuster <i>Fiddler on the Roof</i>. That was based on the Jerry Bock and
Sheldon Harnick Broadway hit musical. What was your experience like
collaborating with Williams?<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Jewison:
Oh, gosh. John was a delight to work with. I mean, he’s done so many pictures
with Steven Spielberg; I was very lucky to get him. He came to London. I shot it
in Europe, and I had moved to London and John came over and spent the next year
working with us.</span><br />
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkVL32iSo0hG-7Rgg5quoSiTthHt52Evx_o_-Yf1q98yG4lbc1kYr6hC6CiO8_rLZMT_4D3pNEFNxG9BlMKaYaNyjzv2oHMjCpaQktFSIxCswYRQqBXa6QlTFr92qlCbz5m66K4jdYX2E/s1600/Fiddler-on-the-roof+b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="802" data-original-width="1023" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkVL32iSo0hG-7Rgg5quoSiTthHt52Evx_o_-Yf1q98yG4lbc1kYr6hC6CiO8_rLZMT_4D3pNEFNxG9BlMKaYaNyjzv2oHMjCpaQktFSIxCswYRQqBXa6QlTFr92qlCbz5m66K4jdYX2E/s640/Fiddler-on-the-roof+b.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div>
<span style="background: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">AC: A whole year? <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Jewison:
I was working at Pinewood Studios in London staging the musical numbers before
I went to Yugoslavia to make the film, because when you make a musical
everything has to be recorded before you go. I was building the sets and I knew
what I was going to do with each song, essentially. John would come and watch
the rehearsals so that he could score, do the arrangements that would fit the
scene and the little bits of dance I put in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">John
was unbelievable. He was very excited I had Isaac Stern, the best fiddle player
in the world, to do all the violin parts for the fiddler. John Williams was in
such awe of Isaac he said, “Could I wrote a cadenza at the whole beginning of
the film before the overture since we have Isaac Stern?” I said, “Be my guest.”
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We put it at the beginning of the
picture. He was so excited to write the piece based on the <i>Fiddler</i> theme for
Isaac.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">AC: You used one of my
favorite Dean Martin songs</span></b><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">–<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“That’s Amore” (by Harry
Warren and lyricist Jack Brooks) – as the pivotal song in 1987’s <i>Moonstruck</i>.
How did you choose the Oscar-nominated song (which was introduced in the 1953
Martin and Jerry Lewis comedy <i>The Caddy)</i>? Did screenwriter John Patrick Shanley
include it in the script?<o:p></o:p></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Jewison:
No. It wasn’t in the script. The script had a different title and everything
else because John Patrick Shanley essentially is a playwright. So, he hadn’t really
done that many movies. We started from scratch. I had him up to my farm in
Canada and we sat there and put it together, the whole plot line and the whole
film. He went away and wrote it.</span><br />
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5HjtQ0MWM-kJmMEkSt0drFGlu7Gt30iO2N6rYFuT-hy8RXNSB_08DdJISBT0_5cj0WpOw-vE2yyZKPvhaCa4Oi5tvfjQtUCpdh8R7PtaHccEwtbEaMhHJiPFEBuzwpiQ4o4BRvGQWKoQ/s1600/Moonstruck+e.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="999" data-original-width="718" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5HjtQ0MWM-kJmMEkSt0drFGlu7Gt30iO2N6rYFuT-hy8RXNSB_08DdJISBT0_5cj0WpOw-vE2yyZKPvhaCa4Oi5tvfjQtUCpdh8R7PtaHccEwtbEaMhHJiPFEBuzwpiQ4o4BRvGQWKoQ/s640/Moonstruck+e.jpg" width="458" /></a></span></div>
<span style="background: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I
had an original opening that was built around the orchestra tuning up at
Lincoln Center for the opera. I was recording the New York Philharmonic tuning
up and then I realized the opera I had chosen, <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><i>La Bohème</i>, </span>didn’t have a big overture. I was talking to my editor
one day and said, “We’ve got to find a song that would fit the storyline I could
lay over the whole opening.” We tried two or three different Italian songs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Then
one day he called me and said, “I think I’ve got it: ‘When you’re hit in the
eye with a big pizza pie.’” I said, “That’s the worst Idea I’ve ever heard.
That sounds so corny.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">He
said, “Listen to this recording.” He had the Dean Martin recording and he laid
it over the opening of the film. I was blown away. It just worked perfectly. I
remember calling Dean Martin to get permission to use it. I told him a little
bit about the film and said, “I tell you, it would just please me to no end to
have you as part of the film. I remember how gracious you were with Frank and
Judy years ago when we did the special together.” He gave me permission. It was
one of those things when you look for a piece of music to open a film and it just
falls in place so perfectly.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><em>Veteran journalist Susan King wrote about entertainment at the </em><span style="line-height: 18.2px;">Los Angeles Times</span><i style="line-height: 18.2px;"> for 26 years (January 1990 - March 2016), specializing in <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/classichollywood/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">classic Hollywood stories</a>. She also wrote about independent, foreign and studio movies and occasionally TV and theater stories. She received her master's degree in film history and criticism at USC. After working 10 years at the </i><span style="line-height: 18.2px;">L.A. Herald Examiner</span><i style="line-height: 18.2px;">, she moved to the </i></span><a href="http://www.latimes.com/la-bio-susan-king-staff.html" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; line-height: 18.2px; text-decoration-line: none;">Los Angeles Times</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i style="line-height: 18.2px;">.</i></span>American Cinemathequehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15291044638493392837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762846565812984815.post-45537011651463393662019-01-25T13:04:00.000-08:002019-01-25T13:04:43.022-08:00YORGOS LANTHIMOS AND COMMON DISCUSS THEIR "FAVOURITE" THINGS AT THE AERO, by Judith Resell<i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Favourite is nominated for 10 Academy Awards this year: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress (x2), Best Original Screenplay, Best Costume Design, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, and Best Film Editing.</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Yorgos Lanthimos’ films are always unique, so of course his Q&A at the Aero Theatre on January 7, 2018, was one of a kind: he was interviewed by musician and actor Common! Common loved Lanthimos’ film <i>The Favourite</i> (2018) and wanted the chance to speak with the filmmaker.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Common kicked off the discussion with a question about how the director handled the film’s 18th century setting. “It felt modern in its own way, but you didn’t lose the period. How did you accomplish that?” Common asked Lanthimos of the film.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“We found different ways throughout the process to infuse the film with modern sensibilities,” replied Lanthimos. He explained how these modern touches were woven into different layers of the film; in the script, for instance, Lanthimos and screenwriters Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara looked for language that felt contemporary. In the costume design, Sandy Powell used fabrics like leather and plastic. The music and choreography also had modern qualities. Lanthimos emphasized the importance of the right balance in these layers so as not to take viewers out of the period of the film.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“A lot of things in our society are the same as during the period of the film,” Common noted.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“The interesting thing,” said Lanthimos, “is the fact that the way we look, live and behave, etc. is different — but the essentials of how people feel and relate to each other rarely change.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“Sometimes I see a period film and I feel automatically stuffy, but I didn’t feel that with <i>The Favourite</i>,” Common continued.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“I have a previous body of work, so people will have the understanding that I will not do a standard period piece,” Lanthimos said with a smile.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Common described the film as “unique, beautiful and powerful” and asked Lanthimos about the “voice and energy” communicated by the film.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Lanthimos responded that he was immediately drawn to the stories of each of the three powerful women, and that he was curious about how much individuals can affect the lives of others. He immediately wanted to do a film with women as protagonists, he said.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“You show the wholeness of those women,” observed Common.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“We tried to make these characters as complex as possible — so many shades,” said Lanthimos.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Common and Lanthimos went on to discuss the tone of the film in further depth.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“You are able to have really dramatic scenes, but you have humor, laughter, emotions,” Common said. I felt with the characters. When you are in a strong dramatic scene, you’re still extracting the humor — how?” Common asked.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“Most of the time, I let the actors do their thing,” explained Lanthimos.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Common pointed out that Lanthimos had worked with both Olivia Colman and Rachel Weisz on previous films. “When did Emma Stone come into the picture?” he asked.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Lanthimos said he contacted Stone a few years ago, and found her “smart, funny and eager to do new things. I felt very confident about her,” he said. The only remaining question for the director was whether she could do an English accent. Lanthimos said Stone did a couple of sessions with a dialect coach, and the coach assured Lanthimos that she was very confident that Stone could learn the accent. “It also helped that everyone around her in the film was British,” Lanthimos added. “The British didn’t come down on her, so you know it was pretty good,” Common said.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Common kept the conversation flowing with a comment about the film’s ambiguity.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“I love it that you expect your audience to try and figure things out for themselves. You don’t give all the answers,” Common said.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“You need to draw your own conclusions. I just raise questions,” Lanthimos agreed. “Conflict and confirmation, amongst love and other goals and feelings, is life.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“Did you use music while you created the film?” the musician then asked.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“During the editing process is the time I like to really research music and pick what I want to use,” the filmmaker replied. He said he listens to music when he reads and sometimes uses it on set. “At first I had a lot of trouble using music,” Lanthimos confessed, adding that he prefers to use music that becomes an ingredient in a scene that might contradict and complicate what’s onscreen.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Common asked about the last scene and about the film’s use of rabbits. “Did Queen Anne have them?” he asked.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Lanthimos said there is no evidence she did. He used them as a way to visualize clearly her loss of seventeen children without being maudlin. “I added the thousands of rabbits in the last scene in the editing room.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Next, Common asked Lanthimos about the lighting challenges the crew faced making the film.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“I like it rougher and real and not so polished,” replied Lanthimos, explaining that he enjoys shooting with natural light in outdoor scenes so he can work with the actors in a freer way without setting up any lighting rigs. He added that shooting in historic locations was a specific challenge in making the film, as caretakers watched the crew to make sure that candles didn’t drip on furniture, that equipment didn’t damage tapestries, and other similar concerns.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Common wrapped up the discussion with a round of rapid-fire questions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“Since it’s a movie about favorites, what are some of your favorites?” Common asked.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“Favorite food?”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“That’s hard. There are thousands.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“Favorite movie when you were a child?”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“<i>Jaws</i>.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“Favorite city?”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“London.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“Favorite musical artist?” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“Bach.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“But who is your favorite musical artist?” Lanthimos asked Common.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Common replied without hesitation: “Stevie Wonder.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Judith Resell is a volunteer for the American Cinematheque.</i></span>American Cinemathequehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15291044638493392837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762846565812984815.post-7608119879142291412019-01-23T13:24:00.000-08:002019-01-23T13:24:12.389-08:00DAMIEN CHAZELLE, CLAIRE FOY, AND RYAN GOSLING AT THE AERO, by Judith Resell<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“I knew so little about him. When I read the book, I couldn’t believe what an extraordinary life he led,” Ryan Gosling said of Neil Armstrong, the man he portrays in the Oscar-nominated <i>First Man </i>(2018). Director Damien Chazelle wanted to capture “what it actually took to get them to the moon: the deaths, the costs, the danger, the physicality of it—the brute toll it took physically and emotionally.” Both men appeared with Claire Foy at a Q&A after the movie screened at the Aero Theatre on <a href="http://americancinemathequecalendar.com/content/first-man-0" target="_blank">January 8, 2019</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Foy commented that she thought of Armstrong as a “man’s man” until she got the part of Armstrong’s wife Janet and experienced the love she felt for Neil as a husband and father. Neil and Janet suffer the loss of their young daughter in the movie and then go on to raise two boys together. “At some point you create a fictionalized version of Janet,” Foy explained. She described her performance as Janet as focusing on a feeling of “betrayed” in the marriage, because Neil was gone so much and she was left on her own. “That wasn’t what she signed on for,” concluded Foy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Chazelle read the book <i>First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong </i>by James R. Hansen and began thinking about the movie during a point in the development of <i>La La Land </i>(2016) where it looked like the musical might not get made. Chazelle and Gosling first met to discuss <i>First Man </i>— and then Gosling said to Chazelle, “I hear you have a musical.” It seemed like an incredible opportunity to Gosling. “First I’ll make a musical and then I’ll go to the moon! It all happened at craft services,” he joked.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Gosling said he and the creative team met Janet Armstrong just before she passed away last June. He also shared that they had visited the farm where Neil grew up and spoke to people who knew him. Gosling said he was grateful for “an incredible sharing of small, personal details on the part of people who cared about [Neil.] That was an inspiration to us.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Chazelle added that they also visited NASA, both the Cape Canaveral and Houston facilities. “I did a bit of spinning and shaking,” Gosling joked, adding, “It was pretty overwhelming to tour these facilities and see what they are working on now.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“The more we learned, the more we became aware of what these people did and the more we were in awe of them,” Chazelle observed. He credits Gosling for “honing in on what the movie was about,” and praised Foy for her ability to “excavate the intimate, smaller moments that history washes away.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Asked how he was able to capture these intimate moments, Gosling said, “You just work with Claire Foy.” He recalled the relaxed atmosphere on set when he was working with Foy and the young actors playing the Armstrong children. “You couldn’t write that,” he noted. “What a beautiful way to work.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Foy explained that those scenes didn’t feel like acting. “People are afraid of acting,” she said. “It’s about really paying attention,” she concluded -- and being ready to appear on camera at any time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“It’s two films, in a way,” said Chazelle, illustrating the contrast between the broad scope of the space missions and the intimacy of the family's saga. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Chazelle articulated that his challenge was to get the tone of the camerawork to match that of the characters. He used hand-held cameras and shot on 16mm to get a casual look for the family's story, and then ramped up the production value for the polished grandeur of the space storyline.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Asked what was the most difficult aspect of this performance for him, Gosling replied that he felt a strong sense of responsibility to the family and friends of the Armstrongs. “They trusted us,” he said.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A key moment in the moon-landing scene grew from a suggestion from Neil’s sister, Chazelle shared: Armstrong's time on the moon included a 10-minute period during which his actions were unkown. He never spoke about it, but his sister said she liked to think he did something to memorialize the daughter he and Janet lost just before he joined NASA. That gesture ends up serving as the emotional climax of <i>First Man, </i>linking the two stories Chazelle is telling.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Chazelle screened many documentary films for his cast and crew while making <i>First Man</i>. He and his colleagues watched documentaries about the event itself like <i>For All Mankind </i>(1989) and <i>Footprints on the Moon </i>(1969) with actual footage of the lunar landing and moonwalk, of course, but also documentaries about the era. “[We watched] things that helped give us some feel of America at that time -- not the America of the coasts, but more middle-class, middle America,” Chazelle explained.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">One audience member asked Chazelle whether a common thread connected his directorial efforts. “I like to tap into the headspace of people who are locked into some goal. It’s almost a MacGuffin that lets you see what makes the person tick,” Chazelle responded.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“I love directing film,” Chazelle concluded. “It’s real.”</span><br />
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<i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Judith Resell is a volunteer for the American Cinematheque.</span></i>American Cinemathequehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15291044638493392837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762846565812984815.post-37353433059584459392019-01-21T20:46:00.000-08:002019-01-22T10:32:48.541-08:00REMEMBERING SAMUEL FULLER, JOHN FORD, AND MARVIN PAIGE WITH CONSTANCE TOWERS, by Susan King<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Marvin Paige (1927-2013) was a legendary casting director who possessed the most extraordinary Rolodex of phone numbers of leading players during the golden age of cinema - akin to the Holy Grail. And he was a great friend of the American Cinematheque, who was able to bring many of these stars to events at the Egyptian and Aero Theatres. Many classic Hollywood actors were indebted to him for keeping them working in the 1970s and '80s on <i>General Hospital</i>, which he cast.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Every year since his death, the Cinematheque and Don Malcolm’s MidCentury Productions have presented one of Paige’s favorite films to honor the week of his birthday. This year, the Egyptian is screening the deliciously entertaining 1964 Sam Fuller drama <i>The Naked Kiss</i>, starring Constance Towers in an iconic performance as a prostitute who wants to get out of the world’s oldest profession and moves to a seemingly perfect small town to reboot her life. But she soon discovers that the little town is not quite as idyllic as it seems.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Towers' career also included stage musicals like <i>Carousel</i> and <i>The King and I </i>(opposite Yul Brynner) and she was married to actor/U.S. ambassador John Gavin for over four decades until his death last year. She will be interviewed by Foster Hirsch at the Egyptian screening on Jan. 27.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The delightful, vibrant 85-year-old actress recently chatted over the phone about working with Fuller, Ford, and Brynner. </span><br />
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Susan King:</b> <i>The Naked Kiss</i> was one of Marvin Paige’s favorite films. He was quite the character. Did you know him?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Constance Towers:</b> He was a character! I knew him for years. My husband and I both knew him. He knew everybody.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>King</b>: The opening sequence of <i>The Naked Kiss</i> is jolting, with your character beating your pimp with your shoe. I had read somewhere that you and the actor had cameras attached to your chest.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Towers:</b> Well, the cameraman had the camera attached. It was handheld. That was the wonderful thing about Sam Fuller: he had the courage and the imagination to be ahead of the curve. When he did that, nobody was doing that. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>King:</b> The legendary Stanley Cortez - brother of actor Ricardo -- was the DP on the film.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Towers:</b> He was one of the best; I was so lucky to have him. He had an eye for a lady’s face, and he knew how to light it. He knew how to be soft. You just could hand yourself over to him with total trust and never be upset about the way you looked.</span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>King:</b> I’ve read conflicting reports that when your pimp rips off your wig and we discover you’re bald that you actually had shaved your head. Other stories say you were wearing a bald cap.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Towers:</b> I didn’t shave my head. I think there I would have drawn the line. But I was so thrilled to be working with Sammy and to have a chance to do these innovative things that he would come up with that I don’t know. If he had said, "Shave your head," I might have done it. </span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>King:</b> The two films you made with Fuller –- <i>Shock Corridor</i> and <i>The Naked Kiss -</i>- you were definitely cast against type.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Towers:</b> Sammy did that. He would look for people that allowed him to go against type.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>King:</b> Was it his scripts that convinced you to do these films?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Towers:</b> It was more than the scripts. It was Sammy -- because when you met Sam Fuller, you met a man who was so enthusiastic, so kind of childlike, uninhibited totally. He said exciting things. You knew that if you were going to work with him, which every actor wanted to do, it was going to be an experience. Certainly, it was a broadening experience for me, acting-wise. He worked very closely with the actor and worked very simply.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>King:</b> Did you have rehearsals, or did he talk with each actor individually about a scene?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Towers:</b> He talked to you. He never embarrassed somebody openly by saying, "Why did you do that?" You would read about other directors who would embarrass an actor on set and took delight in doing that sadistically. Sammy was very much a friend of the actor. He was always pressed, because he was on a low budget and had to get it in on time, so he was restricted. But that pressure never bled over into his dealing with the actor. He always had time and patience and he got exactly what he wanted. He didn’t shoot scenes over very often.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It was his enthusiasm that was so infectious and was very seductive. Gene Evans and I were sitting at his memorial next to each other. We both looked at each other and he said "Did you have any idea that these films would be so iconic and would last the way they have?" We were both marveling at the fact that it was Sammy who talked us into doing these particular films.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>King:</b> I’m sure it was a much different experience for you working with John Ford -- who had a notorious mean streak -- on 1959’s <i>The Horse Soldiers</i> and 1960’s <i>Sergeant Rutledge</i>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Towers:</b> He treated me like I was on a pedestal, but I observed a lot of other [behavior]. John Wayne would take a lot from him and Pappy [Ford] knew when to push his buttons because he wanted the performance. So, he really knew how to get to Duke Wayne. He would just say a word or go off [on Wayne]. Once he turned to him -- it was a big dramatic scene in <i>The Horse Soldiers -- </i>he turned to him and said, "Well, I see you have been working with your son and taking some dramatic lessons" in front of the crew. That was a terrible thing to say to him. You could see he was visibly upset, but it played in the scene.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>King:</b> You played Anna opposite Yul Brynner on Broadway in 1977-78 and then on tour in <i>The King and I</i>. In fact, I saw you both in the show at the Pantages. He had a reputation for being difficult. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Towers:</b> I had an experience with him that he had Miss Anna on a pedestal and never did anything that made me feel uncomfortable. I would go in before the show and meet him for tea at about 5 in the afternoon either in his dressing room or mine. We would talk about the performance the night before. That was my little opportunity to always treat him like the king and say, "Oh, by the way, do you remember that thing you wanted to try in rehearsal and we never got around to it?"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">He would say, "Oh, well tell me about it." It was something I had thought of the night before. I would tell him it was his idea and he would say, "Oh, wonderful. Let’s try that." He was wonderful. </span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Constance Towers will be at the Egyptian Theatre to speak in further detail about her career on Sunday, January 27 for a 6:30 PM showing of THE NAKED KISS and a reception for all ticket buyers. Details can be found <a href="http://www.americancinemathequecalendar.com/content/the-naked-kiss-0" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></i><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><em>Veteran journalist Susan King wrote about entertainment at the </em><span style="line-height: 18.2px;">Los Angeles Times</span><i style="line-height: 18.2px;"> for 26 years (January 1990 - March 2016), specializing in <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/classichollywood/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">classic Hollywood stories</a>. She also wrote about independent, foreign and studio movies and occasionally TV and theater stories. She received her master's degree in film history and criticism at USC. After working 10 years at the </i><span style="line-height: 18.2px;">L.A. Herald Examiner</span><i style="line-height: 18.2px;">, she moved to the </i></span><a href="http://www.latimes.com/la-bio-susan-king-staff.html" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; line-height: 18.2px; text-decoration-line: none;">Los Angeles Times</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i style="line-height: 18.2px;">.</i></span>American Cinemathequehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15291044638493392837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762846565812984815.post-35375769279043306142018-12-21T16:23:00.002-08:002018-12-21T16:23:54.935-08:00A TEAM IN PASSIONATE ACTION: RUTH GORDON AND GARSON KANIN, by Rosanne Welch<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>On <a href="http://americancinemathequecalendar.com/content/adams-rib-0" target="_blank">Saturday, January 12</a>, the Egyptian Theatre will host a screening of the Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy classic </i>Adam's Rib. <i>After the film, various contributors to the book </i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/When-Women-Wrote-Hollywood-Screenwriters-dp-1476668876/dp/1476668876/ref=mt_paperback" target="_blank">When Women Wrote Hollywood: Essays on Female Screenwriters in the Early Film Industry</a> <i>will appear in person for a signing. Below is an excerpted essay from the book by Rosanne Welch that explores the screenwriting team of Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">AMANDA</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Listen Adam. I know that deep down you agree with me with all I believe and want and hope for. </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We couldn’t be so close if you didn’t. If I didn’t feel you did.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">—<i>Adam’s Rib</i> by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">From the start Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin had a writing career like few other writers in the Hollywood of the 1940s and 1950s. Their career earned them praise as “probably the greatest pure screenwriting collaboration in all Hollywood history." They wrote all four of their films as original screenplays on speculation, not under the auspices of a particular studio producer, and the same personal friend, George Cukor, directed all four films. This resulted in the fact that none of their films underwent major studio rewrites by other writers. Gordon and Kanin were involved in the production of each film beginning in pre-production and all the way through filming and post- production periods; a privilege not granted to many screenwriters then or now.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In the introduction to his interview with Kanin in 1991, Patrick McGilligan claims, "The films the Kanins wrote together signaled, to a large extent, the high tide of American sophisticated comedy. No films were (are) more admired by other Hollywood comedy writers—few films play as well today, without embarrassing concessions to yesteryear’s artificialities.” His words are backed up by the fact that three of the four films—<i>A Double Life</i> (1947), <i>Adam’s Rib</i> (1949), and <i>Pat and Mike</i> (1952)—earned Academy Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay. Only one can be considered in the genre of traditional boy- =meets-girl romantic comedy (<i>Pat and Mike</i>) while one (<i>A Double Life</i>), fills the genre of Broadway- based film in that it concerns the life of an actor overwhelmed by his role as Othello. Two of the four films delve deeply into the study of marriage, <i>Adam’s Rib</i> and <i>The Marrying Kind</i> (1952). One a comedy, one a drama, yet both deal with the gender politics of the day. The diversity of the films in tone and genre shows that the Gordon/Kanins were given rare privileges by the studio system in a period when most Hollywood artists—writers, directors, and actors—were typecast in one genre or another for the duration of their careers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Gordon/Kanin scripts also helped invent Katharine Hepburn’s popular culture reputation for female empowerment. Upon Gordon’s death in 1985, <i>New York Times</i> writer Mel Gussow wrote in his appreciation of her work: “Every time you enjoy Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn sparring in <i>Adam’s Rib</i> and <i>Pat and Mike</i>, remember who created their characters and wrote their witty dialogue. Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin’s contribution to the symbiosis of the Tracy-Hepburn team is inestimable." Biographers and critics of Hepburn often claimed that she based her independent women persona and characters on a combination of her mother and of Eleanor Roosevelt. I contend that the Hepburn was also, even if subconsciously, basing the women in her Tracy/Hepburn films on Ruth Gordon. As actress and writer Elaine May once observed to Kanin about his wife, “She really is about the only person who gives you the feeling that maybe it could be a woman’s world." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Gordon and Kanin clearly had a feminist agenda at work in their films, one that focuses on the need for both members of a marriage to understand the inherent equality of the sexes and to respect the equal intellectual capacity of wives. When summarizing Kanin’s screenwriting career, author Richard Corliss says “Because of Kanin’s close collaboration with his wife on scripts written for another, very close couple - [Spencer] Tracy and Katharine Hepburn - the ‘marriages’ portrayed in <i>Adam's Rib</i> and <i>Pat and Mike </i>have a sense of natural familiarity and mutual respect rare in Hollywood domestic comedies.” In fact, the Gordon/Kanin marriage proved so intrinsic to the work and the work to the marriage that once the work infringed on the marriage, the couple chose to end the working partnership in order to save the marital partnership. Decisiveness and determination seemed to be in their individual DNA from the beginning of their separate careers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Gordon and Kanin wrote what became <i>Adam’s Rib</i> with their friends Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in mind to play the married lawyers. The male lawyer, Adam, is assigned by his firm to prosecute a woman for shooting at her philandering husband as the female lawyer, Amanda, takes up the defense of the accused shooter. Their original title <i>Man and Wife</i> highlighted the battle of the sexes theme of the story and it was purchased by MGM, not the usual way business was done in the late forties/early fifties. Studio executives thought the title too risqué, hence the change, but they loved the script. Studio producer Lawrence Weingarten said in an interview later in life, “It was the first time in thirty years that the studio had seen a screenplay that was ready to shoot immediately, without changes." Stanley Cavell in <i>Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage</i> believes the equality represented in the fictional marriage was essential to why the film worked.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The sense of participation or partnership in their intimacy is essential to the way the film works, because it is exactly this intimacy that the woman puts on trial in taking her marriage to court. We will not understand her bravery (nor, hence, the man’s) unless we know that for her their intimacy, their privacy, their home at home, is almost everything.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Orit Kamir notes the gender transcendence in the piece when he writes, "The ancient notion of 'couple' takes on a new dimension when, in the context of Hollywood’s conventions, the viewer is invited to identify with a symbiotic pair of male-female heroes. Gender roles - both on and off screen - are transcended when the man-woman couple is posed as the fundamental unity reconciling contradictory myths."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Discussing which films he chose to analyze for his book on great romantic comedies, Kimmel calls <i>Adam’s Rib</i> “arguably the best of the Spencer Tracy / Katharine Hepburn matchups,” where, as married lawyers on opposing sides of a case, the question of sexism (a word not yet coined) could be addressed within in the conventions of a traditional “battle of the sexes." Later, in a chapter dedicated to the film, Kimmel reiterates that the film "never became dated because the argument put forth by Hepburn’s character still exists. Amanda’s idea that there ought not to be a double standard for men and women is born of not only Hepburn’s (and Ruth Gordon’s) independence and feistiness, but the dawning of a new attitude about women’s roles after they had contributed so greatly to the recent war effort…. Amanda’s case that women should be subjected to the same expectations as men anticipates the debates that would take place in the 1960s and 1970s."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Finally, Kimmel insists the major reason this particular battle of the sexes stays contemporary is because “this is a couple deeply in love, and part of their fun comes from their playful contention.” Several critics and film historians claim that the natural charisma between Hepburn and Tracy helped make the films they made together, including Gordon and Kanin films, so successful, and this certainly contributed. Kanin himself contributed to that idea in his own biography of the couple, <i>Tracy and Hepburn: an Intimate Memoir</i> (1970). The next collaborator considered in discussions of <i>Adam’s Rib</i> has generally been George Cukor, who directed all four of the original Gordon/Kanin screenplays and ensured the couple’s continued control over content. The trio shared an equal creative relationship. According to Cukor:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">"It was a very happy and very equal collaboration. Ruth and Garson worked very closely together—no question of a writer trying to get his wife a job. Garson was a brilliant playwright and screenwriter and had the enormous advantage of knowing his métier very well—he’d already directed some successful comedies. Many of the lovely directorial touches in our films together were in the script."</span>American Cinemathequehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15291044638493392837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762846565812984815.post-38510882216497275672018-12-17T21:40:00.001-08:002018-12-17T21:40:57.239-08:00ALEXANDRA BYRNE'S COSTUMING SECRETS, by Judith Resell<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“I designed 2,000 costumes!” exclaimed Alexandra Byrne as she discussed her work for <i>Mary Queen of Scots</i> after a screening of the film at the Aero Theatre on December 5, 2018. Byrne won an Oscar for her work on <i>Elizabeth: The Golden Age</i> (2007) and designed the costumes for <i>Elizabeth </i>(1998) as well. Byrne explained that she uses costumes to tell the contrasting stories of the queen so close to her heart - Elizabeth - and Queen Mary of Scotland.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“The nugget of the film is when the two queens meet,” Byrne said. Although the queens have been bitter rivals, in this scene Byrne uses color to forge a link between the two, with Elizabeth dressed in burnt orange to match the rust of Mary’s armor.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Married to the French sovereign, Saoirse Ronan’s Mary spent much of her life in a decadent, sophisticated French court before arriving on the rugged shores of Scotland to claim the Scottish crown. Beautiful and charismatic, Mary wears bright fabrics when she is doing well, especially the blue of the Madonna beloved in Mary’s Catholic faith. Her fortunes change, however, when her husband is assassinated and she is forced to marry and be intimate with an advisor who betrayed her; a grotesque costume combines the black of mourning from the former with the bridal white of the latter, unified by her sense of defeat. Then, in her dramatic death scene, Mary tears off a dark dress to reveal a scarlet garment beneath it, in order to be beheaded in the red of the Catholic martyrs. Byrne commented that she had to be careful in her use of red throughout the movie to preserve the strong visual impact of that scene.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">More measured in her use of power and better supported by the men around her, Margot Robbie’s Elizabeth begins the film in dresses that reflect her regal status, but shifts to wearing dark fabrics when smallpox so disfigures her face she can’t bear to be seen in public (the white make-up she wears for most of the 45 years of her reign is her effort to cover up her smallpox scars). She suffers a crisis of confidence over Mary, the famed beauty. Elizabeth chooses not to marry, fearing any potential suitors would be interested only in her title, and further empowers herself by using potential betrothal as a ploy. In the end, the victorious Elizabeth, a long-reigning monarch and still one of the most widely known queens in English history, dresses the part in jewel-encrusted, gold brocade and other elaborate gowns. She becomes the fully confident ruler.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“We speak the same language,” Byrne said of her collaboration with the film’s director, Josie Rourke. Both women have extensive theater backgrounds, with Rourke currently serving as the Artistic Director of the Donmar Warehouse Theater in London. “The storyboards are important,” Byrne continued, noting their usefulness for discussing story points that would impact costume choices, as well as a tool for the development of a single thematic idea for interpreting historical fashion. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Mary Queen of Scots</i> comes down to the question of how a woman can maintain power in a world of men. Given a theme with such contemporary resonance, Byrne sought to make the costumes relatable to current audiences. She commented that historical costumes can create distance between the characters and the audience and she wanted to avoid that. She chose to use a very contemporary fabric - denim - to dress her queens.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Byrne concluded with kudos to her hard-working team. “Without my team, it would all just be in my head,” she said. They worked so hard, they wore off their thumbprints!" said Byrne. The results of that hard work are a crucial part of the storytelling in <i>Mary Queen of Scots</i> and a useful lens through which to view the movie.</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Judith Resell is a volunteer for the American Cinematheque.</span></i>American Cinemathequehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15291044638493392837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762846565812984815.post-38680908843412074012018-12-10T18:11:00.000-08:002018-12-10T18:11:49.632-08:00'TIS THE SEASON FOR CHRISTMAS MOVIES, by Susan King<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The holiday season is in full swing at the American Cinematheque with screenings at the Egyptian and Aero of such yuletide favorites as 1958’s <i>Auntie Mame</i> (co-presented with Outfest); 2003’s <i>Elf</i>; the beloved 1946 classic <i>It’s a Wonderful Life</i>; and such offbeat fare as 1992’s <i>Batman Returns</i> and 1984’s <i>Gremlins.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This season, film writer/historian Jeremy Arnold will be on hand at the Aero Theatre to present a series of holiday films. Besides introducing the programs, he will also sign copies of his new book, <i><a href="https://www.runningpress.com/titles/jeremy-arnold/turner-classic-movies-christmas-in-the-movies/9780762492480/" target="_blank">Turner Classic Movies: Christmas in the Movies</a></i>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">On <a href="http://americancinemathequecalendar.com/content/the-lion-in-winter-0" target="_blank">December 20</a>, Arnold will present the acclaimed drama <i>The Lion in Winter</i>, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary. Set in 1183, it stars Peter O’Toole as Henry II and Katharine Hepburn as his estranged wife Eleanor of Aquitaine reuniting for the holidays.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Arnold returns on <a href="http://americancinemathequecalendar.com/content/die-hard-trail-of-robin-hood" target="_blank">December 21</a> for a double bill of the 30th anniversary of the blockbuster action-flick<i> Die Hard</i>, starring Bruce Willis, and the 1950 rarity <i>The Trail of Robin Hood</i> starring Roy Rogers. The latter has been restored in 4K by Paramount Archives from the original 35mm Trucolor negatives and positive separations.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And on <a href="http://americancinemathequecalendar.com/content/meet-me-in-st-louis-0" target="_blank">December 22</a>, he’ll be presenting the most traditional of the quartet: Vincente Minnelli’s magical 1944 Technicolor musical <i><span id="goog_1322714657"></span>Meet Me in St. Louis<span id="goog_1322714658"></span></i>, starring Judy Garland, Tom Drake, and Margaret O’Brien, who won a juvenile Oscar for her endearing performance.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A Cinematheque correspondent recently chatted with Arnold about Christmas movies and what makes these four films important entries in the genre.</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What makes a film a Christmas movie?</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Jeremy Arnold:</b> It’s a movie in which Christmas or the holiday season plays a meaningful role in the story. It gives our experience of the story meaning. It’s just not the backdrop or a setting, but there’s some aspect of the season and that can encompass positives and negatives, highs and lows. It can enhance or heighten what the movies are about in the same way that we notice throughout the film. I shouldn’t say throughout the film because there are some movies like <i>Meet Me in St. Louis</i> where they get Christmas at the end.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Speaking of </i>Meet Me in St. Louis<i>, Judy Garland’s rendition of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” is such a dramatic high point in the film you forget the entire film isn’t about the holidays.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Jeremy Arnold</b>: I think it’s actually very appropriate that Christmas in that film does happen at the end, because it’s a movie about family and Christmas is the ultimate family time. It makes sense that as a story comes to the climax, that’s when Christmas comes in. I would also say having Judy Garland sing that song would be enough to make it a Christmas movie because it’s so iconic.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Meet Me in St. Louis<i> is the most traditional of the movies you are introducing at the Aero. It’s also the oldest -- it’s 74 years old now. Why is it still relevant to audiences today?</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Jeremy Arnold</b>: I think the themes of the film -- the idea of family togetherness, the wistfulness of the past and for an idealized type of family, the anxiety about the family moving and therefore breaking up and losing what it has - those things are relevant to families today. The intensity of the nostalgic view of the family in that film is something that I think we all crave at Christmastime especially.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Also, it’s just a beautifully crafted musical and one of the best musicals ever made. Vincente Minnelli was a genius. It was innovative in using the musical numbers to move the story along and not just stopping for a musical number. Minnelli put a lot of thought into that.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Meet Me in St. Louis<i> shows an idealized family, but the family in </i>The Lion in Winter<i> is completely maladjusted.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Jeremy Arnold</b>: <i>The Lion in Winter</i> I would say is relevant primarily because the cast is so renowned. Peter O’Toole and Katharine Hepburn were great. Katharine Hepburn, of course, is an American icon, a treasure. But also, the supporting cast. It’s Timothy Dalton and Anthony Hopkins' first feature. Anthony Hopkins said he had never been in front of a camera before.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Though it’s a period setting and a costume drama set in a castle in the 12th century, it’s still about a dysfunctional family gathering over Christmas. That is relatable to just about everybody. Everyone has a dysfunctional family to some degree. It’s just that when they say they want to kill each other, they don’t really mean it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>You have more dysfunctional family dynamics with </i>Die Hard<i>.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Jeremy Arnold</b>: It’s a Christmas movie because it begins as one of the most common types of Christmas films, which is some sort of dysfunctional family reuniting over the holidays and trying to work things out. That is what the movie is about until those terrorists enter the film and take over the building. The movie never lets go of those Christmas concerns and it reminds us throughout the dialogue and music and sound effects and various visual tropes that it’s still Christmas Eve and that the movie is still taking place in the world of Christmastime.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">That also helps give the film a lightness and a cheeriness. [Director] John McTiernan said that when he first saw the script for <i>Die Hard</i>, it was a very serious, violent, dark political action film. He wanted to lighten it up. He said he wanted to inject a joy into it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So, they changed the political terrorists into thieves. And who doesn’t like a good heist film? Now <i>Die Hard 2</i>, which is also set at Christmas, I don’t consider a Christmas film because there’s a brutality and unpleasantness to the violence in that film that is quite different from the first <i>Die Hard</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>After </i>Die Hard<i>, you are screening the Roy Rogers movie </i>The Trail of Robin Hood<i>. I’m sure that has something to do with the fact that Willis’ John McClane compares himself to Roy Rogers.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Jeremy Arnold</b>: He tells Alan Rickman that he always loved Roy Rogers because of those sequined shirts and he tells Al, the cop, to call him Roy. So, Roy Rogers is very present throughout “Die Hard” in that sense. So, what would be more perfect that seeing a real Roy Rogers Christmas movie?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Trail of Robin Hood<i> may be new to audiences.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Jeremy Arnold</b>: It’s a crazy, wacky story. It exists in its own universe like all Roy Rogers movies do. They look like period Westerns but they’re not because you see modern cars, kitchens and houses. Something about that makes it modern and timeless. It’s not a period film. It’s neither set in the period West nor really in 1950 America. It’s on some other plane altogether and somehow that keeps it constantly relevant. It’s floating around out there in some nondescript time and space and makes it easier to approach, I think.</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Does Rogers have a family in the film?</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Jeremy Arnold</b>: He doesn’t really have a family in the movie - not a blood family. But when all the other Republic movie stars ride to the rescue toward the end of the film, they do feel like one big family. So, it’s a bunch of real-life Republic Western movie stars all being a family in a Republic Western.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Bring your family or film posse out to see some classic and not-so-classic films at the Aero and Egyptian Theatres this month – <a href="http://www.americancinemathequecalendar.com/content/holiday-spirit-on-the-big-screen-4" target="_blank">click for details</a>!</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><em>Veteran journalist Susan King wrote about entertainment at the </em><span style="line-height: 18.2px;">Los Angeles Times</span><i style="line-height: 18.2px;"> for 26 years (January 1990 - March 2016), specializing in <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/classichollywood/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">classic Hollywood stories</a>. She also wrote about independent, foreign and studio movies and occasionally TV and theater stories. She received her master's degree in film history and criticism at USC. After working 10 years at the </i><span style="line-height: 18.2px;">L.A. Herald Examiner</span><i style="line-height: 18.2px;">, she moved to the </i></span><a href="http://www.latimes.com/la-bio-susan-king-staff.html" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; line-height: 18.2px; text-decoration-line: none;">Los Angeles Times</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><i style="line-height: 18.2px;">.</i></span>American Cinemathequehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15291044638493392837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7762846565812984815.post-1761845157696489172018-11-08T22:31:00.003-08:002018-11-21T15:53:13.938-08:00LUBITSCH, PICKFORD, AND THE MAKING OF ROSITA, by Cari Beauchamp<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The </span><a href="http://www.americancinemathequecalendar.com/" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #5d8000; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">American Cinematheque</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> re-opened the landmark 1922 Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood on December 4, 1998, following an extensive restoration and renovation of the historic movie palace. This December, the organization celebrates its 20th anniversary at the Egyptian Theatre, by screening a new digital restoration of the 1923 </span><a href="http://www.marypickford.org/" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #5d8000; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">Mary Pickford</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> film </span><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0014416/" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #5d8000; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">ROSITA, </a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">directed by Ernst Lubitsch. ROSITA will be accompanied by a live orchestra, directed by the renowned musicologist </span><a href="http://www.gilliananderson.it/" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #5d8000; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit;">Gillian Anderson</a></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><i>. Anderson reconstructed the film’s original score by working from a cue sheet preserved by the George Eastman Museum. This event marks her return to the Egyptian 20 years after she conducted on the night of the grand re-opening of the theatre.</i> </span><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In honor of the occasion, w</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">e are republishing a 2017 article by Cari Beauchamp that explores the making of </span></i>Rosita.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">To learn more about Mary Pickford click <a href="https://marypickford.org/" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></b></span></span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Museum of Modern Art, with cooperation from the Mary Pickford Foundation, has restored Ernst Lubitsch’s <i>Rosita</i> (1923), starring Mary Pickford, from the last known surviving nitrate print found at Gosfilmofond in Russia. The Pickford Foundation provided access to our 35mm elements and The Film Foundation and The Mayer Foundation also cooperated with MoMA on the restoration.</span></span><br />
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</i></span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Rosita</i> had its restoration premiere during a “pre-inaugural evening” before the Venice Film Festival on August 29, and it will be wonderful to have the film (and the original orchestral score they are recording for it) available to audiences again.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A variety of stories have grown up around </span><i style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Rosita</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> over the years; in fact, the Venice press release says, “The film was, by all accounts, a major critical and commercial success on its first release, but in later years Pickford turned against it, for reasons that still remain mysterious.” Actually, the story isn’t really “mysterious” at all, but is nuanced and a bit complicated, so this seems as good a time as any to revisit </span><i style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Rosita</i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> and Mary’s thinking about it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Before even getting to that, however, it is important to note that it was Mary Pickford who brought Ernst Lubitsch to America in the first place, and, in 1922, that was no small feat. World War I had just ended and Americans who had been inundated with anti-German films and urged to “Come and Hiss the Kaiser” were not in a forgiving mood. Mary herself had ended her 1918 film <i>Johanna Enlists</i> with the proviso, “Don’t come back til you’ve taken the Germ out of Germany.”</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Pickford had seen Lubitsch’s German films and was impressed. As she recalled in a 1958 interview with George Pratt, “I had already done the second <i>Tess of the Storm Country</i> and I wanted to do a grown-up role. I wanted to do an adult woman.” And she thought a director such as Lubitsch would have the “touch” to do that successfully.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjydZF6315Gk7QyTNC9rF8FEHApQ_BF0yKk_jPA25MGvpdqLJvijIubfeGAIxYdU83Y2GzxTNm2nD9BdpiszKxkmdT8_tJJq_lrU91PL9vdhyphenhyphenmkTXOaZB7CC76Rq_0Y9WitEhZMcukWyow/s1600/ROSITA_Poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="960" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjydZF6315Gk7QyTNC9rF8FEHApQ_BF0yKk_jPA25MGvpdqLJvijIubfeGAIxYdU83Y2GzxTNm2nD9BdpiszKxkmdT8_tJJq_lrU91PL9vdhyphenhyphenmkTXOaZB7CC76Rq_0Y9WitEhZMcukWyow/s640/ROSITA_Poster.jpg" width="426" /></a></div>
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</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But first she had to get the director to Hollywood, and the American Legion (among others) objected vociferously. Pickford recalled to Kevin Brownlow in 1974 that she was on stage when the head of the American Legion took to the podium to say: “I hear that the Son of the Kaiser is coming here. He doesn’t belong here, he is still our enemy. Why are they bringing German singers over here? Do we not have good enough singers here in the United States, without going to Germany?”</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Pickford’s response: “General. Since when has art had borderlines? Art is universal. And for my pictures, I will get the finest, no matter what country they come from. The war is over. And it’s very ill-bred and stupid for the general to stand up and talk like that. A German voice is God-given if it’s beautiful. Yes, I am bringing Mr. Lubitsch over here and I’m glad I can.”</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Pickford, who appreciated her power yet was careful about how she used it, had stood up for what she thought was right. Still, the woman who had put her career on hold to tour the country and sell millions of dollars in war bonds said she found herself being denounced as a traitor for ignoring our own directors in favor of the erstwhile enemy.</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Pickford also told amusing (in retrospect) tales of getting Lubitsch off the ocean liner and eventually to Hollywood safely and with a minimum of publicity. The plan had been for him to direct the film <i>Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall</i>. He had read the script in German and had agreed, but once in Hollywood, he decided he didn’t like the story and insisted on doing something else.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Lubitsch next suggested <i>Faust</i>, and in retrospect Mary said she wished she had done it, but before that got off the ground, Mary’s mother Charlotte asked the director about the story. According to Mary, the conversation when something like this:</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Lubitsch: “Yeah, she has a baby, she’s not married, so she strangles the baby”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Charlotte: “What? What was that?”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Lubitsch: “She has a baby, she’s not married, she strangles the baby”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Charlotte: “Not my daughter, no sir!”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As Mary summed it up, “And so I didn’t make Faust.” (Brownlow)</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Mary was always happiest when she was in preproduction, production or even post production. But since Lubitsch had arrived, she had been in none of these and was starting to get anxious. She had gone out on a limb to bring him to America and she wanted to get to work. Finally, they compromised on a story about a young Spanish maiden caught in court intrigue in the late 1880s, loosely based on a French opera. Eddie Knoblock wrote the script for the romantic drama and the art director, William Cameron Menzies, went to work recreating Seville, complete with a castle and cobbled streets, all on the Pickford Fairbanks lot on Santa Monica Boulevard.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOssOBzCh9BycKSAEopdYpaQbenZ-OH5bCahih_khUfCPzFnGpSJtFk6PQEBa669yngPe_482ASe72f-WCqfIFBvBqxeRrs7co1uo3RrVumr7Ik8cTYim6tqi7OhGSXU9MWx_RUb0tDCU/s1600/Rosita_1923.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="597" data-original-width="800" height="476" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOssOBzCh9BycKSAEopdYpaQbenZ-OH5bCahih_khUfCPzFnGpSJtFk6PQEBa669yngPe_482ASe72f-WCqfIFBvBqxeRrs7co1uo3RrVumr7Ik8cTYim6tqi7OhGSXU9MWx_RUb0tDCU/s640/Rosita_1923.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Initially, Mary was comfortable with the essence of her character, a strong-willed young woman with principles and a backbone, who supports herself and her family as a street singer. In fact, at first, that was the film’s working title: <i>The Street Singer</i>.</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Part of what Mary wasn’t comfortable with was the flirty nature that Lubitsch wanted her to exhibit. They were both very strong-willed people, set in their ways, and had more than their share of conflicts about the story and Mary’s performance, but Pickford said she was always careful to have those discussions in private.</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Mary told the story of how, early on, she and Lubitsch had a disagreement about the way the love story was developing and she visited him in his office:</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“Mr. Lubitsch, this is the first time you’ve met me, as the financial backer and the producer.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">He said “Vot is this?”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I said “I am telling you that I am the court of the last appeal.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">“Vot is this?”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I said “I’m putting up the money, I’m the star, I’m the one that’s known, and you are not going to have the last word.”</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Lubitsch was used to being in charge and having a star who was also the producer was a new and disconcerting experience for him. While Lubitsch’s command of English was still in its formative stages, Eddie Knoblock spoke excellent German and could be called on to clarify any misunderstandings.</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In later years, Pickford reflected on her experience being directed by Lubitsch in <i>Rosita</i>. “Of course, the director can be as much miscast as an actor,” Mary mused during her oral history for the Butler Library at Columbia. “For instance, take Lubitsch directing me. Now of course he understood Pola Negri or Gloria Swanson, that type of actress, but he didn’t understand me because I am purely Americana. I’m not European. Just as John Ford I don’t think could direct Negri.”</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The bottom line was while Lubitsch saw himself trying to get Pickford out of her comfort zone as an actress, she felt he was asking her to play a character she eventually found to be one-dimensional. Pickford tried to explain the give-and-take she experienced with Lubitsch to George Pratt. “Being a European, he liked to do naughty and suggestive things. He tried to be as moral as he knew how and I tried to be slightly naughty. And I have always thought,” she said with a laugh, “that the result was pretty terrible.”</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">She was speaking as an actress about her own performance, however, and when she put on her producer hat, she admired the film. She found “that the costuming, the décor and the sets are magnificent and so was the photography [by Charles Rosher].“ And then she added, “I just didn’t like myself as <i>Rosita</i> and I think it was my fault and not Lubitsch’s.”</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So Mary’s feelings aren’t so mysterious after all. And the current restoration of <i>Rosita</i> allows us to see the film ourselves – Pickford’s performance, Lubitsch’s direction, Rosher’s cinematography, Menzies’s sets and all the other aspects of this 95-year-old film, thanks to MoMA and all the artists, archivists and funders who made this possible.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i>Republished with permission of the Mary Pickford Foundation</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Photographs courtesy of:<o:p></o:p></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Joseph M. Yranski<o:p></o:p></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Bison Archives</i></span><br />
<i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences (Mary Pickford with Ernst Lubitsch photo)</span></i><br />
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</span> <span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><b>You can contribute <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/20-years-at-the-egyptian-theatre" target="_blank">here</a> to help fund this event. Tickets will be for sale on Fandango.</b></i></span>American Cinemathequehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15291044638493392837noreply@blogger.com