RISING VOICES
By Jason Guerrasio

In Denzel Washington’s second directing effort, the Oprah Winfrey produced The Great Debaters, he takes what he learned from his debut, Antwone Fisher, and uses it to make the inspirational true story of one small all-black school’s rise to the top of the college debating ranks in the Jim Crow South.

Washington also stars in the film as the rebellious Melvin B. Tolson. Known for his American Modernist poetry and a contemporary of the Harlem Renaissance, in the ‘30s Tolson was a professor at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas. There he coached the debate team and in 1935 his team beat the University of Southern Carolina for the national championship (though in the film they go up against Harvard for the title).

In a role that’s a far cry from the stern, calculated and brash Frank Lucas in American Gangster, Washington’s Tolson unveils a side of the actor we rarely see. Yes, he gives that Denzel stare when he needs it, but there’s also a playfulness about the character that at times makes him seem absentminded (he even spouts out a song or two). Then there’s the excellent casting of the three main debaters, Nate Parker, Jurnee Smollett and Denzel Whitaker, who plays James Farmer Jr. at 14-years-old, the youngest of the debaters and the most famous, as he’d go on to co-found the Congress of Racial Equality and become a leading voice in the civil rights movement. The three virtual unknowns give riveting performances under the guidance of Washington. Rounding out the cast is Forest Whitaker (no relation to Denzel, or as Washington calls him “little Denzel”) who plays Farmer’s father who’s also a respected professor. Though he doesn’t have much screen time Whitaker makes the most of it, particularly one powerful scene where he accidentally hits a pig with the family car, and with his son watching on, must take the degrading comments from the white farmers who own it as he throws the dead carcass in the back of their truck.

In both Antwone Fisher and The Great Debaters Washington took on the films … Read the rest

RAISING THE BAR FOR END OF YEAR LISTS

By Admin

Over at his Scanners blog, Jim Emerson has gone to greater lengths than most while compiling a list of his favorite films of the year. The results of his hard work and creativity can be seen below.

Emerson explains that the video is his “hommage to the ending of the late Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Eclipse and to the writers who are currently on strike. …The effort was to look at my favorite movies of the year (inspired, to begin with, by the opening of No Country for Old Men) solely through establishing shots, architecture, landscapes, inanimate objects… and a few glimpses of extras and motionless actors who don’t speak.”… Read the rest

SALON RECAPS THE INDIE YEAR

By Scott Macaulay

Writing in Salon, Andrew O’Hehir captures what a lot of people are thinking: it wasn’t a bad year for movies, but when it comes to independents, the long-form theatrical experience may be on its way out. There are no grand conclusions here, but O’Hehir talks to the right people — IFC’s Jonathan Sehring, Killer Films’ Christine Vachon, Milos Stehlik of Facets — in his attempt to assess the healthiness of independents surviving on the other side of the mini-major divide.

An excerpt:

Milos Stehlik, director of the Chicago-based video distributor and art-house proprietor Facets Multi-Media (which occasionally dabbles in theatrical distribution as well), has been observing the transformation of the indie-film niche for many years. The studio specialty divisions, he says, “release a lot of good movies, and that’s terrific. But they are the big gorillas in this little pond, and the way they can play the economics is very different. If something doesn’t work, they can absorb the loss. When something does work, they can maximize it and reap the payoff. Their business model is very different from anything a true independent with meager resources can muster.”

So the mini-major studios are implacably shoving the genuine indie distributors out of the marketplace they created; isn’t that just capitalism at work? Beyond empathizing with a few people’s bruised egos and disordered career paths, why should you care about this? That’s an open question, but my own hunch is that, Into Great Silence aside, certain kinds of unconventional and demanding films, the ones the specialty divisions don’t know how to package and present as spiritually beneficial holiday fare, will get driven even further under the radar than they are already. In my conversation with Stehlik, we began wondering whether filmmakers like Andrei Tarkovsky and Krzysztof Kieslowski (not that they were ever so wildly popular) would even get noticed if they were working today.

… Read the rest

"THIS IS PABLO FERRO DISCOVERING CINEMA…"

By Admin

A few months ago, Scott blogged about the first artwork that had surfaced for Pablo, the animated biopic of artist and filmmaker Pablo Ferro currently in the works from Richard Goldgewicht and Jeremy Goldscheider, the director-producer double act who were chosen collectively as one of our current 25 New Faces of Independent Film. Earlier today, I was sent the first clip of the film’s animation, which is being developed by J.J. Walker.

Look out for more updates as the project progresses towards completion.… Read the rest

A WORKING WRITER LAUNCHES A WORKING WRITER

By Scott Macaulay

I received an email from writer/director Maria Maggenti (Puccini for Beginners) announcing the launch of A Working Writer, a website that she and writer Michael Seitzman have launched during the midst of this current WGA strike. The site will feature short video interviews of writers discussing their work and their thoughts about being working writers. First up: Eva Saks.… Read the rest

FILM IN FOCUS LAUNCHES

By Scott Macaulay

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 … Read the rest

BLUES LEGENDS

By Scott Macaulay

At the recent Monterey Jazz Festval, two film legends — Clint Eastwood and John Sayles — talked about about the blues in an onstage discussion. The clip is below.

Eastwood’s love of jazz and blues music is well known and can be felt through his numerous film scores. Sayles’s take on the art form can be best seen in his forthcoming film, Honeydripper, which is one of his best and hits theaters this holiday season.

… Read the rest

POST-TIGERS

By Admin

After making their theatrical debut last year Wild Tigers I Have Known director Cam Archer and cinematographer Aaron Platt have been busy making music videos for the likes of Emily Jane White, Six Organs of Admittance and Mick Turner/Tren Brothers.

Although Wild Tigers was no Little Miss Sunshine indie-cash explosion, it gained a significant amount of critical attention and Aaron Platt even garnered an Independent Spirit Award nomination for his photography.

It might not be for all tastes, but there’s a definite style Archer and Platt are developing laden with lonely individuals against luminous landscapes. Here’s a sample of their latest:

Video for Six Organ’s of Admittance – Shelter of Ash:

Video for Emily Jane White – Dagger:

Their websites are also good time:
Cam Archer
Aaron Platt… Read the rest

ST. CLAIRE BOURNE, RIP

By Scott Macaulay

Sadly, this just in from Adrienne Jones, Treasurer and Membership Director of the Black Documentary Collective:

We regret to inform everyone that St Clair Bourne, our founder, has passed away.

Details of his passing will follow. Also, information about his memorial service will be sent as soon as we have it.

Members have expressed interest in making donations to the family. We would like to contribute money through our BDC/St Clair Bourne fund. If you wish to make a donation, please forward payment to:

BDC
P.O. Box 610
Hamilton Grange Station
New York, NY 10031.

In the memo line please write BDC/St Clair Bourne Fund.

At the Renew Media blog, Agnes Varnum has more and collects several links about the great documentary filmmaker and his career, including this piece on the Media Rights website:

Over the past 35 years, St. Clair Bourne has been the producer, director and writer of some forty-five film productions, including documentaries for HBO, PBS, NBC, BBC and National Geographic in addition to his own independent work. He has produced the feature-length documentary Half Past Autumn: The Life and Works of Gordon Parks for HBO. With actor Wesley Snipes as narrator and executive producer, Bourne directed John Henrik Clarke: A Great and Mighty Walk and also directed Paul Robeson: Here I Stand!, a two-hour documentary for the “American Masters” PBS series. He was also a co-producer on the HBO dramatic feature Rebound, the true story of playground basketball legend Earl “The Goat” Manigault as well as Woodie King’s independent theatrical feature The Long Night. Bourne is the executive producer for Visitors, Melis Birder’s documentary about the family and friends of the incarcerated and Filiberto: Dead or Alive about the Puerto Rican nationalist Filiberto Ojeda Rios. Bourne is currently shooting a film about veteran photographer Ernest Withers and a documentary series about the rise and fall of the Black Panther Party for PBS.

In a short piece by Chester Higgins in The New York Times, Bourne said about his work, “What I do is explain people’s lifestyles and choices, and I show … Read the rest

THE SIGNS OF PROGRESS

By Scott Macaulay

Filmmaker‘s Managing Editor, Jason Guerrasio, returned from the film festival in Dubai this weekend and, like most visitors, he was knocked out by the pace of construction there. (See his photo-essays, below). In fact, a discussion of Dubai’s explosive growth — the political, social and design repercussions of such — is a hot topic at the moment, and two very different takes on the build-up of Dubai can be found online. The current issue of Metropolis contains three articles on Dubai, one of seven states belonging to the United Arab Emirates. (Thanks to Bergen Swanson for the link.) The first, “Beyond the Spectacle,” by Stephen Zacks, views Dubai as an example of a kind of progressive hyper-capitalism.

From the lede:

Fifty years from now, New York will be considered the economic and cultural capital of the previous century, fille d with quaint artifacts of another time and places to visit for the sake of nostalgia, but not the center of world culture— somewhat like how we think of Paris today compared to 100 years ago. Federal immigration restrictions, the religious police, and the protection of large corporations from foreign competition will have cut off our biggest sources of wealth—invention and innovation—and historic preservation will have saved the unique character of neigh borhoods and conserved innumerable buildings but killed the spirit that made the city the greatest of its time.

The megacity of Dubai, one of the seven federal states of the United Arab Emirates, will be the new economic and cultural capital of the world, spanning its neighboring emirates of Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, and beyond in one urbanized mass, rich in the biggest source of renewable energy—sunlight—a pioneer in sustainability and new technology, and conveniently located within easy travel distance of a population of more than two billion in the Middle East, Europe, India, and Africa. In the six years since the Twin Towers fell, a thousand skyscrapers have been rising on the Arabian Gulf.

Late in the article, Zacks concedes that “Dubai’s progressive policies exist only within well-defined urban zones” but views equality between the country’s residents … Read the rest