New York Film Festival

51st New York Film Festival Now Accepting Submissions

Beth Hanna — Mon, 13 May 2013 18:33:32 GMT

The Film Society of Lincoln Center is now accepting submissions for the 51st New York Film Festival, which runs September 27 through October 13, 2013. The festival typically hosts an average of 28 feature films and 16 shorts in its slate, selected by a 5-person committee chaired by director of programming Kent Jones.

The early submission deadline is May 27, regular deadline June 24 and late deadline July 13. For more detailed info, fees and rules, visit the fest's website.

Founded in 1963, NYFF is the second-oldest film festival in North America.

Mitchell Banks Has Passed Away- Funeral 5/2

Peter Hargrove — Thu, 02 May 2013 13:30:00 GMT

My dear friend Mitchell Banks (the film sales agency M&L Banks) suffered a massive heart attack and passed away.

His funeral was Today May 2nd 9:30A @ Riverside Memorial Chapel 180 W. 76th.

Some of you know him from the trade markets, others from the NY Film Festival, New Directors/New Films or the Tribeca Film Festival (he usually sat in the last row - so he could escape all those bad films...). For you crazy film buffs, you'll know him from his attendance at MOMA over the last 30+ years with his late wife Linda. Those screenings (and their annual vacation to the Montreal Film Festival) is why he got out of the rag trade and into the crazy world of distribution. My advice helped him avoid the pitfalls we all go through as we slog our way through the distribution game (I should listen to my advice sometime...).

Please share this on to those who knew him as I may not have everyone's
email address.

My condolences goes out to his children and grandchildren who he doted on like
all proud parents should.

FREE 'Ginger & Rosa' Screening and Conversation With Director Sally Potter

Caryn James — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 14:46:02 GMT

UPDATE: This event is now at capacity, but stand-by tickets will be available that night. To reserve stand-by, please email: gingerandrosascreening92y@gmail.com And thanks for the enthusiastic response!

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I'm so happy to invite all of you to this: a free preview screening at 92nd St. Y of Ginger & Rosa, one of my favorite films this year, followed by a conversation with the amazing director Sally Potter. (March 12th at 8:15 at 92Y.)

The film, a sell-out hit at this year's New York Film Festival, stars Elle Fanning as Ginger and Alice Englert as Rosa, best friends in 60's ban-the-bomb London. It is one of Potter's most emotionally moving and accessible works, a story that combines friendship, politics, love, and coming-of-age, with an amazing cast. Alessandro Nivola plays Ginger's romantic, save-the-world but emotionally treacherous father, Christina Hendricks (Joan from Mad Men) is her thwarted-artist mother, and Oliver Platt, Annette Bening and Timothy Spall are neighbors.

Potter, of course, is best known for her sumptuous, playful adaptation of Virginia Woolf's Orlando, the film that made Tilda Swinton a star. I know from the Film Festival that Potter has fascinating things to say about Ginger & Rosa, her personal connection to it, and her versatile, extremely independent career.

I hope you'll join us. Follow this link for details and to reserve tickets (go ahead as if you're buying tickets and you'll see the price is $0.) Even though they're free, thanks to A24 Films, they are on a first-come, first-serve basis, so the sooner you reserve the better!

New York Film Fest is Big Oscar Nom Winner; Sundance, Cannes, Toronto All Shine

Tom Brueggemann — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 18:50:17 GMT

The New York Film Festival - showing a more selective line-up than any other major one except Telluride - was the big winner when the Oscar nominations were announce this morning. The two films with the most nominations - "Lincoln" (12) and "The Life of Pi" (11) both world premiered at their event (the former as an unannounced surprise screening, the latter Opening Night), while "Flight" (Best Actor and Original Screenplay nominee) was their closer. The festival historically has not been a major player for being the first showing of top contenders, but after "The Social Network" two years ago and "Hugo" last (also an unannouced film), their stock as a rival to the earlier Toronto and other fall festivals has just soared. They also showcased "Amour" (five nominations) and "The Gatekeepers" (Feature Documentary).

Toronto as usual led in volume of Oscar nominees played - 13 films in all played there, although most had shown elsewhere earlier. Their standout premiere was the quite strong "Silver Linings Playbook" (eight nominations), which won the People's Choice award. They also had the first showing of "The Impossible" (Best Actress nominee Naomi Watts).

Sundance, Cannes and Telluride each had one Best Picture premiere (each also with acting nods) - "Beasts of the Southern Wild," "Amour" and "Argo" respectively. "Beasts"' success at Sundance a year ago launched this film, and its multiple major nominations are certain to be on all minds as the buying frenzy starts next week. Sundance also had four of this year's five Feature Documentary nominees in competition last year. For the 2011 Oscars they had two, and had only a single other nominee play in the whole prior festival ("Margin Call"). A second 2012 dramatic competition film, "The Sessions," also received a Supporting Actress nomination.

Cannes had two other world premieres - Original Screenplay nominee "Moonrise Kingdom" and Foreign Language contender "No." Among major categories, Venice showed "The Master" first, as well as craft contender "Anna Karenina." A number of nominees had their North American premieres at either Telluride ("Amour," Doc Feature "The Gatekeepers" and Foreign Language nominee "A Royal Affair") and Toronto (Foreign Language films "No" and "Kon-Tiki" and "Anna Karenina"). Berlin had two world premieres, both Foreign Language contenders ("A Royal Affair" and "War Witch"). Other world premieres for two Doc Features were at IFDA 2011 ("Five Broken Cameras") and Jerusalem 2012 ("The Gatekeepers").

Three Best Picture nominees - all of which also had acting nominees ("Les Miserables," "Zero Dark Thirty" and "Django Unchained" - all December releases) skipped festivals altogether to complete the list of contenders in major categories.

Toronto, with its massive volume of films still remains the go-to place to see the most contenders - 13 features with nominations played there. But its position as a launching pad - or even North American venue - to premiere Oscar films is increasingly coming under threat from both New York and Telluride.

'Life of Pi' Review: Ang Lee's Gorgeous Adaptation is Stunning 3-D Triumph

Anne Thompson — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 17:53:00 GMT

Taiwan-born Ang Lee, more than any director working today, is a filmmaker for the world. His three great love stories -- martial arts romance "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," gay tragedy "Brokeback Mountain" and Jane Austen's"Sense and Sensibility"-- were accessible to multiple cultures. And with "Life of Pi" (November 21) Lee has fashioned, with screenwriter David Magee ("Finding Neverland") adapting Yann Martel's global bestseller, another love story that transcends borders. In this case, it's between a 17-year-old young man (non-pro Suraj Sharma) from India and a Bengal tiger.

Is it possible for a wild animal to love a human being? And vice versa? At a time in the world when religion can be so devisive, Martel's story of a Hindu/Christian/Muslim who is the sole human survivor of an ocean shipwreck reminds that film can both heal and inspire. But it is also a stunning technological triumph, as the VFX required were impossible until now. Conceived four years ago before the arrival of the 3-D "Avatar," this movie is a live-action/animation hybrid, as major characters like the threatening tiger and sublime phosphorescent Pacific seascapes could only be created by artists in the digital realm.

Scenes of breathtaking beauty have to be seen to be believed, from a simple shot of the tiger in the moonlight and several surreal mergers of sea and sky to Pi floating underwater watching the ship--his family aboard--going down. Not to mention a luminescent whale breach or sequences of thousands of flying silver fish --whirring at you in 3-D. Lee's mastery of the aesthetics of 3-D should not to be underestimated--he considered every detail in terms of its impact on the viewer. And never have spatial relationships been more dramatic, as Pi maneuvers with a large tiger in a small life boat on a huge ocean.

The film, whose budget far exceeded its planned $70 million cost, begins with a stunning series of shots of real animals in all their natural glory--at a zoo in Pondicherry, India (where the film was shot, along with a huge water tank in Taiwan). The movie revels in the lush colors and textures of India, as Lee sets up the movie's throughlines. His narrator, the adult Pi (Irrfan Kahn of "Slumdog Millionaire") tells his improbable survival story to a young Canadian novelist ("Anonymous" actor Rafe Spall, who replaced Tobey Maguire mid-film).

We meet Pi's family, who don't understand his attraction to three of the world's main religions, including not only Hinduism but Christianity and Islam, as well as the fierce zoo tiger Richard Parker, who ravages a goat in front of Pi's eyes. Pi's belief in both God and the soul of a tiger play out as he uses his wits (and a life boat instruction manual) to outsmart Richard Parker on a life boat for 227 days. "Thank you Vishnu, for introducing me to Christ," says Pi at one point. "God wasn't finished with me yet," he says at another.

As I suspected when I first saw footage at CinemaCon in April, this movie will play for critics, audiences and awards givers all over the world. It has the right elements: globally popular literary source (7 million copies sold); heart-warming family story from an A-list Oscar-winning director ("Brokeback Mountain"); and epic VFX. While "Life of Pi" will be a leading contender for Oscars, the film's technical accomplishments should certainly be recognized (especially "Curious Case of Benjamin Button" D.P. Claudio Miranda), as well perhaps as actors Sharma and Kahn. Richard Parker deserves a nomination as well.

One irony is that departed Fox co-chairman Tom Rothman backed this risky venture, but Fox 2000 chief Elizabeth Gabler and producer Gil Netter ("The Blind Side") also deserve credit for standing behind Lee's quest to make this remarkable film. "It has a gigantic visual effects component," Gabler told me as she was trying to convince Fox to give it the greenlight. "You can't put a live tiger in a boat with a child. It has elements of 'Castaway,' when the kid is alone in the boat. You don't need language to convey what's on the screen. We need to make the movie for the whole world."

That they did.

Why Scott Foundas Ditched Lincoln Center Programming to Go Back Where He Belongs UPDATED

Anne Thompson — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 17:44:17 GMT

Three years ago, when Scott Foundas left the Village Voice Media's LA Weekly to join the Film Society of Lincoln Center as associate programmer, I was disheartened. Why? Because he is one of the most gifted critics of his generation. I took Foundas leaving his clear avocation as a sign of the continuing decline of film criticism. I fantasized that he might reinvigorate Film Comment, but while he kept his hand in with weekly blog posts--most notably the first review of David Fincher's "The Social Network"--and was a powerful presence as a New York Film Festival and Film Society interviewer, Foundas was essentially a programmer.

He was frustrated at not being able to do more writing; he admits. "I did miss it," he says. (He also spoke to the NYT here.) "My primary responsiblity was film programming." Foundas learned a lot about the vagaries of film programming in an increasingly digital world, and enjoyed bringing successful retrospectives like Claude Sautet to New York audiences. But he couldn't resist the siren call of writing about film for a national film outlet like The Village Voice. "That was one way of supporting films and getting them to an audience," he says. "But it was on a smaller scale than writing for millions. This is a dream job. I never was just a writer anywhere. It would be foolish to pass up a chance to be a national critic with this kind of influence and reach."

Voice Media Group executive editor Christine Brennan, who has taken over editorial control of the 13 national weeklies from Mike Lacey and used to work with Foundas, pursued him to join the post-Jim Hoberman Voice. They let go of the veteran critic ten months ago and lost film editor Allison Benedikt four months later to Slate. Former SF Weekly arts editor Alan Scherstuhl now supervises national film coverage, and will edit Foundas.

Why did he give up his film editor slot after four years at the LA Weekly, arguably one of the best in the country, short of the New York Times, New York or The New Yorker? Because the overworked editor/critic saw that Lacey's VMG was not funding and supporting film criticism, and he had a shot at one of the most influential culture jobs in the country, as director of the New York Film Festival. Richard Pena was known to be stepping down at the end of 25 years. So Foundas went for it.

Well, Film Society executive director Rose Kuo knew that she might lose Foundas if she not only gave the top job to former FSLC programmer Kent Jones, but the secondary programming position to her old AFI FEST collleague Robert Koehler. This left Foundas not promoted and stuck where he was. Old chum Thierry Fremaux did recently appoint Foundas as a consultant to the Cannes Film Festival.

During the recent NYFF, as Foundas saw the director reins going to Jones, he moderated a film criticism panel and interviewed critic David Thomson. Foundas was clearly thinking about the role of film critic. The one he gave up. And sorely missed. So he said yes when Brennan asked him to join the Village Voice as its principal film writer. This time, he doesn't have to edit as well as write. His film reviews and features will appear across Voice Media Group’s print publications, websites and mobile platforms.

“I’ve long admired Scott Foundas’ film writing and I’m delighted to be able to work with him again,” said Brennan. “Scott is a formidable critic and a great addition to the film coverage our papers are known for.”

This hire signals VMG's new commitment to film coverage. Earlier this year LA Weekly film editor Karina Longworth, who took over for Foundas and had become the newspaper chain's most high-profile film writer, stepped down as editor to focus on film criticism. Besides Longworth, VMG relies on one full time staff writer, one full time editor, and countless freelancers. According to VMG, the chain's papers covered more than 750 films last year, and offered feature and festival coverage.

Olivier Assayas on the Difference Between Film Writing and Film Criticism

Alec Kubas-Meyer — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 15:35:27 GMT

[All quotes come from Olivier Assayas' discussion with the New York Film Festival Critic’s Academy.]

It has been said that film critics are nothing more than failed filmmakers. If French filmmaker Olivier Assayas is to be believed, writing about movies is the best film school a person could have. And he should know, because he made the transition from critic to filmmaker himself, and he did so with great success.

When he was younger, Assayas wrote for the French film magazine Cahiers du Cinéma, getting his start in the same place as filmmakers like Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and Jacques Rivette. There is no modern equivalent to Cahiers du Cinéma (certainly not in the United States), but there are more options for up-and-coming writers than ever before. When Assayas refers to Cahiers du Cinéma as "part of the process of accessing the tools of filmmaking," he is describing something that can be applied to Film Comment, Indiewire, or John Doe’s Movie Blog:

"When I started writing, I realized that I was learning stuff about films. I was reflecting on cinema, and I was asking myself questions that tried to frame my personal approach to filmmaking, and the more I was writing, the more I knew what I was lacking. The more I wrote, the more I understood that there was a lot that was lacking."

Few things can change a person’s relationship with cinema more than digging down into the films themselves. Whether someone wants to be a filmmaker, a writer, or even just an audience member, there is no downside to developing a critical eye towards cinema. It is perfectly valid to see film as an entertainment medium rather than an art form, but that is a very limiting point of view. There is a middle ground, where films can be enjoyed and considered, and that can only be beneficial to the moviegoing experience.

Fortunately, it is easier than ever to experience all that movies have to offer. Up-and-coming filmmakers/writers are in a much better position than Assayas was back when he was getting his start. His cinematic education came primarily through film festivals:

"I was going to film festivals where I was watching movies that I wouldn’t have time to access. This is pre-VHS days, let alone getting DVDs or finding films online. Paris has always been privileged with a lot of international movies coming there, but still, not every single movie comes, and a huge amount of what was happening in the international film scene was not accessible in Paris, but I could access it through festivals."

Not everyone can live near a city with a big festival, but for those interested in indie and foreign films, geographic locations are becoming less and less important. Netflix streams many excellent obscure titles, and the Criterion Collection's partnership with Hulu Plus singlehandedly justifies that subscription cost. Video on Demand services give a second life to films that would otherwise have never screened outside of a festival. Even within festivals, though, digital innovations are helping films reach broader audiences. Earlier this year, the New York-based Tribeca Film Festival had an online component, which allowed for anybody, anywhere to join in the fun. And when I say fun, of course, I am referring to film writing. Not necessarily film criticism, though; there’s a difference. Assayas explains:

"I always feel a little ill at ease when the difference between film writing and film criticism is not clearly drawn. I did write some film criticism in the sense of rating movies, [but that] was a tiny part of what I was doing. I wrote pieces about films, and I wrote pieces about general film theory. I mean film theory, it’s a big word, but it’s analyzing trends in current cinema. Trying to approach a certain aspect of what cinema is about and was transforming at the time. I also did film journalism, interviewing filmmakers, doing the everyday job of a journalist. To me, this all belongs to the sphere that is film writing."

Criticism and journalism are both sides of the same coin, despite the fact that the title “film critic” commands the most respect. Film criticism can be a great thing, but it’s not the be-all end-all of writing about film. The moment-to-moment information about what’s going on in the industry can be just as important as determining the quality of the twenty-something films that get released in New York City each week. But then again, perhaps these are both considered within the title of "criticism;" the term itself is somewhat unclear. Assayas is right: there needs to be some clarification.

After his five years at Cahiers du Cinéma, Assayas moved on to become a full-time filmmaker, and he never looked back. He took what he had learned about movies from his time as a film writer and applied it to his work. It is an inspiring model for up-and-coming writers and filmmakers as well. While some filmmakers disparage the role of film criticism and film writing, Assayas has a unique understanding of its role in movie culture. He says:

"I know how precious the relationship is between reflection and writing about cinema and the practice of cinema, because that’s where I come from. That’s what’s made me the person I am. I’ve never despised or overlooked anything that has to do with writing on film, because I know it’s an essential part of what creates contemporary filmmaking."

Alec Kubas-Meyer is currently an undergraduate student at Sarah Lawrence college and an Associate Editor for Flixist. This piece is part of Indiewire and the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Critics Academy at the New York Film Festival. Click here to read all of the Academy's work.

Missives From the Substitute World

Forrest Cardamenis — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 16:09:32 GMT

"Everything has been figured out, except how to live." -- Jean-Paul Sartre
"The cinema gives us a substitute world which fits our desires." -- André Bazin

Whether or not it was coincidental that French Existentialism and André Bazin’s theories on cinema and realism took off at the same time, the two have been linked ever since. The lasting impact of Bazin’s writing helped propel cinema firmly into the category of "art," and with art comes the search for answers on life and how to live it that the existentialists debated. Simply in depicting a scenario and presenting characters with whom we sympathize (or don’t), the film is making a value judgment about their lifestyle -- or inviting us to do so. At the New York Film Festival those judgments were present in everything from Hollywood stories of perseverance to Chinese family dramas.

The boldest and most explicit example was perhaps Sally Potter’s "Ginger and Rosa." It has been repeatedly labeled as a coming-of-age drama, but to put "Ginger and Rosa" in a box is to ignore its very deliberate and thoughtful existential themes. The film takes place in the United Kingdom circa 1962, at a time when the fear of nuclear holocaust looms close to the heart and heads of the titular best friends. The girls were born in adjacent hospital beds as, thousands of miles away, an atomic bomb decimated Hiroshima. Even before the Cold War, life in the Nuclear Age had cemented itself as a part of their lives. The girls become lifelong friends, unable to shake off their nuclear birth, always wondering how long that life is going to last. Mostly they take part in teenage rituals: shrinking their jeans, comparing their fashions, staying out late, meeting boys. But they also find time to attend activist meetings, discuss religion, and reflect on the domestic lives of their mothers.

Quietly, the girls grow up. More loudly, they take radically different routes into adulthood. Constantly fearing a nuclear end, Rosa (Alice Englert) finds religion and looks for love. That she even turns to Roland, Ginger’s father (Alessandro Nivola), is a comment primarily on her refusal to take her life into her own hands and also to serve as a foil to Ginger (Elle Fanning). In contrast, Ginger becomes an activist but is most interested in poetry. Rosa is happy ignoring the world, but Ginger wants to take it head-on.

Echoes of Rosa’s lifestyle are scattered throughout the New York Film Festival, albeit portrayed with varying degrees of condemnation. Ang Lee’s "Life of Pi" is, in its own way, a coming-of-age story; the narrative unfolds in flashback, and we see how Pi’s (Suraj Sharma) youth and disaster have led to his religious epiphany. The narration and occasional jump back to the present emphasize the idea that Pi’s entire life has been a part of his spiritual journey -- like Rosa's, a passive one -- and for the first time, he seems truly content. Lee’s precise cinematography and beautiful landscape glorify the faith-based lifestyle. With no political backdrop, Lee portrays this attitude as a fulfilling one, giving Pi both a reason to continue fighting and justification for all he has suffered through. Sally Potter, conversely, uses a nuclear subtext to condemn Rosa’s similarly principled lifestyle as lazy and irresponsible. When you have control, as Rosa does and Pi does not, giving up that control is the biggest sin.

Elsewhere, "Memories Look At Me," the directorial debut of Song Fang (co-star of Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s "Flight of the Red Balloon"), portrays a fictionalized version of the director taking care of her parents, flashing back to wistful and happier memories of the past. Nearly every shot is static, taking place within the apartment of Song and her family (also fictionalized, but portrayed by their real-life counterparts). The minimalism reflects the unadventurous and uninspired nature of their lives; the characters refuse to grab the moment, but Song never comes down too strongly for or against the nostalgic lifestyle.

Potter, however, advocates a life rooted firmly in the present. With Rosa’s carelessness condemned and Ginger invisibly positioned among her father, her best friend, and her mother (Christina Hendricks), Ginger’s carpe diem attitude is lauded. After early discussion about the prison created by domesticity, Ginger’s mother begins painting, as she did before her marriage. Similarly, Ginger focuses extensively on poetry, trying to make sense of the world around her and the actions of others that she sees as irresponsible in a time of imminent danger. That Ginger’s mother has begun painting again instead of merely wishing she still could is a rejection of the nostalgic lifestyle depicted in "Memories Look At Me." Similarly, the climax of the film firmly dismisses the lifestyle of Rosa and Roland, emphasizing their powerlessness and giving the power to resolve conflict to Ginger, the most motivated character in the story. Contrasting settings prevent Potter’s depiction from dismissing what Lee’s character embraces, but she nonetheless leaves the existential Ginger with the most optimistic ending.

It takes a film like "Ginger and Rosa" to get to the core of the cinema. It’s a relatable coming-of-age story that depicts several aspects of adolescent lives, and while the dysfunction of Ginger’s family and friends is specific, the sentiments they reveal are not. Instead, the film creates a feeling of alienation, and the nuclear backdrop serves less as a period detail than a marker of the importance of finding a solution. It takes ideas present in cinema all around the world and puts them in dialogue before arriving at an agreeable conclusion. What’s a person to do when your whole life seems to be on the brink of disaster? To put it simply, "don’t wait, don’t look back, just live." If you want something a bit more profound, "Ginger and Rosa" can say it far better than I.

Forrest Cardamenis is a Cinema Studies undergraduate at NYU and aspiring film journalist. You can read his blog here or follow him on Twitter at @FCardamenis. This piece is part of Indiewire and the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Critics Academy at the New York Film Festival. Click here to read all of the Academy's work.

Silence, Golden, in Black and White: 'Tabu,' Gomes, and Cage

Blair McClendon — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 13:52:00 GMT

There is a myth persisting to this day that silence is simply the absence of sound. In this, the centennial year of John Cage’s birth, the composer’s fight to redefine silence still rages on, and has found one of its most eloquent articulations in Miguel Gomes’ new film "Tabu." It begins with the story of a devoutly Catholic human rights worker who struggles to understand her senile neighbor, Aurora, played with tragic precision by Laura Soveral. When death begins knocking on the door, Aurora screams, “There is blood on my hands!” The second half of the film then recounts Aurora’s days in a Portuguese colony in Africa, where she built a life with a successful husband, a beautiful home, and a crocodile before pursuing an affair with a handsome musician. Gomes describes the film as being split between two parts: first the hangover, then the drinking. It is in this past filled with reverie and treachery that a Cagean silence dominates.

The tryst between Aurora (the younger version played by Ana Moreira) and her musician, Ventura (Carloto Cotta), is more than sexual infatuation. The two genuinely fall in love with one another, though they realize all along that little can come of it. "Tabu"'s glance at the past is a melancholy gaze, fearful of pricking old wounds but intoxicated with youthful, reckless beauty. The camera lingers over bodies wrapped up in, and enraptured by, one another. But, when the scene settles on conversations between lovers or spouses, more often than not their voices cannot be heard. The idea that a film cannot adequately represent the banality of intimacy, and is therefore better off removing the sound of their conversations, is not a new one. In Gomes’ capable hands, silence is no longer a crutch; instead, it provides the structure of the scenes. To speak of Gomes’ moments of silence, however, is to speak of Cage’s silence not as it is heard now, but as it was heard before he became an institution.

When John Cage first premiered his landmark work "4'33"" in a Woodstock concert house, the audience was treated to a piece that was as much performance as it was music. The pianist for the night, David Tudor, opened and closed the piano cover at the beginning of each of the three movements, but never played a note. Over four minutes and thirty-three seconds, the sounds normally held to be extraneous became the composition’s material. Cage’s silence did not dampen sound; it was simply transparent, allowing non-musical (or unintended) sounds to enter the work when it was normally excluded.

This transparency, particularly when the subjects and audience are not aware of it, governs the scenes between Aurora and Ventura. In one of the most illustrative instances, the two sit down by the pool where she keeps her crocodile. Maintaining a sense of propriety, she has the refreshments served outside while her husband is away. Even then there is a hint of desire playing across their faces, but whatever they say to each other is lost to memory. While their mouths move mutely, everything else can be heard and, because language has been lost, the most inconsequential noises are magnified: a pebble carelessly tossed in the water, fabric rustling against bodies, a shoe scraping against stone. Sound, freed from its duty to communicate, offers meaning on its own terms. All the mundane aspects of the world suddenly contain great import, much in the same way that lovers levy the full weight of nostalgia upon the minor details of their memories of one another.

This band of Portuguese friends, amidst all their hopes, desires, and rivalries, remains a group of rich colonizers. Living in a villa, they are largely removed from having to witness the crimes to which they contribute. Eventually, the world refuses to be kept at bay and word spreads that a revolution is brewing. Even then, the war only enters their lives in fits and starts. Rather than consider their position as wealthy colonials or even commit fully to fighting for their atrocious enterprise, they create patrol groups. In their downtime they set up targets and practice marksmanship in gatherings that resemble Sunday picnics more than military training. They cannot take reality seriously and instead play at being soldiers. War is something that creeps in during the quiet moments, reduced to reports on the radio. When blood is finally shed, it is not because of grave and mass injustices, but more private sins. Still, "Tabu" is not afraid to equate the two, since in the depths of the hangover Aurora can still feel the blood on her hands.

Blair McClendon is currently studying art history at Columbia University, while working in and writing about film. He firmly believes that the Mothers of America should let their kids go to the movies. This piece is part of Indiewire and the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Critics Academy at the New York Film Festival. Click here to read all of the Academy's work.

(After the) Disaster Films: 'Life of Pi' and 'Flight'

Corey O'Connell — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 19:33:51 GMT

This post contains SPOILERS.

The 50th New York Film Festival opened and closed with two fatal disasters -- onscreen. Ang Lee’s visually stunning "Life of Pi," which centers on a shipwreck, had its world premiere on the festival’s first night while Robert Zemeckis’ "Flight" closed out the fest with a dramatic plane crash. Yet neither of these films is truly about their disasters, so much as what happens afterwards, and they move forward from their cataclysmic events in very different directions. "Life of Pi" uses the shipwreck to showcase its title character’s faith in God, which is paramount to his survival when the ship goes down. "Flight," on the other hand, uses the crash to explore the specific despair that comes from addiction and substance abuse.

"Life of Pi" is the riveting story of Piscine "Pi" Patel, played by newcomer Suraj Sharma. Pi’s parents own a zoo in India, and when they decide to sell the zoo and move to America, they set sail with their young sons on the same ship as the animals. After a terrible storm, which Lee depicts in 3-D with impressive, frightening realism, Pi finds himself stranded in a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean with an orangutan, a zebra, a hyena, and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. Pi is no ordinary boy, though. From a young age, his curiosity leads him to explore faith in the form of organized religion. Interested in everything, he is a practicing Hindu, Christian, and Muslim. As the adult Pi tells his story to a visiting writer, it becomes clear that his faith in God -- in all forms -- saves him. Despite the physical challenges in front of him, Pi never gives in to the temptation of total hopelessness. The shipwreck tests his faith on a fundamental level: in the most reductive sense, the situation becomes, "Believe or die." At the end of his story, Pi asks the writer (and the audience) if they choose to believe his story, forcing the viewer to evaluate their own faith.

"Flight" exists on the opposite side of the spiritual spectrum. When alcoholic and drug abusing pilot Whip (Denzel Washington) safely lands a damaged plane while drunk and high on cocaine, his substance abuse comes under scrutiny; despite his heroic efforts, he may still be blamed for the deaths of four of the plane’s passengers. His old friend Charlie (Bruce Greenwood), lawyer Hugh (Don Cheadle), and new friend and former drug addict Nicole (Kelly Reilly) all implore him to lay off the booze during the investigation, but the stress prompts Whip to indulge.

With little subtlety, the film condemns his actions, exploring the dire consequences of Whip’s failing moral fiber. The plane crash forces Whip to evaluate his choices, but he refuses to view himself objectively, instead taking the path of denial. Despite the fact that he faces the possibility of life in prison for manslaughter, he persists in drinking himself into oblivion, even at the most vital moments of the investigation. Unlike Pi, Whip has no faith in anything, from God to himself to his capacity for rehabilitation.

When Film Society of Lincoln Center Associate Director of Programming Scott Foundas introduced "Flight" on closing night, he joked that the festival "started with a shipwreck and ends with a plane crash." Beyond the catastrophic nature of their pivotal events, the protagonists of these (after the) disaster films are characterized by different extremes: Pi is defined by his faith, Whip by his lack thereof. The only other quality these films share is the way in which they inspire hope in their audiences. As this year’s festival was the last to be headed by Film Society veteran Richard Peña -- next year the festival’s selection committee will be led by Kent Jones and Robert Koehler -- "Life of Pi" and "Flight" were the perfect bookends for a festival that is looking toward a bright future.

Corey O'Connell is an American Studies and Contemporary Arts graduate currently working in nonprofit fundraising. A big fan of adaptations and independent American cinema, she also loves music, theater, and photography, and writing about any or all of the above. This piece is part of Indiewire and the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Critics Academy at the New York Film Festival. Click here to read all of the Academy's work.

Nothing Surfaces: Cristian Mungiu's 'Beyond the Hills'

Fariha Roisin — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 18:31:48 GMT

From the very first shot of "Beyond the Hills," as Voichita (Cosmina Stratan) walks through a bustling crowd, a certain sense of intimacy is born. Only a few moments later she’s tightly embraced by her friend from the orphanage in which she grew up, Alina (Cristina Flutur). Alina is overwhelmingly flustered by the knowledge that she is alone and will have to leave Voichita again soon. As Alina cries, Voichita sternly placates, "Not here, people are looking." And with those words, the film begins.

After leaving the orphanage at 18, Alina went to work in Germany as a waitress and Voichita fled for a monastery, up in the hills. There, with no electricity and under the rule of an authoritarian priest (Valeriu Andriuta), she found God, submitting herself to piety and spiritual austerity. As Alina is with Voichita again, she yearns for the familiarity that they once had. There’s a sense of nostalgia pulling her by the throat; she misses Voichita as they used to be, her best friend, her foundation, her lover. Now Voichita is conditioned and submissive, believing that all things can be secured if one only has faith in God.

Throughout the film, director Cristian Mungiu builds tension as Alina becomes more hostile, growing afraid that Voichita will abandon her. It is clear that she has no other, and wants no other, finding a refuge in her only friend. In a group tableau shot, Mungiu beautifully portrays an intimate setting. Voichita talks to her fellow nuns about her relationship with Alina, omitting their lesbianism, fondly detailing, “She would always protect me.” The nuns question apprehensively, “What would she want in return?” And the answer hurts, “Nothing.”

Mungiu skillfully maintains a certain distance from all his subjects. Though Alina could be seen as the victim, she is also disruptive and violent. Similarly, the nuns may act naive and rueful, believing that Alina is possessed, but their intentions are always out of love. After she inflicts bodily harm onto herself and tries to commit suicide, she’s admitted into the hospital. She is drugged and diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and sent back to the monastery. Even the secular world betrays her. So the question remains, ominously; is anyone really to blame?

Mungiu is a searing and refreshing talent, with a flair for telling the kind of humanist stories that are often left unheard. Much like his Palme D’Or winning film "4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days" this film focuses on female relationships and what the hardships of poverty embattle onto women in particular. Basing the script on the writings of BBC reporter Tatiana Niculescu Bran, the film is inspired by the true events at a Moldavian monastery in 2005, where a woman died after being subjugated to a forced exorcism. A co-production between Romania, France, Belgium, and the Dardennes brothers, "Beyond The Hills" is an homage to naturalism and crisp visual composition, with color-drained shots reminiscent of the portraits of German painter Hans Memling.

If anything, this film details the destruction surrounding the social circumstances of women in poverty, but also the destructive dogma that exists not only in Romania, but also on a global scale. There is an inherent sacrifice of the feminine that is discernible throughout this film, where women are perceived to be docile to the whims of evil. Mungiu is asking us to critique our behavior, or at least recognize it -- the weak and impoverished turn to religion, but where is the goodness when actual humanity is rejected?

At two and a half hours, "Beyond the Hills" is a perilous but rewarding film. As the characters strain and struggle, so do we, enduring the pain of the torture that is inflicted. As the final shot comes into play, the first sentence from Voichita’s lips echoes in our minds. What is left is shame, fear, and horror. Nothing else surfaces.

Fariha Roisin is a writer by day and a writer by night. A culture and film critic, she has a certain penchance for writing about women. This piece is part of Indiewire and the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Critics Academy at the New York Film Festival. Click here to read all of the Academy's work.

A Critics Academy Conversation: New York Film Festival Wrap-Up

Fariha Roisin and Blair McClendon — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 19:57:54 GMT

We've still got a few pieces left to publish from our Critics Academy, but with the New York Film Festival concluded, we asked two of our Academy members -- Fariha Roisin and Blair McClendon -- to have a conversation about their personal highlights from their time covering the festival for Indiewire and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Fariha Roisin: So, Blair, New York Film Festival has come to an end. How do you feel? Overjoyed? Excited? On a scale to one to ten, how devastated are you really?

Blair McClendon: I'm pretty devastated. During the last weekend of the festival I watched "Charlie Bartlett," so I'm a little worried that I'm going back to a world where just randomly choosing a movie and expecting it to be good isn't really possible. How about you?

Fariha: I know for a fact that you liked "Charlie Bartlett." Are we going to let that slide?

Blair: Liked? I am accepting of its existence, but liked is a bit strong.

Fariha: Okay. As for me I definitely feel devastated. I thought I'd be really happy about not having to wake up before 8:00 AM to catch 10:00 AM press screenings, but instead I am quite emotional. All I have been doing is watching all the Daniel Day-Lewis movies on Netflix to fill this void inside of me.

Blair: Well, on the topic of Mr. Day-Lewis, would you give him the nod for your favorite performance? Or just favorite person?

Fariha: He definitely has my vote for favorite person. But honestly, "Lincoln" was phenomenal, like whoa now. DDL’s performance was obviously always going to be brilliant, so it’s important to note that every time I mention his brilliance someone chimes in that Tommy Lee Jones gave an equally spectacular performance.

Blair: Well, I was a little further down the scale on "Lincoln"'s reception, I can't deny there were some great performances in there. In that movie, I would actually give the tip of my hat to Mr. Jones, though. I felt like he owned every scene he was in not just by design, but also because of his abilities. That's not to put down Daniel Day-Lewis, as I'm sure the Academy will reward him well.

Fariha: Or at least nominate him. There is no doubt in my mind that both men will be nominated for some kind of Oscar. Moving on to the other performances: What was your favorite of the actual festival?

Blair: My favorites were Cosmina Stratan and Cristina Flutur in "Beyond the Hills," because "Beyond the Hills" was my favorite everything. But I think the best has to go to Jean-Louis Trintignant or Emmanuelle Riva in “Amour." Those were really difficult roles that they pulled off to perfection. I also want to give a shout out to Rafe Spall in "Life of Pi" as the unnamed "Writer." He does "Bearded Guy Willing to Listen and Provide Cues for Exposition" really well.

Fariha: Ah, yes, Spall does play that character to perfection. Although I must admit that every time he came onto the screen my mind just screamed, "Scientist from 'Prometheus' who knew NOTHING!"

Blair: Which makes me think that maybe he's playing the same character.

Fariha: Touché. For me, personally, Emmanuelle Riva was just impeccable. Every facial expression, hand movement, or even her absolute stillness and silence -- like when Georges is feeding her towards the end of the film -- was so nuanced and meaningful. Jean-Lous Trintingant was also so gentle, courageous and real as Georges. Even the last “horrific” moment is done with so much subtle empathy. I also agree that Stratan and Flutur were unbelievable. Flutur's Alina was just astounding, that mix of sexual frustration, adoration, and brutality was just right. Though both performances were utterly heartbreaking. But, I also want to shed light on an equally disturbing performance by Emilie Dequenne for "Our Children." I’m so happy that there was a really strong year for fierce and beautiful female performances. Also, last, and random, shout out to William Shimell in “Amour.” For those of you who were watching the movie thinking, "Hey, I know that guy..." He played James Miller in Kiarostami's "Certified Copy" opposite Juliette Binoche. He's actually an opera singer, but evidently has been working it with the greats. What a career, just casually doing films with Kiarostami and Haneke. NBD.

Blair: I had no idea he was an opera singer and I was trying to figure out who he was.

Fariha: There you go.

Blair: Thinking about strong female performances though, I think it's been a little overlooked that in both of Cristian Mungiu's last two films his worlds are constructed around two female protagonists who are in situations particular to them as females (abortion in "4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days" and the life of a nun in "Beyond the Hills").

Fariha: You think? I mean that's definitely what I focused on (or at least tried to) when I wrote about it for Indiewire, but also what I praised him for when I met him. I think that's why his work is so captivating. He characterizes the plight of women in poverty so well. Other auteurs have no doubt focused on these topics -- abortion, in a way -- homosexuality, but also the effect of religion on those who have nothing else. What makes him stand out is that he takes it one step further and refuses to lay judgment on what happens, intending to merely "show us." His films are not didactic and that's a true testament to him as a filmmaker.

Blair: I did read your piece on it, but I feel like a lot (my own included) were so captivated by the intensity of his work and the way he produced that feeling that this aspect was in general left out. I agree with you though, that some of that power is due to the fact that he refuses to be didactic. It's one thing to make a movie about women in a way that announces to the world that the filmmakers want to talk about women. It's another to just lay bare a story. What I'm trying to say is: why can't everyone be Cristian Mungiu?

Fariha: And why can't more films be about women in a realistic way? I mean, we don't all just want to watch "What To Expect When You're Expecting." Hollywood, we cool? But in the issue of full disclosure, I watch "Lola Versus" on repeat...

Blair: Well, besides the structural reasons, I think part of it is that whenever we want to talk about films about women or minorities, everyone approaches it first and foremost as "a film about 'This Particular Group.'" So it gets these weird reviews where people say it's "important" or "necessary" but never "this is a good film that should be seen and you should stop being racist or sexist, too."

Fariha: Definitely agree with you there. I think we operate under this mindset that it's "important," but not natural, so we need to highlight the reasons why it's necessary to watch, instead of judging these films on the scale we judge all other films about everyone else. No one should be precious about films made about women/minorities. We don't need to be coddled. We're capable of making up our own decisions and liking a film based on actual substance.

Blair: Right? It's going to be crazy when the film industry learns that.

Fariha: I can see the headlines, "Women actually like films that are intellectual and don't have Channing Tatum in every scene? WHAT IS LIFE?"

Blair: The world will probably end the next day.

Fariha: I don't mean to offend Tatum or any die hard fans. I liked "The Vow." But I also liked "The Gatekeepers." Go figure. Which brings me to my next question: Favorite films during the festival. That is besides "Beyond The Hills." Can anything compare, really?

Blair: To put it simply: no. But after "Beyond The Hills?" "Amour," "Like Someone in Love" and from the Midnight Movies section -- "Outrage Beyond."

Fariha: Ah, yes, I didn't catch "Outrage Beyond." Give me some high points.

Blair: Well, "Outrage Beyond" is Takeshi Kitano's sequel to "Outrage." To put it briefly: an arrogant police officer tries to pit rival Yakuza clans against each other by using a retired Yakuza's desire for revenge. I must admit that I'm a fan of gangster movies of any national cinema, because I think they tend to say a lot about how people think of their society. Kitano also happens to be a master of slapstick. In one shot he has someone executed by placing them in front of a pitching machine at a batting cage, which isn't at all funny. But he plays the scene until it's absurd, cuts away, and then comes back to it in a wide angle. To top it all off, he makes some pretty cutting remarks about there being little difference between the Yakuza, the State, and the world of high finance.

Fariha: It sounds good, I’m sad I missed it.

Blair: And I was actually a little sad it was in Midnight Movies. Even though it's a really fun section, I thought it was doing more than providing guns and blood and deserved to be included in the Main Slate. But how about you, what were your favorite?

Fariha: Well you mentioned my top three already -- "Beyond The Hills," "Like Someone In Love" and "Amour." I also loved "Frances Ha." That was very surprising for me because I traditionally loathe most Baumbach films. Actually, I can't remember ever really liking one. But "Frances" was so light and actually funny, instead of being unnecessarily caustic. I also really loved Potter's return to form in "Ginger and Rosa," and the performances by Elle Fanning and Alessandro Nivola were exceptional. The audience members in my theater were having some kind of visceral reaction to Nivola's Roland, as one woman yelled out, "He deserves a good slap.” When you piss audience members off, that’s when you know the acting is really good. I also really enjoyed a lot of the documentaries. "First Cousin Once Removed" was so moving, as was "Casting By."

Blair: I didn't get a chance to see "Frances Ha," but I heard a lot of thinking along the same lines -- people who either didn't like his work, or had grown tired of it and were suddenly shocked by what was on the screen.

Fariha: Yep. I initially didn't even want to watch it, but then I did. And how glad was I. What a truly rewarding film. Gerwig is/was always sensational. Special mention goes out to Adam Driver who seems to be in everything these days. He was even in "Lincoln!"

Blair: Wasn't everyone in "Lincoln?" I'm pretty sure we're in "Lincoln" for a few minutes.

Fariha: Oh wait, that's in the final edits, right?

Blair: Yup, we're in one of the crowds he tells stories to. I actually think the only actors who weren't in "Lincoln" were in "Flight." I thought John Goodman's character was such a weird (but good!) choice. Everything's very heavy and melodramatic (alcoholism! broken families! drug abuse! crashing planes!), but he is just entirely comic relief. I mean in a movie where Denzel’s plane clips the tower of a church and crashes into a field John Goodman makes his entrance to "Sympathy for the Devil" and a bag full of alcohol and porn. And Denzel deserves another shout-out anyway for his performance and quivering jaw line.

Fariha: Denzel is just Denzel. I think half way through the movie I realized Denzel wasn't acting, he just was the character. I would probably honor him more if he wasn't Denzel. Dude's like the Meryl Streep of men. You’re right about Goodman, though. He plays these comedic roles so effortlessly, I saw a lot of Walter Sobchak from "The Big Lebowski" in his character from "Flight." I'm yet to see him "Argo," but I've heard that's it's good and he's also quite good in it.

Blair: This might be the best I've ever seen Denzel, but I wonder if he'll be rewarded for it. I thought the script was a little leaden, but he sort of put everything on his back. I also thought the race was over after what Joaquin Phoenix did in "The Master" (I still do), but with him and DDL and Washington there might actually be intrigue as awards season comes around.

Fariha: I really hope all three get nominated, but seeing as though the other two have won, (and even despite my undying allegiance to DDL) I also think Phoenix should get rewarded for once. But we'll see, maybe this year it will actually be an exciting race. Though with Seth MacFarlane hosting I can't imagine the ceremony being any better than the Hathaway/Franco fail whale.

Blair: Well, as everyone knows the New York Film Festival is just a run up to the Oscars, so I'm sure all of the films we've mentioned will be richly and justly rewarded in February.

Fariha: The operative word being "justly." Don’t know how much truth is in that, but we'll see what happens. If some of you missed the films showing at the festival, make sure you catch them when they're play near you. There are some definite masterpieces.

Fariha Roisin is a writer by day and a writer by night. A culture and film critic, she has a certain penchance for writing about women. Blair McClendon is currently studying art history at Columbia University, while working in and writing about film. He firmly believes that the Mothers of America should let their kids go to the movies. This piece is part of Indiewire and the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Critics Academy at the New York Film Festival. Click here to read all of the Academy's work.

Olivier Assayas Returns to His Summer of Marx

Peter Labuza — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 14:02:00 GMT

In an early scene from "Something in the Air," the latest film from the master of sensual cinema Olivier Assayas, a group of young teenagers elude the police after a violent protest by sneaking into an open apartment building and running to the top of the stairs. They collapse on the top floor, finally safe, but Assayas doesn’t cut away. He focuses on their breathing -- heavy, adrenaline-fueled, and uncontrollable. This is living, he suggests, and it’s all downhill from here.

The film is something of an autobiography, and not the first from Assayas either: his 1994 film "Cold Water" also followed the exploits of his doppelganger Gilles and his high school crush Christine. But for a director who expresses ideas through emotions, "Something in the Air," which is loosely based on the director’s own 1971 exploits, is in many ways the spiritual B-side to his 2009 epic "Carlos" about the notorious terrorist Carlos the Jackal. If "Carlos" was about revolutionaries as rock stars, "Something in the Air" is about the groupies.

Gilles (newcomer Clement Metayer) and his friends aren’t about to become front page news anytime soon, unless it's in their own newspaper. The original French title, "Après Mai (After May)" might give the film a better context. The student movement has moved on, but Gilles and his friends still fight for the rights of the oppressed with an idealistic naivete familiar to any teenager. They revel in their spirit as they pass out flyers and defame their school, and act unfazed when they seriously injure one of the school’s security guards.

Combining the spirited camera work of Scorsese’s "Mean Streets" with the highly cynical portrayal of youth in Bresson’s "The Devil, Probably," Assayas’ film flies through Gilles’s Summer of Marx. He and his friends travel from France to Italy, where they remain more prone to their pheromones, their music, and their art than any real change. The cast of characters they meet fail to inspire any hope as well: a spiritual hippie who spends most of his time naked, a group of filmmakers relegated to showing their films in pop-up screenings in back alleys, and an American redhead more interested in sex than anything else.

What really interests Gilles is his own work as a painter. His paintings are abstract but expressive, ripe with the feelings that his revolutionaries look down on. Only Laure (Carole Combes), his dreamlike and almost hallucinatory girlfriend (always appearing in a white dress) that runs in and out of his life, inspires his artistic temperament. She’s contrasted with Christine (Lola Créton), a more realistic yet naive vision of beauty that somehow feels grounded to the earth. While Assayas is clearly painting a dialectical plane between these two women and the path each will lead him toward, they are not defined by his own longings. When Christine stares at Gilles at one point as he walks away, Créton doesn’t register longing or anger; her face almost describes a fleeting nostalgia that only registers for a moment.

If these kids are more interested in romance and music than revolutions, where are those fighting for justice? That’s the dark irony in Assayas. As "Carlos" already showed us, being a revolutionary isn’t about ideas as much as charisma. Assayas’ five and a half hour mini-series spans twenty years of history and employs ten languages over fifteen continents. Carlos the Jackal talks a big game, but it's not his ideas that make him a celebrity terrorist. In an early scene, he stares at himself nude in the mirror while New Order plays on the soundtrack -- he’s fascinated by his own image.

But like "Something in the Air," much of “Carlos” is about the details that become almost mundane. In one of the most comical scenes, Carlos and his crew attempt to blow up a plane with a missile launcher, but they miss. And as thrilling as his hijacking of a 1975 OPEC meeting might be, it is still ultimately a failure. Carlos sees himself go from pop icon sensation to a forgotten man, fighting for a reputation as the world changes around him.

Assayas observes Carlos as revolutionary ideologue who is simply a mercenary, carrying out the political games of others. Gilles begins to see his own work as monotonous as well -- there’s not much difference between his jobs on a revolutionary film or at Pinewood Studios. Perhaps the promising future for Gilles can be found in Assayas’s stylistic choices. The director doesn’t so much compose for the camera (he never plans shots, in order to allow his filmmaking to feel fresh and original at every moment) than pour his emotions into his images. One could talk about the bold lighting, the dolly shots rising into the air, or the intense tracking shots, but it almost feels more essential to discuss the visuals' sensuality. His close-ups are intimate, his long shots suggest emptiness. In the film’s most bravura sequence, he tracks a character through a house as Captain Beefheart’s “Abba Zabba” fills the soundtrack. Even before an actual fire appears, the imagery is ready to explode off the screen.

Like "Carlos," "Something in the Air" ends not with a bang but boredom. The teens' actions are meaningless and the work they do is minimal. In the final scene, Gilles visits an experimental cinema and sees an image from his past collide with what is shown on screen. A hand reaches out to him as a dream, and toward us in the audience. The dream suggests Gilles’ path, through the art of cinema, toward something beyond politics.

Peter Labuza is the host of The Cinephiliacs, and a contributor to Indiewire, Press Play, The Playlist, among other publications. He is currently pursuing an MA in film history at Columbia University. You can read his blog here. This piece is part of Indiewire and the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Critics Academy at the New York Film Festival. Click here to read all of the Academy's work.

Watch: 'The Paperboy' Star Macy Gray Dishes on Oprah and Nicole Kidman in Exclusive Indiewire Video

Nigel M Smith — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 13:25:17 GMT

During the recently wrapped New York Film Festival, Indiewire caught up with singer and actress Macy Gray to discuss her role in Lee Daniels' "The Paperboy," the sordid follow-up to his Oscar-winning sophomore feature "Precious." "Paperboy" screened at the fest shortly before opening theatrically Oct. 5.

READ MORE: 'The Paperboy' Director Lee Daniels On Why He Listens to His Critics

The video marks Indiewire's first with the YouTube channel CinefFix that's backed by Berman Braun. There is much more original Indiewire content to come, so be sure to keep checking our official YouTube page for more videos. Happy watching!

The Movie Talk Show of Our Time

Caitlin Hughes — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 20:21:03 GMT

Talk shows, as a rule, are pretty phony and rehearsed. As we learned from "The Larry Sanders Show," actors are pre-interviewed before they meet the host in order to squeeze out any potential anecdotes and find the best way to plug their new project. In a way, the actor never stops acting -- they are playing a version of themselves, commercially tailored for the viewing public’s consumption. Not surprisingly, even Joaquin Phoenix’s decidedly "uncommercial" faux crash-and-burn appearance on "The Late Show With David Letterman" was just a manifestation of the cocaine-sniffing rapper version of himself in the brilliant "I’m Still Here."

With several episodes screened at the New York Film Festival, the French television show "Cinéastes de notre temps," however, counters the usual artificiality of the television interview. Spearheaded by André S. Labarthe and Jean Bazin, widow of André Bazin, "Cinéastes de notre temps" began in 1964 and ran until 1971, with each episode featuring a filmmaker interview in a grainy black-and-white cinéma vérité style. The show was brought back in 1988, under the slightly different name "Cinéma, de notre temps," more freeform this time in terms of the individual directors bringing their own style to each episode. What is especially interesting about the two versions of the show is that each episode is specially designed to glean the truest responses possible from the particpants.

In many of the episodes, filmmakers are interviewed in their "natural habitats" -- where they're more relaxed and more willing to offer honest responses. In the cases of the David Lynch and Abel Ferrara episodes (entitled "Don’t Look at Me" (1989) and "Not Guilty," (2003) respectively), these iconoclastic directors are more fully able to "let the crazy out" than in any other of their television appearances.

In his episode, Lynch is interviewed by film critic John Powers at his beloved Bob’s Big Boy, where he supposedly eats every day. When Powers asks him what would make Bob’s Big Boy better, Lynch replies that the addition of a large, fat woman standing in the middle of the restaurant, eating a hot dog, telling dirty jokes, and singing would be the ticket. Later on in the episode, Lynch is at home, silently molding a naked woman out of clay. In both of these instances, Lynch is in his happy place -- Bob’s Big Boy and working on his art -- and can therefore give insight into the inner workings of his brain.

The 1950s kitsch of Bob’s Big Boy is reflective of Lynch’s work; his fat lady vision could very well occur in one of his films. As for the sculpture moment, Lynch is revealed to be very focused, meticulous. He says that he is making the sculpture for a potential photo shoot in Interview Magazine, but if they don’t like it, he’ll just keep it. He makes art for his own enjoyment and satisfaction and is not concerned with what others think.

Ferrara’s happy place is New York City at night, when it's empty, dank, and dangerous. Mimicking Ferrara’s noir style, filmmaker Rafi Pitts interviews him as he dodges in and out of taxicabs, even evading the camera crew at one point. Riding in the passenger seat of a car, drinking a beer, he says, "Our job is to go out into the night and search for adventure."

One of these adventures involves following girls on the street. When he bumps into one, he says he's making a TV show about Manhattan women and that he wants to film them. He then changes his lie midway through and claims the show is called "Last Day on Earth" -- which, interestingly, became the title of Ferrara's most recent film, "4:44 Last Day On Earth." This footage proves Ferrara is definitely not a poseur -- hunched over and leering, he truly is a creature of the night, like a character in one of his movies.

While it may be impossible to fully strip away someone’s public artifice, "Cinéastes/Cinéma de notre temps” makes the valiant and very effective attempt to force these filmmakers to let their guard down and allow their audience to see the person that stands behind the movie camera. While it’s hard to imagine that someone like Abel Ferrara could ever not be off-the-cuff, allowing him to run amok in the city at night does capture him in his element, a place where a facade is not needed. If Ferrara were interviewed on a standard talk show, he wouldn’t be able to, let’s say, drink a beer wrapped in a paper bag or reveal his penchant for auditioning girls to be his date, as he does in his episode. And in the end, the stealthy beer and date audition are decidedly more compelling television.

Caitlin Hughes has an MA in Cinema Studies from Tisch, and has done various stuff in film, ranging from non-profit to PR to film programming. You can read more of her articles on Film School Rejects, or follow her on Twitter. This piece is part of Indiewire and the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Critics Academy at the New York Film Festival. Click here to read all of the Academy's work.

NYFF: Miguel Gomes On 'Tabu' And The Pleasures And Phantoms Of Cinema

Christopher Bell — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 00:01:00 GMT

Behold the courage of Portuguese filmmaker Miguel Gomes: hoping to do a film in the vein of “Meet Me In St. Louis,” he and and a crew traveled to the small Arganil Municipality in the country to begin work on a movie featuring a small family band -- that is until the movie’s investor died before signing the dotted line. Instead of calling it a day, Gomes pressed on and made “Our Beloved Month of August,” a doc/fiction hybrid that captured the essence of the lively environment while commenting on the fragility and banality of a film production. It’s a special, beautiful beast of a movie that unfortunately didn’t see much of a release. Luckily, Gomes has quickly followed up with the brilliant “Tabu” (which we gave an A-grade review to out of TIFF).

Beginning with a rather conventional opening chapter titled 'Lost Paradise,' the filmmaker tells the tale of middle-aged activist Pilar and her starlet neighbor Aurora, the latter who believes her African maid is practicing witchcraft on her. Set in a chilly, modern-day Lisbon, the droll days pass and Aurora suddenly becomes gravely ill, confiding in Pilar about a man she had an affair with -- a man who the dedicated friend seeks out, urging him to relay his story. The second he opens his mouth, Gomes begins a new journey, abandoning Pilar for 'Paradise,' a nostalgic romance in a freewheelin’, colonialist 1960s Mozambique. 'Paradise' is a strange segment, one completely coated in melodrama yet told in a rather distant, unaffecting way (for instance, there is no dialogue -- all of 'Paradise' is told via voice-over). Both segments transform the the other in mysterious ways, commenting on the way time and memory can distort reality.

All in all it’s another distinct effort from Gomes, one you can catch in New York on December 26th. The director spoke to us during the New York Film Festival about the inspiration for the story, his distaste for the conventional three-act structure of screenplays, and his longing for silent cinema.

Starting With The Hangover
While the inspiration for the first chapter of “Tabu” is a bit ordinary (Gomes explained that the characters and situations were relayed to him from a relative), the following branch, 'Paradise,' has a much more colorful backstory. "When I was doing 'Our Beloved Month Of August,' I discovered that a song in the film was originally done by a Portuguese band in Mozambique in the 60s, so I met them. They talked to me about the old times in Africa, about the songs they played (whatever were the hits at the time), how they picked up girls, etc," explained the filmmaker, noting their nostalgia for a terrible colonialist regime. "They were attached to the regime and missing it, which is not my case, but what I think they were missing the most was their youth, and that intrigued me very much." As for how the divergent stories were eventually structured as one, the director described the idea in terms of binge drinking. "If the second part is the drinking, we start with the hangover. When you get to the section of partying, you continue to have the sensation of this hangover, so when you see the love affair, she’s already gone, she died in the first part. The guy that is going to tell the story, he’s an old man, and you can feel the weight of time contaminating this story, and all the fatigue that is in the first portion charges the second."

Grandpa Cinema
It's not part of the inflated "cinema is dead" declarations that have been going on as of late, but Gomes does have a unique perspective on the current state of movies. "Just as the guys playing in this band were missing their youth, cinema too is missing its youth. Now it is more than 100 years old, and during the process of aging a person becomes more aware and loses their innocence. You cannot believe in the same things you believed in as a child," the director said. "I tried to regain a little bit of this innocence that cinema lost (or we as viewers lost) with my film." Is it too nostalgic? Gomes fills the memories contained in 'Paradise' with artificial constructs such as a copious amount of voice over to distance the audience, making it so that cinema-goers will have to actively believe in the fiction he is weaving. "The beauty of cinema is that it allows us to go back in time, to our childhood maybe, and believe in unbelievable things. All of this is a construction so it’s artificial, it’s not reality, it’s not the same world we are living in, it is cinema. But I guess that cinema can generate an inner truth, and there is a truth that exists in artificial structures that you can relate and react to in an emotional way," he resolved.

And while he admits to being incredibly taken by musical comedies, the Portuguese filmmaker cannot resist adding a little bit of conflicting reality into his escapism: "My interest is that with fantasies and artificial structures, you don’t have to reject reality and I wanted to have both in the film. That means filming the material reality of that place, Mozambique in the second part, and have the fiction functioning among the Mozambique nowadays. I remember that there were kids wearing Obama t-shirts and my production asked if I wanted them to take them off. I said ‘hell no.’ There are guys with specific mustaches designed on then and girls who have their hair made in the style of the 60s, that’s the fiction. But we should not put away Obama t-shirts because we should not reject reality." It's an idea that also finds itself as one of the themes of film, the equation between reality and the desire of fiction. "I think the characters in the first part have an urge for fiction, that’s why they go to the cinema, that’s why they continue to read Robinson Crusoe, that’s why Aurora is always acting and performing to the others. We need in our daily, normal life a space for fiction." Just as fiction peaks through the cracks of the first one, the freewheeling nature of the second chapter sees reality -- whether it be the furious husband violently confronting the adulterous couple or just the ignorant nature of the colonialist structure -- rearing its ugly head to rain on everyone's parade.

Hollywood's Yearning For Formula
"There are now these guys that work in cinema called script doctors. This confuses me, because if there are script doctors that means the screenplays are sick or something, they need medicine. They always are talking about the way we shoot, the structure of film, the script at least, and I think their supposed model is classical American cinema. But I don’t exactly know what they’ve seen and I think they're missing something. I always give this example: in one of the high moments of classical American cinema, ‘Rio Bravo’ from Howard Hawks, the bad guys are in jail and their gang is coming to break them out, maybe kill John Wayne and Dean Martin. Because they are scared, they start to sing. Ok, so this is the standards of classical structure, at least in that genre. But when they stop singing, what do they do? They sing another one. And this is completely dysfunctional in the pattern of what should be. Logically, two songs in a row is too much. Why did Hawks do that? Because of the pleasure of it. I also made this film’s structure for my pleasure and hopefully the pleasure of the viewers that go through these rules and such, and for me it’s fun to go through them to get to the end. There is an oversimplification these days, they weren’t always these strict three-act structures and such, they had a lot of nuances. Sometimes it was not that linear."

Unleashing The Phantoms
The director often starts a film by collecting a number of ideas that he has a strong yearning to do, which is why some of his movies tend to have very different, opposing elements. A lot of these inspiring elements also happen to be from movies, and Gomes often unleashes them into the wild. "Having watched a lot of films and digesting them, they’re not always clear in my head, they are mixed and vague, more like phantoms. So I have all the sensations of other films I’ve watched, more recent, some old, and I think that there is a space in every film to let these ghosts enter. These phantoms can be so alive in films. That can be the reality. You don’t have to choose them, you just have to film what’s existing now, but let the phantoms of other times enter the film you are doing," he explained, while also name-dropping a great contemporary film that he thought did a similar thing: "Holy Motors." "I was quite impressed by that. All the phantoms of cinema: musical comedy, thrillers, horrors, political films, all run rampant in that movie."

On Shooting Digital
Despite the imposing digital environment of cinema, Gomes elected to shoot "Tabu" in both 35mm and 16mm, believing it to be the only appropriate way to tell his story. "I felt that the only honest way to do it was to use something on the verge of disappearing, film stock, and try to do it like cinema was done for years and years." The director insists that he is no purist and even admires some movies that have engaged in the digital world. “Pedro Costa does very good films on digital, and ‘Holy Motors’ was shot on digital and that’s a hell of a good film. Still, it’s sad because I’m pretty attached to film. I think it continues to be much better than digital, which is too clinical for me. Even some cameras were designed by companies that make eye glasses. So it’s completely different from photography, it’s a new thing. But I’m not saying that every cinema should only exist on film,” Gomes concluded.

Here's the trailer below.

Like the Last Time I Saw Someone in Love in Macao

Forrest Cardamenis — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 20:31:32 GMT

The last time our invisible narrator (perhaps director João Pedro Rodrigues himself) saw Macao, it was a Portuguese city that happened to be in China. When he sees it this time, he cannot find a single person who speaks Portuguese. It is the most densely populated city in the world, he says, and he doesn’t hesitate to add that it is also the one that can make you the loneliest.

Indeed, our protagonist has no name, preventing a connection even with the audience; he has just a voice and a handful of questions and memories. He’s looking for "Candy," but either Candy’s phone is off, or our narrator forgets his, or he gets lost on the way to the meeting place, and they never find each other. It really should not be as hard as it is, but nobody in Macao speaks Portuguese, so even asking to borrow a cell phone or requesting directions is impossible.

The city that the narrator grew up in is alien. The market is full of signs in a language he does not read, people he does not recognize pose for pictures, and artwork that is distinctly Chinese in aesthetics is shown with monologues about loneliness and disappointment, further proving that the city’s familiarity has disappeared. If our narrator was not a lonely, isolated dreamer, he would not be anything at all. In fact, he barely is: he won’t grant the audience the most basic courtesy of letting us see his face.

Not terribly far away is Tokyo, the densely-populated metropolis that hosts Abbas Kiarostami’s "Like Someone In Love." Kiarostami’s film also concerns itself with loneliness in the big city, but to Kiarostami, the city does not need to change for the characters to be unable to penetrate it. Akiko (Rin Takanashi) is as lonely as the narrator of "Macao." She refuses to return her grandmother’s calls, she prostitutes herself in the hope of making a connection, and she even considers marriage so she will have something to hold onto. Still, Kiarostami is quick to let the audience know that Akiko’s conversations and efforts are illusions. There is a long scene near the beginning of the film in which Akiko silently rides around Tokyo in a taxi, only able to experience the city at one remove, through a window. The energy and vivacity of the city is not for her. A statement about the population density of Tokyo would mean nothing, because to Akiko, the city is merely a lonely home.

"The Last Time I Saw Macao" never creates an illusion. Our narrator readily admits the city’s change, his own loneliness, and the repeated botched meetings -- always due to some kind of cultural barrier -- make it clear that we have an honest portrait of an admitted loner. Akiko is desperate not to admit her loneliness, always hiding behind something, be it a fake identity, another person, or a window. "Like" is the key word in the title; not actually someone in love, just acting like someone who is. We get to see her, follow her around for the day, because she wants us to believe how normal she is.

The narrator of “Macao” takes another approach by hiding, alienating us as if he knows we never knew Macao either. Akiko welcomes us into her world, hoping that by not obviously trying to hide anything we might think she is not hiding anything at all. We want to connect with Akiko because we can see her trying hard to connect with anyone, but we are not allowed. Her universal feeling begins to be unique to her, and nobody else is granted entrance into her world. Rodrigues and co-director João Rui Guerra da Mata throw us into their city, but they use a dreamy, almost impressionist sequence of images, one with little concern for distinctions between fiction and reality and no concern at all for cinematic space. We feel just like the protagonist, staggering aimlessly around a world that we should know better than we actually do. We have as much information as the narrator, and we also have no idea what to make of it. By keeping us away from his isolation, the narrator actually forces us to experience it, and our isolation never intersects with his, but we know it is shared. In this way, his specific loneliness becomes quite universal.

Elsewhere, Kiarostami never lets us know as much as Akiko knows; he sees loneliness as something invisible but universal. It’s the reason the professor pretends to be Akiko’s grandfather, as if suggesting a connection could create one. It’s the reason Akiko is more of a girlfriend experience than a prostitute, hoping that conversation will make everything else a little less lonesome. Only the neighbor near the end of the film is able to wear her loneliness on her sleeve, as the characters of "Macao" do. It is no coincidence that she watches the film unfold through windows, the same remove that Kiarostami uses to distance us. She is the honest character, and so she sees things as we do, calling upon her own human experiences and acknowledging her loneliness while watching everyone else desperately try to hide it. Of course, when "Like Someone In Love" does end, the illusion is shattered, its most literal embodiment broken. We do not know what happens to the neighbor, but when the illusion breaks, she surely sees things with the same confusion and eventual realization that we do. The sound design ensures that the broken window shocks us, but we have always seen Akiko through windows. We finally get an honest look, and so does the neighbor, whose view was obscured by a window just a few moments ago.

Kiarostami has tackled loneliness before. His previous movie, "Certified Copy," was about the loneliness of a British man and French woman in culturally rich areas of Italy. His "Taste of Cherry" depicts the loneliness of a man in his home country of Iran. "Macao" looks for an explanation to our loneliness while “Like Someone In Love” asks how we express it.

Neither reaches a definitive conclusion. That would be far too simple. "Macao" uses the city as a symbol of specificity, a reason for the loneliness, but "Like Someone In Love" uses the city as a symbol of universality -- proof enough that there is no definitive conclusion to reach. That two radically different films can both comment so profoundly on loneliness suggests their universality; looking at the two films together complicates and confirms their specificity. These two films, polar opposites thematically and formally, are only different for as long as you refuse to let them connect.

Looking For Reasons to Believe in 'Life of Pi'

Max Nelson — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 17:05:00 GMT

The piece contains SPOILERS for "Life of Pi."

Ang Lee’s "Life of Pi," adapted from the best-selling novel by Yann Martel, is a gorgeous film, and its visual splendor is of a rare and special kind: there’s a real sense of joy here, both in the act of image-making and in the resulting images themselves. "Life of Pi" is set, for the most part, on a small lifeboat lost at sea, inhabited only by an adolescent boy (Suraj Sharma) and a full-grown Bengal tiger. Pi -- our young hero -- has just seen his family vanish under the waves one stormy night, along with the steamer ship that was to bear them to America with a zooful of animals in tow (hence Pi’s ferocious feline companion). Lee seems happily oblivious to all the limitations associated with filming a blockbuster on a lifeboat, gliding along the meager area available to him with effortless grace. There are some wondrous images on display here -- a fluorescent orca whale leaping from the waves to trace a perfect arc across the sky, or the star-studded heavens reflected so perfectly in the sea that Pi’s lifeboat seems to hang in midair – and Lee’s camera takes them in with appropriately starry-eyed awe.

The catch is that "Life of Pi" aspires to be more than a showcase for its director’s visual chops: it wants to make us believe in God, and belief, in Yann Martel’s world, is an awfully flimsy thing. (Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS follow) In the film’s final minutes, an adult Pi, having just finished telling his story to an aspiring writer friend, introduces another. In this version, there are no tigers, no magic islands, no fluorescent orca whales. There’s hunger, murder, and bloody revenge; no redemption, only survival. No one can say for sure which story is true. "Which do you prefer?" Pi asks. The writer pauses. "The one with the tiger." Pi pauses significantly, then replies: "And so it goes with God."

When people say that they believe in God, though, they don't usually just mean that they'd prefer a world with God to one without Him. To believe that which you’d prefer is, quite literally, wishful thinking. Faith does consist of choosing one state of affairs over another, but it's about choosing not the one you’d prefer, but the one you take for truth: in fact, I’d argue that the faithful are distinguished in part by their capacity to believe some things they might not want to believe. The sort of truths that demand belief tend to be those that can’t be rationally proven; we need more than reason to believe, which might be why at the press conference for "Life of Pi" Martel characterized faith as "a need to believe something that is fundamentally unreasonable." The equivalent, in short, of believing a story involving giant glowing orca whales to one involving cabin fever and murder -- because you’d really rather the first story be true, logic be damned.

God, or the idea of God, is inscrutable, unfathomable, and difficult -- but not unreasonable. Faith demands a leap, but it is not a leap from logic into illogic. It’s as if, having guided us to a certain point, our rational faculties were to stop dead. We can’t take you any farther, they’d say -- but they’d point to a speck far in the distance, and tell us to follow the indicated path. The faithful never throw reason to the wayside; they follow its lead even after they’ve left its explicit jurisdiction.

The point here is that, by setting faith up as a matter of preference, Martel doesn’t have to choose one out of several mutually exclusive religions: he can believe them all, simply by preferring that they’d all be the case. "How can you be a Christian, a Hindu, and a Muslim?" Pi’s friend asks. "Religion," he replies, "is a house with many rooms." The implication is that we get to build the house -- that religion is, essentially, whatever we’d like it to be. In those moments when it reaches most desperately for profundity, "Life of Pi" ends up trading in these sorts of vague spiritual proclamations: adrift, like its hero, in an undifferentiated sea of preferences, fancies, and whims.

And that position -- unmoored, unstable, even empty -- ends up doing for Lee what it did for Pi: it opens up a specific way of seeing, an almost childlike receptiveness to the fantastic and the impossible. Perhaps "Life of Pi"'s lack of any visual inhibition, its willingness to submit to and luxuriate comfortably in images that defy expectations or even possibility (a human tooth lodged in a flower, a tiger pacing a raft, a glow-in-the-dark whale) stems from its philosophical weightlessness, from its conviction that faith is unbound by logic or rationality. To watch "Life of Pi" is, in some sense, to watch a grown man take that warm, fuzzy feeling he felt as a child in the presence of something incomprehensible, or at least impossible to empirically prove, and turn it into doctrine -- and if he has to embrace a pretty shaky conception of faith from then on out, at least he has the consolation of getting to see reality as only a child can.

All of which goes to show that "it’s visually stunning, but..." can sometimes translate to "it’s visually stunning because..." -- and that we might be forgiven in overlooking a film’s philosophical flimsiness if it means letting us do for a few hours what we’ve long since forgotten how to do: toss our reasoning aside, and gape in awe.

Max Nelson studies philosophy at Columbia University, where he is the co-founder of the undergraduate film journal Double Exposure. He thinks everyone should be excellent to one another. This piece is part of Indiewire and the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Critics Academy at the New York Film Festival. Click here to read all of the Academy's work.

David Thomson Urges Open-Mindedness and Innovation at NYFF Critics Academy (VIDEO)

Chris Pomorski — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 18:14:46 GMT

Looking every bit the eminent British intellectual in spectacles and elbow patches, film critic and historian David Thomson joined Lincoln Center's Scott Foundas on stage Friday for the New York Film Festival Critics Academy, to discuss his new book "The Big Screen: The Story of the Movies." Much esteemed for his previous works, which include "The New Biographical Dictionary of Film" and "Have You Seen...?," Thomson told the audience that his latest volume concerned not just movies, but also "what has happened to the world in the age of film." Foundas, a former chief critic for LA Weekly, called the book Thomson's magnum opus.

Thomson -- who dominated the conversation in a succession of charming, hyper-articulate monologues -- held forth on the creative destruction wrought by developments in on-screen entertainment, from the advent of television to the ascendency of YouTube. Though he seemed wistful for the films of the World War II era, back when a community of simultaneous thousands sat united in the dark for "Gone with the Wind" and "Casablanca," Thomson emphasized the folly in thinking we might return to such a time.

"If you're a critic," he said, "you have to get used to the idea that people enjoy viewing experiences that you might find appalling."

While the directors of "Lawrence of Arabia" and "The Tree of Life" might be driven to drink when forced to consider that their films are being consumed over laptops and iPhones, that reality, Thomson said, might nonetheless signal opportunities for technology to lift modern filmmaking from what he sees as a stagnant condition. Shows like "The Wire" and "Homeland," he said, are evidence that cable TV now produces content far superior to that of American cinema.

Though Thomson offered no specific advice to filmmakers, he seemed sure of the extant power of movies, and of the urgent need in the next 10 years for passionate, innovative young artists to revitalize the medium. "You can't make films," he said, "unless they occupy every second of your being."

Check out the full discussion below.

Through the Looking Glasses

Max Nelson — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 17:02:00 GMT

Midway through "In the Stone House," Jerome Hiler’s document of a late-sixties sojourn to rural north Jersey, one of the film’s subjects holds a shard of blue glass up to the sun. The camera dives into the object, bathing the screen in blue, and an invisible cut introduces a procession of statues – each one suspended among tiny pinpricks of light. After a few seconds, we’re zooming back out. It’s a nice optical trick, but also a touching grace note coming from a film so obsessed with time and its passing: it’s not hard to read those weather-beaten statues as dispatches from the distant past, and the camera’s intrusion into their tinted world a way of making concrete the slippery sensation of memory. More striking still, though, is the camera’s (apparent) passage through a divider of solid glass: Hiler’s lens, it seems, doesn’t always respect the jurisdiction of its peers.

My last post dealt with Abbas Kiarostami, Nathaniel Dorsky, and the way both address what Dorsky calls "question A for the poet" -- how to commune with a world from which you find yourself excluded, by circumstance or choice. It ended in a stand-still: the filmmaker, trapped behind his impassive lens, trying to scrounge up whatever consolation, and connection, he could find. "In the Stone House" picks up the problem where Dorsky’s pair of films left off, and even offers a tentative solution. Hiler, like Dorsky, films his life, real and unadorned, but with a markedly different emphasis: whereas Dorsky’s recent work seems derived from the filmmaker’s solitary ramblings and late-night meditations, Hiler’s is a portrait of a community. Friends -- Dorsky chief among them -- drop in and out. Young poets lie side by side under canopies of trees. When Hiler does turn his gaze away from his companions on the occasion of a complete solar eclipse, he’s careful to show the gang preparing for the event together. There aren’t many impermeable barriers in Hiler’s work -- not between people, and certainly not between the filmmaker and his world.

This is cozy, intimate cinema, in which the filmmaker seems just as much a part of the onscreen action as any of his subjects, if not more. "In the Stone House" is first-person as few films know to be: with the insertion of frequent strips of black leader, it even blinks. Dorsky’s films, of course, are first-person too; for that matter, like his close friend and peer, Hiler is more than willing to linger over, and abstract, details culled from the natural world.

But take a scene like the one midway through Hiler’s "New Shores" -- his follow-up and companion piece to "In the Stone House." A young Hiler, standing at the top of a beautiful vista, slowly pans across the landscape until his face sneaks into the frame. He stares straight into the camera, eyes glinting, before casually directing the lens away. It’s the sort of moment Dorsky never would’ve filmed, shattering as it does the filmmaker-audience barrier he seems at once to resent and respect. Connection between the two parties is certainly possible in Dorsky, but it comes about when we inhabit his gaze, when we make his (camera-)eye our own. In Dorsky, to be separate is to be divided; only in Hiler is it possible to feel close to the filmmaker, without being him.

We find the same logic at work in "Age Is...," the final film by veteran avant-gardist Stephen Dwoskin. In fact, the one thing people seem to agree on about Dwoskin’s cinema is that it’s intimate -- punishingly, unrelentingly, maybe liberatingly. His life’s work was an extended attack on the maxim "Don’t look at the camera." Even when his subjects aren’t staring his lens in the face, they’re taunting it, seducing it, imploring something of it, inviting it in or pushing it back. You couldn’t imagine the Dwoskin of "Age Is..." turning his camera from a face to a landscape. Faces are his landscapes, and in the case of "Age Is...," the faces in question belong to a small handful of elderly men and women -- their lined, creased expressions providing plenty of ground for exploration. The scrutiny, though, goes both ways: Dwoskin’s subjects are only too happy to return his camera’s stare, and with full-eyed curiosity. Dwoskin treats his camera as if it were another eye, roving, active, willing only to play the role of the detached spectator if commanded to do so -- and then begrudgingly.

Many of us will expect death to make itself felt, whether as a presence or a threat, at some point in "Age Is..." But death isn’t the emphasis here: the men and women on display stare at us so intently, it’s as if they’re fighting to assert their presence, to remind us that they exist in this moment, neither as relics from the past nor as walking dead. Perhaps Dwoskin felt the need to block death out of the picture, to grab hold of only that which stares and pulses and breathes, precisely because he sensed how little time he had. There’s an urgency to "Age Is..." that manifests itself not in the rhythm of its montage or the pace of its shots, but in Dwoskin’s worship for the human face and body. He’s the anti-Dorsky; instead of rarifying or abstracting, his camera founds itself drawn, whether by love or lust or friendship, into physical proximity with others.

One need look no further than "Age Is..." for proof that the camera doesn’t have to isolate the man (or woman) behind it, that two people can converse across a lens just as well as if there was nothing at all between them. If it seems otherwise, it’s maybe because the camera, by its very presence, marks the scene before it as something impermanent, ready to be consigned to the past, and the man behind it as one who oversees and documents that process of relegation. "In the Stone House" is just as rich with longing as any Dorsky film -- but it’s a longing for that which is distant in time, not space. The whole affair takes on a somewhat gloomier tone when you imagine Jerome Hiler in the editing room, confronting his emulsified memories after a gap of more than forty years.

Here, too, the filmmaker is offered a (partial) way out: bottle up enough of your present on film, and you’ll be able to re-live the impressions, gestures, and events of your youth long after they’ve faded into the past. It’s one of the greatest paradoxes of the movies that the filmmakers who stand the best chance at preserving their experiences for posterity, and for themselves, are those who pay no mind to time’s passing, who -- whether by virtue of their inclusion in or exclusion from the social world -- devote themselves to the present intensely, desperately, single-mindedly. The resulting films might, then, have the chance to serve as more than memento moris. Perhaps they’ll give their makers something more even than a way to commune with the audience or the people behind the lens: a chance to re-live the distant past.

Criticwire at NYFF Poll: The Best Films and Performances

Steve Greene — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 16:39:40 GMT

What a difference four and a half months can make.

Back at the end of May, as the Cannes Film Festival was coming to a close, we asked the members of our Criticwire network to send in their lists of the best films and performances. Now, as we reach the middle of October, many of those same films have played at the New York Film Festival over the past two weeks. "Amour," Michael Haneke's Palme d'Or winner, continues to be a pillar of 2012 festivals, but the renewed appreciation for Leos Carax's "Holy Motors" might be the biggest takeaway from the 50th NYFF.

Denis Lavant turned in a Phoenix-like domination of the best performances list, earning more first-place votes than nearly all other performances had total mentions. Edith Scob and Kylie Minogue also earned high marks in the supporting performance realm for their "Holy Motors" roles of varying lengths.

In Criticwire end-of-festival poll tradition, we asked critics to submit their favorite films and performances from the respective festivals. There is some overlap between the coverage of Cannes and NYFF, as a handful of respondents participated in both polls. But, for the most part, this is a new wave of feedback.

One key difference is the support for Abbas Kiarostami. The Iranian master's "Like Someone in Love" finished ahead of "The Paperboy" on the end-of-Cannes list of critics' Most Disappointing Films. Now, in the wake of NYFF, the Kiarostami's latest appeared on nearly half of critics' Best Narrative lists. One of its stars, Tadashi Okuno, made the top performancescut despite garnering only a single vote out of Cannes.

Amid the enduring arthouse slate, the biggest NYFF triumph was Christian Petzold's "Barbara." The early-80s period tale of a young doctor trying to escape East Germany scored high in multiple categories, including top Supporting Performance honors for Ronald Zehrfeld for his turn as André.

The biggest issue with having these basic categories is that many of the NYFF offerings don't cater neatly to simple characterizations of narrative or documentary. Some are both and some are neither, as in the case of certain selections from the "Views from the Avant-Garde" sidebar. For this reason, we've reproduced the critics' ballots below so that films and performances that may not have made the top in the more traditional categories can still get some recognition.

[Note: Scores for individual categories were tabulated on a simple weighted scale, with a first-place vote earning five points, second place earning 4 points, and so on. Critics could list fewer than five for a particular category or abstain from one altogether.]

(LEGEND: Film or Performance: Number of Mentions - (First-Place Votes) - Aggregate Score - Criticwire Average)

BEST FILM

1. Holy Motors – 23 – (10) – 88 - A-

2. Amour – 20 – (6) – 65 - A-

3. Something in the Air – 16 – (5) - 58 - B+

4. Like Someone in Love – 18 – (2) – 57 - B

5. Beyond the Hills – 17 – (4) – 48 - B

6. Tabu – 12 – (2) – 36 - A-

7. No – 12 – (0) – 35 - A-

8. Barbara – 10 – (2) – 31 - A-

9. Frances Ha – 9 – (1) – 28 - B+

10. Life of Pi – 5 – (3) – 22 - A-

Also Receiving First Place Votes: "Passion," "Caesar Must Die," "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!" "Flight," "Our Children," "Here and There," "The Bay," "The Satin Slipper"

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. Leviathan – 17 – (10) – 74 - A-

2. Room 237– 14 – (5) – 52 - A-

3. The Gatekeepers –12 – (6) – 49 - A-

4. First Cousin Once Removed – 8 – (3) – 33

5. Caesar Must Die – 5 – (1) – 19 - B

T6. Savoy King – 4 – (2) – 14

T6. Liv and Ingmar – 5 – (1) – 14

T6. Casting By – 7 – (0) – 14

Also Receiving First Place Votes: "Sans soleil," "Charlie is My Darling," "In the Stone House"

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Not Fade Away – 10 – (5) – 42 - B+

2. Passion – 9 – (4) – 36 - C+

3. Flight – 11 – (2) – 33 - B-

4. The Paperboy – 9 – (2) – 27 - C

T5. Leviathan – 6 – (4) – 23 - A-

T5. Life of Pi – 7 – (2) – 23 - A-

7. Hyde Park on Hudson– 5 – (3) – 20 - B-

8. Lines of Wellington – 6 – (1) – 18 - C+

9. Lincoln – 4 – (2) – 16 - C

10. The Last Time I Saw Macao – 4 – (1) – 13 - A-

Also Receiving First Place Votes: "Our Children," "Memories Look at Me," "Night Across the Street," "Ginger and Rosa," "Beyond the Hills," "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!" "Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out," "Tabu," "Here and There," "The Gatekeepers," "Araf"

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Denis Lavant, "Holy Motors" – 23 – (15) – 99

2. Jean-Louis Trintignant, “Amour” – 21 – (4) – 69

3. Emmanuelle Riva, “Amour” – 16 – (4) – 58

4. Nina Hoss, "Barbara" – 14 – (3) – 50

5. Greta Gerwig, "Frances Ha" – 16 – (1) – 38

T6. Elle Fanning, "Ginger and Rosa" – 10 – (1) – 32

T6. Tadashi Okuno, "Like Someone in Love" – 9 – (2) – 32

8. Denzel Washington, “Flight” – 6 – (3) – 24

9. Émilie Dequenne, “Loving Without Reason” – 6 – (0) – 20

10. Gael Garcia Bernal, “No” – 8 – (0) – 18

Also Receiving First Place Votes: Cristina Flutur, "Beyond the Hills"; Takeshi Kitano, "Outrage Beyond"; Pedro de los Santos, "Here and There"; Parviz Fanizadeh, "Downpour"; Macy Gray, "The Paperboy"; Peter Kubelka, "Monument Film"

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Ronald Zehrfeld, "Barbara" – 7 – (3) – 29

T2. Valeriu Andriuta, "Beyond the Hills" – 6 – (2) – 22

T2. Edith Scob, "Holy Motors" – 7 – (2) – 22

4. Niels Arestrup, "Our Children" – 5 – (3) – 19

5. Alessandro Nivola, "Ginger and Rosa" – 5 – (1) – 18

T6. Kylie Minogue, “Holy Motors” – 4 – (0) – 15

T6. Lola Creton "Something in the Air" – 4 – (2) – 15

8. James Gandolfini, "Not Fade Away" – 4 – (0) – 13

T9. Mickey Sumner, "Frances Ha" – 3 – (2) – 12

T9. John Goodman, “Flight” – 3 – (2) – 12

T9. Alfredo Castro, “No” – 3 – (1) – 12

Also Receiving First Place Votes: Richard Parker, "Life of Pi"; Zac Efron, "The Paperboy"; Emmanuelle Riva, "Amour"; Isabelle Huppert, "Amour"; Nicole Kidman, "The Paperboy"; James Badge Dale, "Flight"; Karoline Herfurth, "Passion"; Tadashi Okuno, "Like Someone in Love"; Ozcan Deniz, "Araf"; The seagulls, "Leviathan"; Teresa Madruga, "Tabu"; David Strathairn, "Lincoln"; Christina Hendricks, "Ginger and Rosa"; Dominique McElligott, "Not Fade Away"

Individual ballots from this year's participants can be found on the following pages.

- Criticwire Member Ballots -

Each critic's name contains a link to his or her Criticwire page. The full directory of Criticwire members can be found here.

Jason Bailey

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Holy Motors

2. Life of Pi

3. Beyond the Hills

4. Like Someone in Love

5. Amour

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. Room 237

2. The Gatekeepers

3. Casting By

4. Deceptive Practice

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Flight

2. Not Fade Away

3. Passion

4. Leviathan

5. The Paperboy

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Denis Lavant, "Holy Motors"

2. Emmanuelle Riva, "Amour"

3. Jean-Louis Trintignant, "Amour"

4. Nina Hoss, "Barbara"

5. Cosmina Stratan, "Beyond the Hills"

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Edith Scob, "Holy Motors"

2. Adil Hussain, "Life of Pi"

3. Valeriu Andriuta, "Beyond the Hills"

4. Samuel West, "Hyde Park on Hudson"

5. James Gandolfini, "Not Fade Away"

Miriam Bale

[I would like to make a special note of commendation on the production design and particularly the costumes in PASSION, because I can't stop thinking about the shoes. Also, because costumes replace characters in that film.]

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Holy Motors

2. Like Someone in Love

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Leviathan

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Denis Lavant, Holy Motors

2. Cosmina Stratan, Beyond the Hills

3. Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha

Christopher Bell

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Tabu

2. Beyond The Hills

3. Holy Motors

4. Berberian Sound Studio

5. Like Someone In Love

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Hyde Park on Hudson

2. Fill The Void

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Denis Lavant, Holy Motors

2. Nina Hoss, "Barbara"

3. Tadashi Okuno "Like Someone In Love"

4. Greta Gerwig, "Frances Ha"

5. Toby Jones "Berberian Sound Studio"

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Özcan Deniz "Araf"

2. Adam Driver "Frances Ha"

3. Valeriu Andriuta "Beyond The Hills"

Joe Bendel

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Barbara

2. Beyond the Hills

3. Outrage Beyond

4. Amour

5. Up the Valley and Beyond (short)

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. Savoy King

2. War of the Volcanoes

3. Deceptive Practice

4. Room 237

5. A Brief History of John Baldessari (short)

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Paperboy

2. Paperboy

3. Paperboy

4. Paperboy

5. Paperboy

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1.Takeshi Kitano, Outrage Beyond

2. Nina Hoss, Barabara

3. Denis Levant, Holy Motors

4. Jean-Louis Trintignant, Amour

5. Emmanuelle Riva, Amour

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Ronald Zehrfield, Barabara

2. Cosmina Stratan, Beyond the Hills

3. Niels Asterup, Our Children

4. Tadashi Okuno, Like Someone in Love

5. Rin Takanashi, Like Someone in Love

Christopher Bourne

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Holy Motors

2. Like Someone in Love

3. Amour

4. Memories Look at Me

5. Here and There

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. Leviathan

2. Room 237

3. Roman Polanski - Odd Man Out

4. Casting By

5. Becoming Traviata

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet!

2. Ginger and Rosa

3. Passion

4. Life of Pi

5. Flight

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Denis Lavant, "Holy Motors"

2. Jean-Louis Tritignant and Emmanuelle Riva, "Amour"

3. Nicole Kidman, "The Paperboy"

4. Eddie Garcia, "Bwakaw"

5. Neslihan Atagul, "Araf"

Forrest Cardamenis

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Amour

2. Holy Motors

3. Ginger & Rosa

4. Beyond The Hills

5. Like Someone In Love

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. Liv & Ingmar

2. Leviathan

3. Punk In Africa

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Not Fade Away

2. Life of Pi

3. Memories Look At Me

4. Lincoln

5. The Last Time I Saw Macao

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Denis Levant, Holy Motors

2. Jean-Louis Trintignant, Amour

3. Cristina Flutur and Cosmina Stratan, Beyond The Hills

4. Elle Fanning, Ginger & Rosa

5. Gael Garcia Bernal, No

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Christina Hendricks, Ginger & Rosa

2. James Gandolfini, Not Fade Away

3. Ryo Kase, Like Someone In Love

4. Annete Bening, Ginger & Rosa

5. Isabelle Huppert, Amour

Dustin Chang

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Holy Motors

2. Amour

3. Tabu

4. Barbara

5. Something in the Air

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. Sans Soleil

2. Leviathan

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Ginger & Rosa

2. Like Someone in Love

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Emmanuelle Riva

2. Jean-Louis Trintignant

3. Denis Lavant

4. Nina Hoss

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Ronald Zehrfeld

2. Alice Englert

Godfrey Cheshire

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Life of Pi

2. Like Someone in Love

3. Holy Motors

4. Barbara

5. Beyond the Hills

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. The Gatekeepers

2. Oliver Stone's Untold History of the U.S.

3. Charlie Is My Darling

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Passion

2. Not Fade Away

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Denis Lavant, Holy Motors

2. Suraj Sharma, Life of Pi

3. Nina Hoss, Barbara

4. Eddie Garcia, Bwakaw

5. Cristina Flutur, Beyond the Hills

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Zac Efron, The Paperboy

2. Ronald Zehrfeld, Barbara

3. Edith Scob, Holy Motors

Daryl Chin

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Caesar Must Die

2. The Last Time I Saw Macao

3. Tabu

4. Beyond the Hills

5. Ginger and Rosa

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. The Gatekeepers

2. First Cousin Once Removed

3. Leviathan

4. The Savoy King

5. Charlie is My Darling

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Nina Hoss, Barbara

2. Neshilan Atagul, Araf/Somewhere in Between

3. Tadashi Okuno, Like Someone in Love

4. Emmanuelle Riva, Amour

5. Jean-Louis Trintignant, Amour

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Edith Scob, Holy Motors

2. Irit Sheleg, Fill the Void

3. Olivia Williams, Hyde Park on Hudson

4. Christian Vadim, Night Across the Street

5. Michel Piccoli, You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!

Jaime N. Christley

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Like Someone in Love

2. Passion

3. Not Fade Away

4. You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet

5. The Last Time I Saw Macao

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Araf

2. Amour

3. Holy Motors

4. Lines of Wellington

5. Life of Pi

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Tadashi Okuno, Like Someone in Love

2. Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha

3. Emmanuelle Riva, Amour

4. Jean-Louis Trintignant, Amour

5. Gael García Bernal, No

SPECIAL MENTION: Ensemble cast, You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Dominique McElligott, Not Fade Away

2. Irrfan Khan, Life of Pi

3. Ryo Kase, Like Someone in Love

4. Rin Takanashi, Like Someone in Love

5. Brad Garrett, Not Fade Away

Tom Clift

BEST NARRATIVE

1. The Bay

2. Frances Ha

3. Flight

4. Amour

5. Lines of Wellington

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. Room 237

2. The Gatekeepers

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. The Paperboy

2. Something in the Air

3. Beyond the Hills

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Jean-Louis Trintignant, Amour

2. Emmanuelle Riva, Amour

3. Toby Jones, Berberian Sound Studio

4. Great Gerwig, Frances Ha

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Mickey Sumner, Frances Ha

2. Michael Zegen, Frances Ha

David Ehrlich

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Like Someone in Love

2. Something in the Air

3. Amour

4. Holy Motors

5. Beyond the Hills

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Lincoln

2. Flight

3. Our Children

4. No

5. The Paperboy (certainly the the worst film of the festival, but expectedly so)

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1.Denis Lavant, Holy Motors

2.Jean-Louis Trintignant, Amour

3.Emmanuelle Riva, Amour

4.Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln

5.Cristina Flutur, Beyond the Hills

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1.Richard Parker, Life of Pi

2.Veleriu Andriuta, Beyond the Hills

3.Salvatore Striano, Caesar Must Die

4.Edith Scob, Holy Motors

5.Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln

Cory Everett

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Life Of Pi

2. Something In The Air

3. Amour

4. Frances Ha

5. Passion

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Lincoln

2. Like Someone In Love

3. Room 237

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Greta Gerwig. Frances Ha

2. Elle Fanning, Ginger & Rosa

3. Daniel Day Lewis, Lincoln

4. Suraj Sharma, Life Of Pi

5. Jean-Louis Trintignant, Amour

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Emmanuelle Riva, Amour

2. Kylie Minogue, Holy Motors

3. Adam Driver, Frances Ha/Lincoln

David Fear

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Our Children

2. Something in the Air

3. Amour

4. No

5. Holy Motors

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. Leviathan

2. Memories Look at Me

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Life of Pi

2. Passion

3. Kinkhasa Kids

4. Lives of Wellington

5. Like Someone in Love

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Denis Lavant, Holy Motors

2. Émilie Dequenne, Our Children

3. Jean-Louis Trintignant, Amour

4. Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha

5. Gael Garcia Bernal, No

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Niels Arstrup, Our Children

2. Edith Scob, Holy Motors

3. Alfredo Castro, No

4. John Goodman, Flight

Jim Fouratt

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Amour

2. No

3. ARAF (Somewhere in Between)

4. Bwakaw

5. Beyond the Hills

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. The Gatekeepers

2. Punk Up In Africa

3. Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States

4. Odd Man Out

5. Rolling Stone’s Charlie is my Darling, Ireland ‘65

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Not Fade Away

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Nina Hoss, Barbara

2. Jean-Louis Trintignant/Emmanuelle Riva, Amour

3. Jose Sacristan, The Deadman and Being Happy

4. Nicole Kidman, The Paperboy

5. Elle Fanning, Ginger and Rosa

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Roxana Blanco, The Deadman and Being Happy

2. Lola Creton, Something in the Air

3. Zac Efron, The Paperboy

4. Don Cheadle, Flight

5. Isabelle Huppert, Amour

Niclas Goldberg

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Something in the Air

2. Holy Motors

3. Amour

4. Beyond the Hills

5. Tabu

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. Caesar Must Die

2. Leviathan

3. Room 237

4. The Last Time I Saw Macao

5. The Gatekeepers

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Passion

2. Memories Look at Me

3. First Cousin Once Removed

4. Camille Rewinds

5. Flight

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Emmanuelle Riva, Amour

2. Eddie Garcia, Bwakaw

3. Émilie Dequenne, Our Children

4. Tadashi Okuno, Like Someone in Love

5. Neslihan Atagül, Araf / Nina Hoss, Barbara

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Teresa Madruga, Tabu

2. Nicole Kidman, The Paperboy

3. Yiftach Klein, Fill the Void

4. Antonia Zegers, No

5. Niels Arestrup, Our Children

Kyoko Hirano

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Beyond the Hills

2. Tabu

3. No

4. Here and There

5. Our Children

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. The Gatekeepers

2. Caeser Must Die

3. First Cousin Once Removed

4. Casting By

5. Polanski

Caitlin Hughes

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Amour

2. Like Someone in Love

3. Frances Ha

4. Ginger and Rosa

5. Something in the Air

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. Charlie is My Darling

2. The Last Time I Saw Macao

3. Cineastes De Notre Temps (Masterworks)

4. Room 237

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Flight

2. Passion

3. Not Fade Away

4. You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!

5. Lines of Wellington

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Emmanuelle Riva, Amour

2. Jean-Louis Trintignant, Amour

3. Denis Lavant, Holy Motors

4. Rin Takanashi, Like Someone in Love

5. Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. James Badge Dale, Flight

2. Matthew McConaughey, The Paperboy

3. Ryo Kase, Like Someone in Love

4. Alessandro Nivola, Ginger and Rosa

5. James Spader, Lincoln

Caryn James

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Amour

2. Ginger & Rosa

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Hyde Park on Hudson

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Jean-Louis Trintignant, Amour

2. Elle Fanning, Ginger & Rosa

3. Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Alessandro Nivola, Ginger & Rosa

2. James Gandolfini, Not Fade Away

Daniel Kasman

BEST NARRATIVE

1. The Satin Slipper

2. The Blind Owl

3. Never a Foot Too Far, Even

4. Monument Film

5. The Parallel Street

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. In the Stone House

2. Point de Gaze

3. The Man Phoning Mum

4. Cousin Jules

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Peter Kubelka, Monument Film

2. Denzel Washington, Flight

Chris Knipp

BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE:

1. Amour

2. Holy Motors

3. Barbara

4. Beyond the Hills

5. No

BEST DOCUMENTARIES:

1. Leviathan

2. Caesar Must Die

3. First Cousin Once Removed

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM:

1. Here and There

2. The Dead Man and Being Happy

3. The Last Time I Saw Macao

4. Ginger and Rosa

5. Hyde Park on Hudson

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE:

1. Denis Lavant, Holy Motors

2. Jean-Louis Trintignant & Emanuelle Riva, Amour

3. Suraj Sharma, Life of Pi

4. Nicole Kidman, The Paperboy

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE:

1. John Goodman, Flight

2. Kelly Reilly, Flight

3. Zac Efron, The Paperboy

4. Macy Gray, The Paperboy

Gary M. Kramer

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Here and There

2. Like Someone in Love

3. No

4. Tabu

5. Our Children

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. First Cousin Once Removed

2. Last Tim I Saw Macao

3. Leviathan

4. The Savoy King

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Night Across The Street

2. Kinshasha Kids

3. Camille Rewinds

4. Flight

5. Room 237

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Pedro De los Santos Juarez, Here and There

2. Tadashu Okuno, Like Someone in Love

3. Neslihan Atagul, Araf

4. Zac Efron, The Paperboy

5. Gael Garcia Bernal, No

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Niels Arestrup, Our Children

2. Salvatore Striano, Caesar Must Die

3. David Oyelowo, The Paperboy

4. Laura Soveral, Tabu

5. Cindy Scrash, The Last Time I Saw Macao

Alec Kubas-Meyer

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Beyond the Hills

2. No

3. Caesar Must Die

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Leviathan

2. Night Across the Street

3. Room 237

4. Life of Pi

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Cristina Flutur, Beyond the Hills

2. Gael García Bernal, No

3. Cosmina Stratan, Beyond the Hills

4. Salvatore Striano, Caesar Must Die

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Valeriu Andriuta, Beyond the Hills

2. Cosimo Rega, Caesar Must Die

Peter Labuza

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Something in the Air

2. You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!

3. Passion

4. Like Someone In Love

5. Tabu

BEST DOCUMENTARY

Room 237

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Beyond the Hills

2. Holy Motors

3. Lines of Wellington

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Denis Lavant, Holy Motors

2. Nina Hoss, Barbara

3. Emmanuel Riva, Amour

4. Denzel Washington, Flight

5. Jean Louis-Trigtinant, Amour

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Lola Creton, Something in the Air

2. Carole Combes, Something in the Air

3. Sabine Azema, You Ain't Seen Nothin Yet!

4. Karoline Herfuth, Passion

5. Matthieu Almaric, You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet

Michael Lee

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Something in the Air

2. No

3. Amour

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. Leviathan

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Passion

2. The Paperboy

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Denzel Washington, Flight

2. Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln

3. Denis Lavant, Holy Motors

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. David Strathairn, Lincoln

2. Alfredo Castro, No

John Lichman

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Passion

2. Holy Motors

3. No

4. Final Cut: Ladies & Gentlemen

5. Outrage Beyond

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. Leviathan

2. Celluloid Man

3. Leviathan

4. Leviathan

5. Leviathan

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. The Gatekeepers

2. Flight

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Denzel Washington, SMASHED 2: SKY DRUNK

2. Denis Lavant, Holy Motors

3/4. The Camera, The Bay and Leviathan

5. The Ad Campaign, No

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Karoline Herfurth, Passion

2. Gael Garcia Bernal, No

3. CGI, Life of PI

4. DCP, Passion

5. Missing soft subtitles, The Satin Slipper

Jennifer Merin

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Barbara

2. Like Someone in Love

3. Caesar Must Die

4. No

5. Camille Rewinds

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. First Cousin Once Removed

2. The Gatekeepers

3. Liv and Ingmar

4. Casting By

5. Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Leviathan

2. Holy Motors

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Nina Hoss, Barbara

2. Tadashi Okuno, Like Someone in Love

3. Gael Garcia Bernal, No

4. Bill Murray, Hyde Park on Hudson

5. Noemie Lvovsky, Camille Rewinds

Prairie Miller

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Flight

2. Beyond The Hills

3. Fill The Void

4. Passion

5. Not Fade Away

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. The Savoy King

2. Final Cut: Ladies And Gentlemen

3. Untold History Of The United States

4. Liv And Ingmar

5. Room 237

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Life Of Pi

2. No

3. The Bay

4. Amour

5. Something In The Air

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Denzel Washington

2. Elle Fanning

3. Greta Gerwig

4. Hila Feldman

5. John Malkovich

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. John Goodman

2. James Gandolfini

3. Matthew McConaughey

4. Noomi Rapace

5. Catherine Deneuve

Judy Gelman Myers

BEST NARRATIVE

1. You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!

2. No

3. Kinshasa Kids

4. Bwakaw

5. Beyond the Hills

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. Gatekeepers

2. Godard interviews Fritz Lang

3. Celluloid Man

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Our Children

2. Last Time I Saw Macao

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Parviz Fanizadeh, Downpour

2. Bill Murray, Hyde Park on Hudson

3. Eddie Garcia, Bwakaw

4. Yiftach Klein, Fill the Void

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Alfredo Castro, No

Corey O’Connell

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Amour

2. Ginger and Rosa

3. Something in the Air

4. Frances Ha

5. Flight

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Hyde Park on Hudson

2. Life of Pi

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Jean-Louis Trintignant

2. Elle Fanning

3. Denzel Washington

4. Greta Gerwig

5. Bill Murray

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Mickey Sumner

2. Alessandro Nivola

3. Kelly Reilly

Rodrigo Perez

BEST NARRATIVE

1. "Life Of Pi"

2. "No"

3. "Frances Ha"

4. "Something In the Air"

5. "Ginger And Rosa"

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. "Passion"

2. "Lincoln"

3. "Not Fade Away"

4. "Flight"

5. "The Paperboy"

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Elle Fanning, "Ginger & Rosa"

2. Gael Garcia Bernal, "No"

3. Jean-Louis Trintignant, "Amour"

4. Suraj Sharma, "Life of PI"

5. Greta Gerwig, "Frances Ha"

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Nicole Kidman, "The Paperboy"

2. Bruce Greenwood, "Flight"

3. Alessandro Nivola, "Ginger & Rosa"

4. Mickey Sumner, "Frances Ha"

5. Rachel McAdams, "Passion"

Joseph Pomp

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Holy Motors

2. Amour

3. Like Someone in Love

4. Our Children

5. Beyond the Hills

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Jean-Louis Tringtinant, Amour

2. Emmanuelle Riva, Amour

3. Tadashi Okuno, Like Someone in Love

4. Emilie Dequenne, Our Children

5. Nina Hoss, Barbara

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Lola Créton, Something in the Air

2. James Badge Dale, Flight

3. Isabelle Huppert, Amour

4. Valeriu Andriuta, Beyond the Hills

5. Lambert Wilson, You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!

Richard Porton

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Holy Motors

2. Tabu

3. Something in the Air

4. Like Someone in Love

5. No

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. Leviathan

2. Room 237

3. Liv and Ingmar

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. The Last Time I Saw Macau

2. Lines of Wellington

3. Not Fade Away

BEST PERFORMANCE

1. Denis Lavant

2. Elle Fanning

3. Gael Garcia Bernal

4. The CGI tiger in Life of PI

Rania Richardson

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Beyond the Hills

2. Something in the Air

3. Frances Ha

4. Barbara

5. Amour

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. Leviathan

2. John Cassavetes

3. Samuel Fuller

4. Godard/Lang

5. Casting By

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Memories Look at Me

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Cristina Flutur

2. Cosmina Stratan

3. Nina Hoss

4. Emmanuelle Riva

5. Greta Gerwig

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Valeriu Andriuta

Fariha Roisin

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Beyond The Hills

2. Frances Ha

3. Like Someone In Love

4. Amour

5. Holy Motors

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. The Gatekeepers

2. First Cousin Once Removed

3. Caesar Must Die

4. Casting By

5. War Of Volcanoes

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Leviathan

2. Liv and Ingmar

3. Night Across The Street

4. Passion

5. Lines of Wellington

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Emmanuelle Riva, Amour

2. Emilie Dequenne, Our Children

3. Hadas Yaron, Fill The Void

4. Elle Fanning, Ginger and Rosa

5. Dennis Lavant, Holy Motors

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Tadashi Okuno, Like Someone In Love

2. Alessandro Nivolla, Ginger and Rosa

3. Ronald Zehrfeld, Barbara

4. Bill Murray, Hyde Park On Hudson

5. Jack Huston, Not Fade Away

Andrew Schenker

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Holy Motors

2. Like Someone in Love

3. Barbara

4. Ginger and Rosa

5. Tabu

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. Leviathan

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Tabu

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Denis Lavant, Holy Motors

2. Nina Hoss, Barbara

3. Emilie Dequenne, Our Children

4. Elle Fanning, Ginger and Rosa

5. Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Niels Arestrup, Our Children

2. Ronald Zehrfeld, Barbara

3. Noomi Rapace, Passion

Jason Shawhan

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Holy Motors

2. Barbara

3. Something in the Air

4. The Paperboy

5. Fill The Void

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. Room 237

2. First Cousin Once Removed

3. The Gatekeepers

4. Leviathan

5. Liv & Ingmar

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out

2. Our Children

3. Bwakaw

4. Flight

5. Beyond The Hills

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Macy Gray, The Paperboy

2. Nina Hoss, Barbara

3. Denis Lavant, Holy Motors

4. Cosmina Stratan, Beyond The Hills

5. Hadas Yaron, Fill The Void

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Ronald Zehrfeld, Barbara

2. Mathieu Amalric, You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

3. Kylie Minogue, Holy Motors

4. Olivia Williams, Hyde Park on Hudson

5. Lola Creton, Something in the Air

R. Emmet Sweeney

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Tabu

2. Barbara

3. Holy Motors

4. Mekong Hotel

5. Like Someone in Love

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. Leviathan

2. Leviathan

3. Leviathan

4. Leviathan

5. Leviathan

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Denis Lavant, Holy Motors

2. Nina Hoss, Barbara

3. Tadashi Okuno, Like Someone in Love

4. Jenjira Pongpas, Mekong Hotel

5. Teresa Madruga, Tabu

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Seagulls, Leviathan

2. Kylie Minogue, Holy Motors

3. Ronald Zehrfeld, Barbara

4. Edith Scob, Holy Motors

5. Laura Soveral, Tabu

Drew Taylor

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Frances Ha

2. Holy Motors

3. Life of Pi

4. Berbarian Sound Studio

5. Passion

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. Room 237

2. Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Not Fade Away

2. Hyde Park On Hudson

3. Flight

4. The Paperboy

5. Leviathan

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Denis Lavant, “Holy Motors”

2. Greta Gerwig, “Frances Ha”

3. Jean-Louis Trintignant, “Amour”

4. Toby Jones, “Berbarian Sound Studio”

5. Suraj Sharma, “Life of Pi”

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Emmanuelle Riva, “Amour”

2. Kylie Minogue, “Holy Motors”

3. Matthew McConaughey, “The Paperboy”

4. Don Cheadle, “Flight”

5. Richard Parker, “Life of Pi”

Gabe Toro

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Something In The Air

2. Like Someone In Love

3. Holy Motors

4. Frances Ha

5. Amour

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. Leviathan

2. Room 237

3. Caesar Must Die

4. Casting By

5. Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries And Mentors Of Ricky Jay

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Not Fade Away

2. Flight

3. The Bay

4. Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out

5. You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet!

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Tadashi Okuno, Like Someone In Love

2. Denis Levant, Holy Motors

3. Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha

4. Jean-Louis Trintignant, Amour

5. Noemie Lvovsky, Camille Rewinds

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE

1. Isabelle Huppert, Amour

2. Irrfan Khan, Life Of Pi

3. David Oyelowo, The Paperboy

4. Rachel McAdams, Passion

5. Edith Scob, Holy Motors

Stephanie Zacharek

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Holy Motors

2. Something in the Air

3. Passion

4. You Aint Seen Nothin' Yet

5. Barbara

Farihah Zaman

BEST NARRATIVE

1. Something in the Air

2. The Extravagant Shadows

3. Tabu

4. Holy Motors

5. Memories Look at Me

BEST DOCUMENTARY

1. Sans Soleil

2. Leviathan

3. Room 237

4. Small Roads

5. Collections (in Circles of Confusion program)

MOST DISAPPOINTING FILM

1. Lines of Wellington

2. Paperboy

BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE

1. Denis Lavant, Holy Motors

2. Emilie Duquenne, Our Children

3. Hadas Yaron, Fill the Void

4. Nicole Kidman, The Paperboy

5. Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha

Cristian Mungiu, Beyond the Films

Alec Kubas-Meyer — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 14:20:00 GMT

When director Cristian Mungiu hit the international stage, he did it in the most prestigious way possible, winning a Palme d’Or at Cannes with his second feature, "4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days," and rightly so. Since its release in 2007, Mungiu has been a part of several films as writer and/or co-director, but his newest project, "Beyond the Hills," is the first time he’s truly been back at the helm. "Beyond the Hills" premiered earlier this year at Cannes and won the award for Best Screenplay as well as a double award for Best Actress, taken home by stars Cristina Flutur and Cosmina Stratan, who played the lead roles of Alina and Voichita. Based on "4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days" and "Beyond the Hills" alone, Mungiu can safely be called an amazing director of drama, but his talents go well beyond that genre. Take, for example, his comedy (and feature debut), "Occident."

"Occident" tells the story of a man named Luci (Alexandru Papadopol) and his wife Sorina (Anca-Ioana Androne) who hit a rough patch after being forced from their home. As would become the norm with Mungiu’s films, it doesn’t have a happy ending, but for fans of his dramatic works, the trip is bizarre. In need of a job, Luci finds himself in a beer mascot costume and befriends a young woman, Mihaela (Tania Popa), dressed as a cell phone. Their first meeting is wonderful, and for the entire scene Mihaela’s face is completely covered. It’s just an inflatable beer bottle talking to an inflatable cell phone about relationship troubles. There’s nothing comedic about the conversation, but the context is so ridiculous that it’s impossible not to laugh. The entire film is like that.

Despite its lighter tone, there are still shades of Mungiu’s later work in "Occident," with the excellent use of long takes as well as high-quality dialogue. Proper use of framing and blocking means that there is never a reason to edit, and doing so would just distract from the drama (or the comedy). One shot early in the film, where Luci is walking through a dark hallway banging on doors, is very similar to one Mungiu would reuse in "4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days," and it is one of the better indications of how his style would evolve. Mungiu has continued to return to shots he likes; one of the most famous in “4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days,” where the main character, Otilia, sits at a table with her boyfriend’s family and some of their friends, reappears in “Beyond the Hills,” when Voichita finds herself the focal point of a shot in which she plays almost no part.

"Beyond the Hills," Mungiu’s most technically impressive film to date, tells the story of a pair of young women trying to rekindle their friendship. The concept is not particularly fresh, but the setting, a Romanian Orthodox monastery, and its basis in a horrific true event, give it new meaning. The film goes even further than "4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days" in its use of naturalistic handheld camerawork; Mungiu’s ability to create real-time intensity is incredible, and there is far more of it on display here. His long takes are far more complex as well: things are set on fire, people are tied up, and there is a real sense that things are actually happening. When I learned that some of the shots in the film were done up to 40 times, I was absolutely shocked. So much of the film seems like it could only have been done once, with chaos and action that would be impossible to reproduce. In "Occident" and "4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days," I never really felt like a scene couldn’t have been done two or three or forty times. "Beyond the Hills" constantly impressed me.

Despite all that, "Beyond the Hills" is not quite as good as "4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days." I plan to see it again without any incorrect preconceived notions; I expect I will like it more that way. Even so, I’m quite sure it won’t be one of my favorite films of the next decade. But it’s still a very worthwhile film, and it shows how Mungiu’s style has evolved. Over his last few features (and the other projects he was involved in, such as the comic anthology "Tales from the Golden Age"), he has developed a distinct look and feel for his films. Mixed with sharp writing that keeps his work interesting even when the dialogue seems like nothing more than banter, he should absolutely be seen as one of the most unique directors working today, if not one of the best.

Alec Kubas-Meyer has hugged Cristian Mungiu, which is super awesome. He is currently an undergraduate student at Sarah Lawrence college and an Associate Editor for Flixist. This piece is part of Indiewire and the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Critics Academy at the New York Film Festival. Click here to read all of the Academy's work.

NYFF Wrap: The 4 Best Films, Plus Our Complete Coverage Of The Festival

The Playlist Staff — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 19:58:00 GMT

There are many reasons we like the New York Film Festival, held by the Film Society of Lincoln Center annually for the past 50 years, but among them is that, as most of our contributors are based in NYC, the whole thing is pretty much in our back garden. But even beyond that, it's always been one of the most carefully curated festivals around with a line-up that cherry picks the best from Cannes, TIFF, Venice and elsewhere, and brings them all to the Big Apple.

And this year was no exception, with three big-name Hollywood premieres rubbing shoulders with the best that world cinema has to offer in 2012. And, uh, "The Paperboy." Below, we've picked out five of our favorites from the festival this year, and you can find every film we reviewed during the festival over the last few weeks, along with links to all our interviews from the festival. Read on for more.

"Life of Pi"
None of the NYFF's three big world premieres were total washouts -- we found much to like in both centerpiece gala "Not Fade Away" and closing night film "Flight," even if the films weren't unmitigated successes, exactly. But opening night movie "Life of Pi" was much closer to a full-blown triumph -- picking up mostly raves from the audience and landing right at the center of the Oscar conversation. Ang Lee's 3D adaptation of Yann Martel's beloved best-seller (which had previously thwarted the likes of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and M. Night Shyamalan), involving a 16-year-old boy's fight for survival as he's shipwrecked on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger was a big get for the festival, and it pretty much paid off in spades. Our review acknowledged that "the film is not without its problems, as superficial as they ultimately may be," but it's also a visual wonder, its 3D sitting alongside "Avatar" and "Hugo" as the best examples of the form so far. Not that it's pure spectacle, either: we concluded that it was "deeply resonant and soulful," and "a harrowing journey of survival, self-discovery and connection that both inspires and awes in equal measure." You'll be able to check it out for yourself on November 21st.

"Holy Motors"
For a certain breed of cinephiles, the return of Leos Carax for his first full feature since "Pola X" thirteen years ago has been the cinematic event of the year. And even more so once they actually caught "Holy Motors," the French filmmakers' bonkers, brilliant, genre-hopping comeback picture, which sees him reteam with his most frequent collaborator, Denis Lavant. The "Beau Travail" star plays Monsieur Oscar, a man picked up by a limo in the morning, and who spends one Parisian day donning various personas and characters, from a monstrous horndog of a tramp to a harried father of an unpopular teen girl. Is it about the transience of life? What it's like to be an actor? The process of filmmaking and creation itself? Carax isn't letting on, and it'll take more than one viewing to work it out for ourselves, but for a film as beautiful and strange as this one, that hardly feels like a chore. It's not everyone's cup of tea -- some, including our review from Cannes, found the film to be something of a case of the emperor's new clothes. But plenty of other Playlisters fell in love with at NYFF and elsewhere, and it's certainly going to cause some furious debates for the rest of the year.

"Something in the Air"
Having delved into the politics of the 1970s with his epic "Carlos," French filmmaker Olivier Assayas has returned to the same era with much more personal, autobiographical intentions for "Something in the Air," which follows a group of unreasonably attractive French teens in the early 1970s who find their revolutionary ideals put to the test on every front, not least by their own love lives. Assayas (arguably one of the most talented directors working) is on typically great form, with a winningly loose feel to the film, and a brace of cracking set-pieces (the burning-house scene is one of the most indelible movie moments of the year). It's an achingly personal piece of filmmaking from the director, more so than anything he's done in quite some time, and as in "Carlos," he continues to capture the era with verve and style, not least with a terrific soundtrack of folk and prog. It didn't win over the hearts of every Playlister -- our Venice reviewer liked the film a lot (and perhaps more in retrospect), but found some of Assayas' young, non-pro cast a bit weak and their characters a touch underwritten. But for the most part, the NYFF crew agree that it's a beautiful, vibrant and deeply felt picture. IFC Films will release it in the U.S. sometime in 2013.

"No"
Something we've noticed on our festival travels this year is that quite often, the highlights of the line-ups have been found not in the official competition sections but somewhere among the sidebars. In Venice, for instance, our favorites "Stories We Tell" and "A Hijacking" weren't in competition. And while the New York Film Festival doesn't have the same issue, it did showcase another good example: Pablo Larrain's "No," which won the Director's Fortnight at Cannes this year, and which most who saw the film suggested was superior to virtually every film that was in competition. The closing off of Larrain's Chilean trilogy (preceded by "Tony Manero" and "Post-Mortem"), examining his home country under the rule of dictator General Pinochet, it's a more accessible and optimistic film than we've seen from the filmmaker before now, with Gael García Bernal starring as an ad agency employee hired to help the referendum to rid the country of Pinochet. Told with a unique '80s video aesthetic, our Cannes review said it was "superbly shot, full of human characters and depicting a galvanizing true story while also showing us the hearts and lives of the people on both sides of the vote." We concluded by calling it "a masterwork," and those who caught up with the film at NYFF pretty much concur. Look for it in theaters in 2013, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

Our Complete NYFF Reviews
"Wadjda" [A]
"Life Of Pi" [A-]
"You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet" [A-]
"Leviathan" [A-]
"Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries And Mentors Of Ricky Jay" [A-]
"Outrage Beyond" [A-]
"Casting By" [A-]
"Araf" [B]
"Flight" [B]
"Memories Look At Me" [B]
"Camille Rewinds" [B]
"The Bay" [B]
"Barbara" [B-]
"Not Fade Away" [C+]
"Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out" [C]
"Our Children" [C-]

NYFF Interviews & Press Conferences

Nicole Kidman Tribute
Brian De Palma & Noah Baumbach
Abbas Kiarostami ("Like Someone In Love")
Olivier Assayas ("Somethiing In The Air")
Robert Zemeckis ("Flight")
Ang Lee, Suraj Sharma, Yann Martel ("Life Of Pi")
Noah Baumbach, Greta Gerwig & Mickey Sumner ("Frances Ha")
Leos Carax ("Holy Motors")
Christian Petzold ("Barbara")
David Chase & Steve Van Zandt ("Not Fade Away")
Lee Daniels ("The Paperboy")
Rodney Ascher ("Room 237")
Marina Zenovich ("Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out")
Cristian Mungiu ("Beyond The Hills")
Peter Strickland ("Berberian Sound Studio")

Garden States: New Jersey, According to David Chase

Caitlin Hughes — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 18:10:00 GMT

New Jersey is thought to be nation’s armpit, a wasteland typified by cultural aberrations like "Jersey Shore" and "The Real Housewives," a sea of highways, shopping malls, and neon-lit diners. However, New Jersey is also "The Garden State:" fresh green lawns leading to rows of split-level houses, where families gather ‘round to meals at Chili’s and go mini-golfing. It's a place as comforting as a greasy bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich. In the 1964 landscape of David Chase’s "Not Fade Away," suburban New Jersey youth Douglas (John Magaro) his rock band try to get away from suburbia and "make it" in New York City. But New Jersey won't let them go. It has an intrinsic pull on them, sucking them back into the place where they feel nostalgically complacent.

This same attitude toward New Jersey is manifested in many various forms of pop culture -- from Bon Jovi’s "Living on a Prayer" to Zach Braff’s hipster dramedy "Garden State" -- but most notably in other realms of the David Chase/Steven Van Zandt universe. Van Zandt, both the Executive Producer and the Music Supervisor of "Not Fade Away," is made man Silvio Dante on Chase’s "The Sopranos” -- perhaps the most iconic New Jersey television series ever -- and a member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band -- perhaps the most iconic New Jersey band ever. "The Sopranos" and Springsteen’s musical oeuvre enhance our understanding of both the attraction to and repulsion of New Jersey.

As "Not Fade Away" begins, the characters are all about to leave high school in New Jersey, and scatter to different states for college. Yet, that summer, Eugene and Wells (Jack Huston and Will Brill) ask Douglas if he will join their The Rolling Stones-obsessed rock band. This band becomes a major tethering force to their home state -- every winter break and summer they reconvene and play shows, with Douglas even describing the band as his "true family."

His "true family" isn't as committed to making it in New York City as Douglas, though. When the time comes for the band to record a demo, for instance, Wells insists that they aren’t ready. Douglas pushes him, and the demo is recorded, but there are more excuses to come. When Douglas later suggests to Eugene that they move to the East Village, where there is more of a "rock scene," Eugene falters, saying that he owes it to his home state to remain a musical presence in New Jersey. Douglas, somewhat hypocritically, quits school to focus on the band -- by moving to an apartment in New Jersey.

"The Sopranos" deals with similar themes in regards to the Garden State. Take the show’s opening: the camera tracks Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini, who also plays Douglas’ father in "Not Fade Away") as he drives from New York City to his New Jersey mini-mansion. While at times a vicious mob boss, he is also tied to the warmth of familial suburban life. One episode of "The Sopranos," in particular, deals with the desire to leave New Jersey, as well as impulse to stay -- Season One’s "College" (co-written by Chase). In the episode, Carmela (Edie Falco) falls ill, and Tony has to drive their daughter Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) to New England for college interviews. Tony is incredibly proud that Meadow is poised to go to college, since he just fell into the mob and missed out on that opportunity in his own youth. He tells her, "There was a time when Italian people didn’t have a lot of options... maybe I was too lazy to think for myself." He is bursting with pride that Meadow holds the promise of making it out of his family’s trap. In later episodes, however, Meadow ultimately decides on going to Columbia, staying within her family’s comfortable orbit.

What lure does New Jersey have exactly? Unlike the case with many other states, parts of it are mere minutes from New York City, which should make relocation easy. While there are indeed many New Jersey transplants there, New York City’s close proximity can be a looming, overwhelming force on suburbanites. In "Not Fade Away," Eugene is a local rock god. Girls flock to the band’s shows and flirt with him during his guitar solos, as he channels his idol, Keith Richards. At home, he is king; in New York City, he would be one of thousands trying to make it. He would have to work hard to set himself apart from the rest. And that is a scary proposition.

New Jersey, however, offers him the security of living in his mother’s house as well as a small, solid base of adoring fans -- it is his comfort zone. Like Tony Soprano, he falls into the trap of New Jersey’s stasis. He works as a mechanic, presumably the latest in a long line of mechanics in his family, and probably always will, falling into a pattern much simpler than diverging on his own path.

Similarly, Bruce Springsteen introduced the simultaneous push and pull of New Jersey in his iconic anthem, "Born to Run":

"The highways jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive
Everybody’s out on the run tonight but there's no place left to hide
Someday girl I don't know when we’re gonna get to that place
Where we really want to go and we’ll walk in the sun
But till then tramps like us, baby we were born to run"

These lyrics connote the way leaving New Jersey is difficult, even for those who want to -- the highways are literally clogged with people who want to ditch their home state in an attempt to "make it," as the boys in the film try to do. However, the lyrics are duplicitous. "Someday" is an indefinite, far-off word -- the band in the film thinks that they will make it "someday" too, but that is just a hope that keeps them going and playing gigs. Also, the very state of being "born to run" is an innate desire to leave home, a drive that lingers despite oftentimes remaining in the same place.

In "Not Fade Away," Douglas is certainly "born to run." In the wake of the band’s dissolution, he follows his longtime girlfriend Grace (Bella Heathcote) to Los Angeles so they can both follow different dreams. Grace wants to study to be a veterinarian and Douglas wants to go to UCLA Film School. Excited at this new opportunity, the young couple hops in their car, poised to drive cross-country, and wave goodbye to Douglas’ parents (Gandolfini and Molly Price) who stand on their well-manicured lawn. They cross many state lines until they arrive at their destination, where they may or may not be at the same house party as The Rolling Stones. Douglas loses Grace at the party and tries to hitchhike back to where they are staying. When he looks up at the sky, he notices the same configuration of stars as he did when he was home with his bandmates at the height of their hopefulness. His thumb goes back in the air -- will he hitchhike back to New Jersey, or instead hold the memories of band in a fond place in his heart? To him, New Jersey is, at once, a place to run from, and a place where he can walk in the sun.

A New Jersey native herself, Caitlin Hughes has an MA in Cinema Studies from Tisch, and has done various stuff in film, ranging from non-profit to PR to film programming. You can read more of her articles on Film School Rejects, or follow her on Twitter. This piece is part of Indiewire and the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Critics Academy at the New York Film Festival. Click here to read all of the Academy's work.

NYFF: 'Barbara' Director Christian Petzold Talks The Influence Of 'Klute' & Reveals What He Plans To Do Next

Christopher Bell — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 14:04:01 GMT

When the wall came down, German filmmakers found themselves ushered into two clusters: those that concentrated on the country’s fascist past and the others that shined light on anything else. The latter clique was hailed as pushing the medium forward; they often dabbled in social-realism with little dialogue and snail-like pacing -- and though their box office receipts were low in comparison to their brother faction, they seduced international audiences and held their ground at many of the world’s foremost film festivals. As the first and second generation of directors emerging after the split, the media dubbed their movement the “Berlin School” (a moniker they’re not thrilled over) and the team pressed on making films, a trio of them even coming together to shoot a “Red Riding”-esque trilogy in “Dreileben.”

One of those filmmakers was Christian Petzold, responsible for many great collaborations with German actor Nina Hoss in “Yella” and “Jerichow.” The dynamic duo return for “Barbara,” a subtle period piece centered on one woman in 1980s East Germany. Hoss’s titular character arrives as a new employee in a small, quiet hospital, her reserved nature and fierce mug deterring the advances of another doctor at the complex, Andre (Ronald Zehrfeld). But there’s more to her behavior than meets the eye, and eventually it’s revealed that she plans to escape the German Democratic Republic with her conspirator husband -- but with the State Security keeping close eye on her suspicious demeanor, it may be easier said than done.

We caught the film at the New York Film Festival and loved the subtlety of its being: “Barbara” refuses to hold your hand, eschewing any expositional moments in favor of low-key scenes that allow the audience to piece together the puzzle in their head. Director Christian Petzold was in the Big Apple to talk about the movie and we had the chance to discuss with him the films that inspired the movie, differences between German and American actors, and what he’s got cooking next. “Barbara” will hit US shores on December 21st.

Cracking The Idea
Born on the West side to parents from the East, Petzold had this link to the former GDR but found himself mostly in the dark in regards to what life was actually like for that particular society. “My mother and father spent their whole youth in the GDR and they never talked about it. We always went to the there to visit my relatives and I just thought... 40 years, 17 million people, and nobody was telling their story. The wall fell and nobody wanted to hear from them anymore. In 2002 I wanted to make this period picture, but I couldn’t find my position in it because I wasn’t a part of it. I’m a guest, from the outside,” he explained. It took him almost five years to finally crack the perspective of what eventually became “Barbara” thanks to a book by an East German communist. “The author wrote about the dreams that founded the GDR, all the dreams of the anti-fascist people from the exile, the survivors from the Nazi time. They wanted to build up a society that was a better Germany -- socialism. These dreams eventually changed into nightmares.” That’s when things clicked for the director and the titular character played by Nina Hoss was born. “Barbara would be a doctor, a fantastic one in the East, and she had to be part of this dream. She must be a socialistic woman. But she lost her trust, so this must be tough -- someone who lost the dream and what is coming behind the dream. It’s for her person and also a story for the whole society.”

Exploitation Of A Country For Box Office
“The windows of history always have the fantastic position of telling stories, they’re telling about the GDR as if it was North Korea or something,” expounded Petzold on his distaste for any sort of representation of East Germany that was severely grim or miserablist. “The West had advertisements, music, erotica, everything, and in the East they had nothing, they looked like anabolic swimmers who swam one world record after another and they’re all ugly, etc. And this I hate, because when I stayed there as a child, it was a complicated system with many people who were looking and searching for their position.” He refused to showcase only the horrible elements of that time and place, instead finding an interesting middle ground between the good and the bad. “The GDR was an island surrounded by capitalistic structures and societies, so for themselves they were like an island with two meanings. One the one hand it’s like Robinson Crusoe's island, an island of dreams, a paradise. One the other, it’s a prison. From these two conflicting elements there is a tension between them and this tension must be where ‘Barbara’ has its place,” he explained, adding that he wanted to “make pictures of infection.” The inhabitants are infected by the mistrust of their government, and on the flip-side, the political body is poisoned by its people, who just want freedom and independence.

Influential Films
Instead of conventional rehearsing, the “Berlin School” filmmaker prefers to spend their time watching films that he feels are important to the project -- rehearsals extinguish the off-the-cuff, in-the-moment collaboration that Petzold favors. “It’s not that I wrote a script that I wanted to realize. I hate that cinema stuff. I’m so glad that the best movie according to Sight & Sound is now ‘Vertigo’ and not ‘Citizen Kane’ anymore. Nothing against Orson Welles, but ‘Kane’ is always the movie of a genius, and I don’t like that. ‘I have so many fantasies in my head and I just want to realize them!’ For me cinema is a collective work and therefore the rehearsals I do are much different than practicing lines and hitting specific beats.”

Some of the movies that were most important to “Barbara” were “Klute,” “The French Connection,” “To Have And Have Not,” “Summer With Monika,” and “Stromboli.” “After the second day of looking at movies, the actors said that the subjects had nothing to do with the GDR in the 1980s. But the movies have to do with a morality. I wanted to open the actors to cinema. ‘French Connection’ is a movie where you can reflect the position of the director. He’s never over-the-shoulder of the sniper, he’s always on the sight of the victims and the weak. The murderers don’t have a subjective. ‘Stromboli’ is a movie about an exile, ‘To Have’ is about a man who wants to live on a fishing boat because the sea is his only society. This is always the mistake for a person, you cannot have an apartment on the ship. The society infected everything and you can see the infection in Humphrey Bogart and you can see it with politics and love in the same moment with Lauren Bacall,” mentioned the director, who stressed that the actors loved Howard Hawks’ film so much that they watched it an additional three times without him. “There was a scene in a night market in ‘Klute’ where Donald Sutherland is buying things for dinner and Jane Fonda watches him. He takes a melon and he’s touching it and it’s very erotic. She sees that he has senses, he has skill. She is living in her body, in her apartment, like a tank. So she’s looking at him and she knows in this moment, he’s not representing, he’s presenting and it’s a total difference. So love starts at this moment.” It seems that both “To Have and Have Not” and “Klute” were very influential towards the love story between Hoss and Zehrfeld, as their relationship plays out very similarly to those in the aforementioned films.

On Acting, German vs. American
“I thought about American acting because it’s totally based on European professors like Stanislavski, but also it is physical, it’s no expression. It’s something to do because the theater is so bad here, in Germany we have so many actors coming from stage, and that means loud speaking, face working. The American acting is of hiding and being. The people open a window, they have the skill to do it. The German theater actors never open a window because there are none on stage. Therefore I make rehearsals with actors I show them five American movies, by Gus Van Sant or something. ‘This is walking,’ I say. Germans can’t walk in front of the camera because they’re looking at the camera. When you’re on the street, everyone is looking 45 degrees to the ground. They are thinking, dreaming. But the German actors want to express something for the audience, they are never on their alone. People on the street are dreaming, in a bubble or something, they’re a bit sad when you see them. They’re thinking about their children, money, etc. The German actors have to learn so much.”

Next Stop, 1945
It seems Petzold isn’t done with the past -- without a breath, the filmmaker already knows exactly what he’s doing next. “It will be in Berlin, 1945, in which a survivor of Auschwitz is returning to get her life back.” His muse Nina Hoss will be on deck again, and also returning from “Barbara” will be Ronald Zehrfeld and most of his trusty crew, including Director of Photography Hans Fromm. He does stress that he hasn’t got the money just yet -- the film requires a bigger budget than the film he is currently promoting -- but he remains confident that this will be his next outing.