I want to take a moment and tell you guys about a new website that Peter Bowen, Nick Dawson and I from
Filmmaker are involved with.
First, the history. In the late Spring of this year Peter and I had several conversations with Focus Features president James Schamus about film websites — what's good out there, what's not, and, most specifically, what's missing from the film blogosphere. James talked to us about his vision of a site that would be dense with original content appealing to both cineastes as well as a more general audience enthusiastic about specialty film. Intrinsic to the idea was linking well and often so that the site offers a place for internet readers to learn more about the web's vast array of film resources.
These conversations led to Peter and I being asked to co-edit
FilmInFocus, which launched today. Click over to the site and check it out. There's a lot of stuff already up and more to come in the weeks and months ahead. But back to the overall concept of the site for a moment. There's obviously much to read about Focus releases, and we've commissioned articles that, we hope, provide thoughtful discussions about these films while frequently pursuing interesting tangents suggested by them.
And there's a ton of non-Focus content on the site as well. Our partner on FilmInFocus is Faber & Faber, and it's been a real thrill for Peter, myself and Nick to collaborate with Walter Donohue and Richard Kelley from that great publisher of film books. FilmInFocus is hosting
Faber's U.S. online site, and we have reprinted material from their back catalog, preview excerpts from their upcoming books and original, web-only content.
It's almost easier to explain the site by guiding you through a bit of what's on there already. Linked to from the main page is
an excerpt from Michael Deely's upcoming Faber & Faber book Blade Runners, Deer Hunters and Blowing the Bloody Doors Off: My Life in Cult Movies, in which the veteran producer describes the process of casting Harrison Ford in
Blade Runner. As part of a regular series of articles dealing with new technology,
Smart Bomb author
Heather Chaplin profiles Ian Bogost, the writer, critical theorist and video game designer whose very clever politically-minded Flash games enliven the online New York Times editorial page. There are the first entries in a series in which notable artists give us their "Five in Focus" -- lists of five favorite films related to a particular theme or topic. Composer and vocalist Diamanda Galas gives us her
top revenge flicks (a particularly nasty list including
Vigilante,
Pyro and
I Spit on your Grave); novelist Alan Furst offers up his
top spy movies; director Justin Lin punches out his
favorite fight scenes; and novelist Ian Rankin essays his most well regarded
British crime films.
As the Focus release
Eastern Promises is set in the world of the Russian mob, we commissioned
In These Times editor Joel Bleifuss to outline a history of the Russian mafia, charting its growth and influence in both the real world and in Hollywood fictions. Also related to
Eastern Promises, I wrote about the
Russian criminal tattoo sub-culture, examining how the tattoos in the film were researched and created. In the piece I interview producer and filmmaker Alix Lambert, whose
Mark of Cain is the seminal documentary on the subject. We link to
her site, where you can buy her film, and stream excerpts from it at the
FilmInFocus Screening Room. And too at the Film in Focus Screening room: four short films by Jamie Stuart in which our favorite short-film journalist profiles the Fall Focus directors: David Cronenberg, Ang Lee, Terry George and Joe Wright.
Another regular column will be something we call "Movie Cities" — essays which offer personal views of the writer's home town through the prism of the movies. We launch with director
John Waters talking about the old porn theaters in Baltimore and critic Kevin Conroy Scott taking us on a
cinematic walk through the neighborhoods of Pigalle and Montmartre in Paris.Focus has
Atonement out now, and the site has
Peter Bowen's article on Sarah Greenwood's production design,
my interview with composer Dario Marianelli, and
Nick Dawson's long interview with James McAvoy on the craft of film acting.
Because the Focus release
Reservation Road contained an interesting sub-plot in which Joaquin Phoenix's character connects over the internet with other parents who have lost children in hit-and-runs, we asked Alicia Van Couvering to explore
how the internet is changing the process of grieving; her piece links to a number of grief support groups that can be found online. And because Ang Lee's
Lust, Caution is set against a complex political backdrop, we asked Joel Bleifuss to explain to us
what Shanghai was like in 1942. We also have novelist Rick Moody, whose novel
The Ice Storm was made into a film by Ang Lee,
writing about the process by which the director explores his own cinematic landscapes. Keeping with the site's goal to connect with other sites across the internet, we have a regular feature, "Behind the Blog," which profiles different film blogs and the blogger behind them. The series launches with — who else? —
David Hudson of the must-read
Green Cine Daily. We also have the second installment up with
Andrew Grant of the blog
Like Anna Karina's Sweater.There's a lot more, but this post could go on forever so I'll just recommend again that you check it out. (You can post your comments and thoughts on the
FilmInFocus message board.) And, finally, one more thing —
Filmmaker is a "strategic partner" on the site, meaning each of us is going to help get the word out about the other through links and possible shared marketing efforts. So, because there's an obvious conflict of interest when it comes to Focus releases and this magazine, we're going to refrain from feature coverage of Focus movies for the foreseeable future, a policy we initiated a couple of issues ago when we began talks about this venture.
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posted by Scott Macaulay @ 12/17/2007 09:24:00 PM
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