IFP GOTHAM AWARDS: “BEGINNERS” DIRECTOR MIKE MILLS RECAPS HIS TWO WIN NIGHT

By Mike Mills

That was quite surreal. I’ve been to just two events like that before, so the red carpet shenanigans, seeing so many “movie stars” and directors you’ve listened to on DVD commentaries, and being in a room with so many people you’ve tried to get financing from – is really a strange experience. The kind that makes you all wild eyed and sweaty palmed. But mostly I was really truly just very happy to be there and felt very safe that we weren’t going to win anything and that I was just lucky to be included, to be in the group, to get to see this crazy kinda show in my life. When we all sat down, I told some of my producer filmmaker comrades that I hadn’t prepared anything to say cause that just felt so hubristic, and gauche, so vain, and weird – every time I tried my mind just derailed itself.

They said “Yeah, there’s a lot of love for the film, but we’re not going to win anything.” I thought they must know something I don’t, was hurt for about 30 seconds but then went easily back to being quite relieved I wasn’t going to have to go onstage in front of  Jim Jarmusch (to name one of my heroes there).  It was lovely to be there with my filmmaking family, some of our actors - Christopher Plummer, Mary Page Keller, and Kai Lennox - from the film, and just be in this weird scene.

When it came time for Best Ensemble, I was all set to applaud for one of the other wonderful nominees, and was very, very, very astonished to hear the word Beginners called out. I adore these actors, we had so much fun together, such a wonderful creative time, how wonderful to see them honored, but, Jesus, I’M TOTALLY UNPREPARED! Luckily Christopher is such a gentleman, so gracious and inclusive, so nice to me, and he lead the way. But I didn’t shout out to my great friend Ewan McGregor who’s in Uganda working with Unicef, I didn’t shout out to Melanie Laurent who’s in Paris where her … Read the rest

“BLACK SWAN” WINS BIG AT SPIRIT AWARDS

By Jason Guerrasio

The Film Independent Spirit Awards just wrapped (see it on IFC tonight @ 10ET) and Darren Aronofsky‘s thriller Black Swan was the big winner taking home four awards, including Best Feature, Best Director for Aronofsky and Best Female Lead for Natalie Portman. Winter’s Bone won the supporting acting prizes with John Hawkes taking it for actor and Dale Dickey for actress while James Franco won Best Male Lead for 127 Hours, Banksy‘s Exit through the Gift Shop won Best Documentary and Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg won Best Screenplay for The Kids Are All Right.

Also, “25 New Face” alum Lena Dunham won the Best First Screenplay prize for Tiny Furniture and Mike Ott, who we awarded with our “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You” award at this year’s Gotham Awards for his latest Littlerock, won the Someone to Watch award.

Read the full list of winners below.

Best Feature

Black Swan

Best Director

Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan

Best Female Lead

Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Best Male Lead

James Franco, 127 Hours

Best Supporting Female

Dale Dickey, Winter’s Bone

Best Supporting Male

John Hawkes, Winter’s Bone

Best Screenplay

Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg, The Kids Are All Right

Best First Feature

Get Low

John Cassavetes Award

Daddy Longlegs

Best First Screenplay

Lena Dunham, Tiny Furniture

Best Documentary

Exit Through The Gift Shop

Best Foreign Film

The King’s Speech

Best Cinematography

Matthew Libatique, Black Swan

Truer Than Fiction Award

Marwencol

Someone to Watch Award

Mike Ott, director of Littlerock

Producers Award

Anish Savjani, producer of Meek’s Cutoff

Robert Altman Award

Please Give — Nicole Holofcener (writer-director), Jeanne McCarthy (casting director) and actors Ann Gilbert, Rebecca Hall, Catherine Keener, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Lois Smith and Sarah Steele… Read the rest

TURN OUT: DARREN ARONOFSKY’S “BLACK SWAN”

This piece was originally printed in the Fall 2010 issue. Black Swan is nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (Darren Aronofsky), Best Actress (Natalie Portman), Best Cinematography (Matthew Libatique), Best Editing (Andrew Weisblum).

Darren Aronofsky was developing a project based on Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s 1846 novella, The Double, when he happened to go to a production of another Russian work, Swan Lake, the 1875 ballet composed by Peter Tchaikovsky. Seeing the ballet’s White Swan and Black Swan played by the same ballerina, Aronofsky experienced what he called a “Eureka” moment, realizing that The Double’s themes of splintering identity and possible schizophrenic breakdown could be found in the classic ballet.

Something else could be found there too — an early incarnation of the highly disciplined, sometimes punishing work ethic and training regimen that turns the most gifted students into beautiful ballerinas while clouding the futures of those with less talent. Swan Lake has been produced in many versions over the years, but the roots of most contemporary productions are the 1895 Russian production choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov. The Italian ballerina Pierina Legnani danced both lead roles, and she famously introduced the physically demanding 32 fouettés into the ballet’s “Black Swan Pas de Deux.” After Legnani, fouettés became a standard requirement of a ballerina, with the ability to do 32 a certification of her skill and endurance.

In Aronofsky’s darkly seductive, deliriously entertaining Black Swan, Natalie Portman plays Nina, a New York City Ballet ballerina whose life is still defined by the dreams a young girl has of dancing on the big stage. When she’s not rehearsing she lives with her clingy, slightly bitter and overprotective mother (Barbara Hershey) in a run-down Manhattan apartment building. In Thérèz DePrez’s production design, her bedroom is that of a child’s, its fairy-tale furnishings now more disturbing than playful. She has no romantic relationships and, indeed, as articulated by the company’s brilliant director, Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel), the question of her ability to perform the lead role in Swan Lake has more to do with unlocking her sexuality … Read the rest

“BLACK SWAN” CHOREOGRAPHER IN ROMANTIC TANGO SHORT

By Scott Macaulay

Director Asa Mader and choreographer Benjamin Millepied, currently being celebrated for his choreography for Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, have collaborated on a short starring Millepied and French actress Lea Seydoux. (Update: Millepied is also being reported as Natalie Portman’s fiance and the father of her baby.) From Nowness:

After meeting at a dinner one night about five years ago, director Asa Mader and current principal of the New York City Ballet Benjamin Millepied struck up a friendship. “We immediately had a connection,” says Mader. The duo subsequently holed up over a long weekend in the Hamptons (they stayed at the former residence of veteran NYC ballet choreographer Jerome Robbins) to brainstorm a collaboration. The results of that session finally come to fruition today in the premiere of the directors’ edit of the evocative romantic short Time Doesn’t Stand Still, which will be released in its entirety in 2011. Featuring an original score by legendary David Lynch composer Angelo Badalamenti, the film’s classic, timeless aesthetic is enhanced by stylist Aleksandra Woroniecka, who plundered Ralph Lauren’s current collections as well as the house’s archives. “There’s a universal language that we were trying to explore,” explains Mader of the spare French dialogue and intimate choreographed gestures.

Released this week is the section below, a tango dance “that serves as the dramatic lynchpin of the film.”

… Read the rest

“BLACK SWAN” TRAILER

By Jason Guerrasio

Looks like vintage Aronofsky. Can’t wait to see it. What do you think?

… Read the rest

ARONOFSKY’S “BLACK SWAN” TO OPEN VENICE

Announced earlier today on indieWIRE, the 67th Venice International Film Festival will open with Darren Aronofsky‘s Black Swan, a thriller set in the world of ballet starring Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Winona Ryder and Barbara Hershey.

The film will screen in competition, debuting Sept. 1 in the Sala Grande, following the opening ceremony. Aronofsky won the Golden Lion at the fest in 2008 for The Wrestler.

The Venice Film Festival runs Sept. 1 -11. Fox Searchlight will release Black Swan later this year.… Read the rest

MILOS FORMAN, “GOYA’S GHOSTS”

By Nick Dawson

NATALIE PORTMAN AND JAVIER BARDEM IN MILOS FORMAN’S GOYA’S GHOSTS. COURTESY SAMUEL GOLDWYN FILMS.

It is something of a tragic irony that after escaping the restrictions of Communist Czechoslovakia in 1968 — where he had made five films in five years — in the subsequent 40 years Milos Forman has worked in America, he has only made a further nine features. Taking Off (1971) was a transition between the looseness of his Czech films, such as the classic Loves of a Blonde (1965) and The Firemen’s Ball (1967), and the more conventional Hollywood style he would later adopt, and was the first of many films in which he captured the essence of America by taking an outsider’s perspective. Forman’s greatest successes, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and Amadeus (1984), both won him Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture, but even the supposedly less successful films he made around the same time — Hair (1979), Ragtime (1981) and Valmont (1989) — are rich, wonderful and often extremely underrated films. In the 1990s, Forman turned his attention to American counterculture figures, producing acclaimed biopics of porn baron Larry Flynt (The People vs. Larry Flynt) and alternative comedian Andy Kaufman (Man on the Moon).

Though since 1971 Forman’s films have either been based on previously existing material (novels, a musical, or real-life stories), his new film Goya’s Ghosts came from an original idea he had over 50 years ago while at film school: to tell the story of the Spanish Inquisition and the Napoleonic Wars. Forman solidified his ideas for the project while in Madrid for Amadeus, and then developed the script with long-time friend Jean-Claude Carrière, who previously wrote Taking Off and Valmont with him. A compelling historical tale, Goya’s Ghosts presents personal drama in the form of the political, religious and romantic dealings between iconic painter Francisco Goya (Stellan Skarsgård), pretty young merchant’s daughter Inés (Natalie Portman) and religious zealot Brother Lorenzo (Javier Bardem). It also has deep political resonances with the state of the world — and particularly America — … Read the rest