It must have come as a surprise to filmgoers in the mid-90s that the next Martin Scorsese feature film would focus on the childhood of the 14th Dalai Lama. Then again, it probably came as a similar surprise in the … Continue reading Blu Tuesday: KUNDUN
Released in 1989, New York Stories is an omnibus film, three shorts stitched together by a city. And though two of the directors’ oeuvres are inseparable from the city streets, tenements, and high rises that dot the New York skyline, it is … Continue reading Blu Tuesday: NEW YORK STORIES
Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. —Bob Dylan Rolling Thunder Revue is Scorsese’s second documentary about the singer/songwriter from Duluth, Minnesota. His first, No Direction Home from 2005, covered Dylan’s early years up to his motorcycle accident in 1966. Less concerned with documentation than myth-making, No Direction Home is partly how Robert Allen Zimmerman became Bob Dylan, and partly how Bob Dylan now remembers Robert Allen Zimmerman. Rolling Thunder Revue, currently streaming on Netflix, picks up ten years later, in the streets of New York City during America’s Bicentennial. What does this have to do with … Continue reading Sunday Streams — ROLLING THUNDER REVUE: A BOB DYLAN STORY BY MARTIN SCORSESE
“Each film is interlocked with so many other films. You can’t get away. Whatever you do now that you think is new was already done in 1913.” “When I first went to L.A. in 1970, there was a little bit of that need in me to buy into, participate in, the dream world of celebrity. It’s almost as if they are like gods and goddesses – that’s the impression they make on you from when you’re four or five years old. That’s the old story.” –Martin Scorsese Continue reading Born On This Day – November 17, 1942
Steve James’ latest documentary Life Itself is heartfelt look at one of the world’s most public and famous movie critics, Roger Ebert. A movie about a man who loved movies so much he practically lived inside them. James, whose previous credits Hoop Dreams (1994) and The Interrupters (2011), owes a great deal to Ebert. Ebert, alongside his on-camera companion, Gene Siskel, championed James’ Hoop Dreams—admonishing the Oscars for failing to nominate Hoop Dreams for not only Best Documentary, but Best Picture—practically put James on the map. Prior to starting photography, Ebert asked James to, “Film the man, not the legend” … Continue reading LIFE ITSELF
“As a director, I wouldn’t like me as an actor. As an actor, I wouldn’t like me as a director.” –Robert Redford Continue reading Born On This Day – August 18, 1937
“I wrote Taxi Driver as personal therapy, not as a commercial project.” –Paul Schrader Continue reading Born On This Day – July 22, 1946
Beyond the Edge – Part documentary, part dramatic recreation, Beyond the Edge tells the tale of Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay as they ascending Mount Everest in 1953. Now, many have conquered the world’s highest point, but then, we weren’t even sure if such a feat was possible. Chad Moffitt, Sonam P. Sherpa, John Wraight, Joshua Rutter, Dan Musgrove and Erroll Shand re-enact the historic feat, Matthew Metcalfe wrote the script and Leanne Pooley directed it. Out in limited release from IFC Films. Deliver Us From Evil – New York police officer Ralph Sarchie (Eric Bana) has seen … Continue reading Movie Beat – 07.04.14
“What the studios want now is ‘risk-free’ films but with any sort of art you have to take risks. Not taking risks in art is like not having sex and then expecting there to be children.” “Here’s a tip to young directors. They never fire you midweek.” –Francis Ford Coppola Continue reading Born On This Day – April 7, 1939
“A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.” “My way of creating, my style if you want to call it that, is something I was born with: it comes naturally. For that reason, it’s not something I’m overly aware of while I’m doing it. I don’t force any picture of mine to be a Kurosawa film. I just tell the actors to be honest with themselves and true to their feelings, not to think about unnecessary things, and to let their actions flow naturally. This is my philosophy of film … Continue reading Born On This Day – March 23, 1910
