Film
Friday, January 18, 2013
Foreign Film Jean Rouch in Chicago: An interview with Judy Hoffman and Gordon Quinn of Kartemquin Films, part one
Posted by Ben Sachs on 01.18.13 at 03:01 PM
The Gene Siskel Film Center continues its Jean Rouch series this week with his African-shot "ethno-fictions" Moi, un Noir (playing with the short Les Maitres Fous, aka The Mad Masters) and The Lion Hunters. These mid-50s works are some of the most radical experiments ever conducted with the documentary form, and they served as a major influence on the directors of the French New Wave. Of course Rouch was and remains a source of inspiration for documentary filmmakers the world over; in celebration of the current Rouch series, I decided to stop by the offices of Chicago's own Kartemquin Films to discuss his role in the history of nonfiction filmmaking. I spoke with Kartemquin cofounder Gordon Quinn (whose early film Inquiring Nuns was inspired by Rouch's Chronicle of a Summer, which screened in the Siskel series last week) and longtime member Judy Hoffman, who briefly worked with Rouch in the 1970s. Our far-reaching conversation addressed everything from Rouch's biography—specifically his transition from ethnographer to filmmaker—to his influence on Kartemquin's output to developments in documentary theory between the 60s and the present. Below is the first part of our conversation; I'll post parts two and three next week.
Media Film Politics Can the torture scenes in Zero Dark Thirty be defended?
Posted by Michael Miner on 01.18.13 at 10:33 AM
Betrayal is in the air, and it's reflected in the Oscar nominations. Zero Dark Thirty made the list for best picture, but Kathryn Bigelow was passed over for best director. David Denby's New Yorker capsule puts the matter dispassionately and succinctly: "The filmmakers landed themselves in trouble by making the torture of a minor Al Qaeda member by the C.I.A. appear to yield a useful scrap of information—something that did not happen in the actual investigation. Trying to have it both ways, they claimed the authority of fact and the freedom of fiction at the same time. Still, it's a great movie."
A great movie whose expedient plotting is all on Bigelow. Mark Boal, who wrote the script, was nominated for best original screenplay.
In a statement defending herself and her movie, Bigelow calls herself a "lifelong pacifist" opposed to "inhumane treatment of any kind," and she wonders "if some of the sentiments alternately expressed about the film might be more appropriately directed at those who instituted and ordered these U.S. policies [of torture], as opposed to a motion picture that brings the story to the screen. Those of us who work in the arts know that depiction is not endorsement."
Opening Film A neglected Chicago filmmaker gets his due, and the rest of this week's screenings
Posted by Ben Sachs on 01.18.13 at 07:27 AM
In this week's issue, Drew Hunt writes at length about the 1958 western Gunman's Walk and its director, the underrated B-movie maverick (and Chicago native) Phil Karlson. Hunt explores the themes of antiracism and antiviolence in Karlson's 50s films, arguing that the filmmaker should be considered, pace Andrew Sarris, a subject for further research. Gunman's Walk screens on Monday at 7:30 PM at the Portage theater; it's just one of many great revivals in town this week. The embarrassment of riches includes the continuing Jean Rouch retrospective at the Gene Siskel Film Center (up this Sunday afternoon: Moi, un Noir and The Lion Hunters), All About Eve at the Music Box on Saturday and Sunday morning, and author Walter Mosley introducing the film adaptation of his Devil in a Blue Dress at the Cultural Center tonight at 7 PM. And it's a hell of a week at Doc Films, with the Coen brothers' Raising Arizona on Friday, David Cronenberg's Cosmopolis on Saturday and Sunday, Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past on Monday, Louis Malle's Zazie in the Metro on Tuesday, Wong Kar-wai's Days of Being Wild on Wednesday, and Alfred Hitchcock's The Trouble With Harry on Thursday.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Opening Film Arnold Schwarzenegger's cartoonish comeback, by way of South Korea
Posted by Ben Sachs on 01.17.13 at 06:47 AM
Making his Hollywood debut, South Korean director Kim Jee-woon (I Saw the Devil, The Good, the Bad, the Weird) has good fun with such American iconography as the Arizona desert, oversize guns, and Arnold Schwarzenegger; but the film still feels like a South Korean action comedy in its funky compositions and fluid camerawork, which privilege spatial coherence over moment-to-moment sensation. The story suggests a Looney Tunes reworking of Howard Hawks's Rio Bravo, with Schwarzenegger playing a small-town sheriff forced to stop a violent drug cartel on its way to the Mexican border. This is enjoyable, if also rather thin; for all his craftsmanship and comic energy, Kim never endows the familiar material with any thematic urgency or personal investment. The lively supporting cast includes Forest Whitaker, Johnny Knoxville, and Luis Guzman. This opens commercially tomorrow.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Whoa Film James Ransone in Broken City: Barely onscreen and barely restrained
Posted by Ben Sachs on 01.16.13 at 03:36 PM
The Mark Wahlberg vehicle Broken City, which opens Friday, is a solid, old-fashioned detective movie. Barring a speech about social equality for gay couples and some superfluous helicopter shots, the film feels a lot like a mid-40s noir programmer. Wahlberg's flawed private investigator (a former police detective trying to earn his keep), the casual intimations of political corruption, director Allen Hughes's gritty-but-affectionate portraits of marginalized neighborhood communities: all these qualities agreeably recall a second-tier Robert Siodmak effort like Cry of the City (1948) or The File on Thelma Jordan (1950). And like a good old noir programmer, the movie really comes to life when the character actors in the supporting cast get to strut their stuff. The most memorable bits belong to Barry Pepper as a JFK-worshipping mayoral candidate, Jeffrey Wright as a hard-ass police commissioner (his soft bald cranium hinting at a fascinating secret life), and, in far too brief an appearance, James Ransone as a wealthy developer's bratty son.
Whoa Media Film Music Life Is but a Dream: Beyonce as Deleuze
Posted by Drew Hunt on 01.16.13 at 02:32 PM
Earlier this week HBO released the trailer for pop singer Beyonce's upcoming directorial debut, Life Is but a Dream, a documentary about her life and career. While the release of a new movie trailer isn't generally something to get excited about, this particular trailer represents the arrival of a film that's a complete product of its day and age—something unique to an era in which daily life is slowly but surely moving away from a physical reality and closer toward a digital, image-based reality.
As detailed in a recent interview with GQ, Beyonce appears hell-bent on documenting every single moment of her waking life. Stored in what writer Amy Wallace calls the "official Beyoncé archive," a "temperature-controlled digital-storage facility," is "virtually every existing photograph of her . . . every interview she's ever done; every video of every show she's ever performed; every diary entry she's ever recorded while looking into the unblinking eye of her laptop." The majority of the film is purportedly culled from this archive, which is also said to include "thousands of hours of private footage, compiled by a 'visual director' Beyonce employs who has shot practically her every waking moment, up to sixteen hours a day, since 2005."
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Foreign On Video Film Further discoveries in the criminal files of Claude Sautet
Posted by Ben Sachs on 01.15.13 at 10:47 AM
Claude Sautet's Max et les Ferrailleurs, playing this week at the Gene Siskel Film Center, is a fascinating hybrid of pulpy crime fiction and moral dramas. If you're looking for more of the same—and haven't exhausted Claude Chabrol's massive body of work—I'd recommend Mado, which Sautet made a few years later. The film shares a number of strengths with Max: an impressive lead performance from Michel Piccoli, an engrossing depiction of complex legal procedures, plenty of sex appeal, and a plot that snakes unpredictably from one quiet revelation to another.
Piccoli again plays a lonely, calculating professional who comes to plot a crime, though the similarities end there. Max was cold and emotionally distant; Simon Léotard, as the title character notes, wants to be loved by everyone. A modestly successful investor, Léotard has devoted his life to the family business, enjoying the camaraderie of his partners as well as the respect (and occasional favors) of district judges. He may have only experienced emotional intimacy with high-priced mistresses, but that's better than nothing, and staying single has given him more time to work.
Monday, January 14, 2013
Dim the Lights Moviegoing Film Attending a program of animated shorts with a room full of small children
Posted by Ben Sachs on 01.14.13 at 04:00 PM
I sat in the back row of the Facets Cinematheque for Saturday morning's program of animated shorts, the first in a monthly series aimed at families with small children. As one of only two childless adults in the room, I thought the smartest choice would be to keep out of sight. In retrospect I should have chosen the second-to-last row; about halfway through the program a one-year-old, taking what appeared to be some of her first steps, set her sights on my aisle seat as the finish line for her wobbly trek from the front of the house. I was in the bathroom when she set out; she was in my chair when I returned, her mother sitting on the floor next to her and giving her a valedictory patting. I didn't ask for my seat back.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Things I Love Weekly Top Five Film Weekly Top Five: Roman Polanski films
Posted by Drew Hunt on 01.13.13 at 09:00 AM
The Roman Polanski film Tess (1979) screens in a digital print this week at the Gene Siskel Film Center, a reportedly lush version of a film known for its sensuous imagery. I'm eager to take a gander myself, as I hope others are as well—your next (and last) opportunity to see it is tomorrow, Mon 1/14, 6 PM.
It goes without saying that Polanski is a controversial figure. However, his prior transgressions aside, he remains one of my very favorite directors. I greatly admire his elegance as a filmmaker, the sophistication he shows even when dealing in decidedly uncomfortable and otherwise lurid subject matter. The following are my five favorite films of his, and I welcome any and all counterarguments.
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Foreign Film Two French filmmakers overrated by middlebrows and underrated by cineastes
Posted by Ben Sachs on 01.12.13 at 09:00 AM
In a neat coincidence, the restored print of Claude Sautet's Max et les Ferrailleurs comes into town just after Doc Films started its Louis Malle series, which continues every Tuesday night through mid-March. This seems fitting, as the careers of Malle and Sautet overlap in a number of ways. Both had formative experiences as assistant directors; Malle assisted Robert Bresson on A Man Escaped, and Sautet graduated to directing his first crime film, Classe Tous Risques, after assisting on similar features throughout the 1950s. In the 60s both men employed stylistic devices (location shooting, jump cuts, direct sound) as well as actors (Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jeanne Moreau) associated with the French New Wave, though neither considered himself a member of that movement. By the following decade both had settled into relatively conservative modes of filmmaking, privileging character over style and dealing mainly with middle- or upper-class subjects. They even released their final films—Vanya on 42nd Street and Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud—about a year apart, in 1994 and 1995, respectively.
