A Man To Remember During Black History Month

Race, a new biopic about Olympic athlete Jesse Owens, will be opening in theaters this weekend. The African-American track and field star won a record-breaking four gold medals in a single Olympiad—the controversial 1936 games in Berlin. My interview with Race director Stephen Hopkins was just posted on Biography.com:  http://www.biography.com/news/jesse-owens-movie-race-interview.

My Book Trailer

I did not know what a book trailer was until a friend sent me one for a novel she was reading. I thought: What fun! Readers get to see the author, and to hear her voice. Very few authors of "scholarly books" make a book trailer, but it seemed like such a good idea: introduce myself and summarize "Cinematic Quests for Identity" in 2 minutes. (That's a writing challenge.) I hope you will watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiVZIxrkbvI

Closing in on Oscar Night . . .

If you have ever wondered how a production designer’s drawings express the vision of the film director, or what a re-recording mixer does, or the nature of the relationship between composers and film directors, click on the links to the left, “About Film Production.” All three articles contain interviews with past Oscar winners, and will give you a greater appreciation for the diverse group of artists that contribute to the making of a motion picture. (I have updated the links so that they may now be read on Film Journal International’s website instead of on Heistbox.) BTW, If you are a fan of short films, please use the links under “Film Reviews (Online)” to read my reviews of this year’s Oscar-nominated Live Action and Documentary shorts. They are playing in theaters across the country this week, and will likely be available on iTunes later this year.

A Lesson Plan: Just in Time for the Spring Semester

Professors of film, literature into film, literature, and mythology, I have written a lesson plan that will take your class through several weeks of the upcoming semester. Click on "Features" on my book page: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442246973. The lesson plan is classroom-tested! I have been a part-time instructor/lecturer of writing, film and lit classes for over two decades.

Remembering Janis

Janis as she appeared in her high school yearbook.

In my Biography.com article about Janis Joplin, I imagine some of the things she might have been remembered for had she lived longer. You can read it here: http://www.biography.com/news/janis-joplin-biography-facts

NYFF Interview with Nanni Moretti for "Mia Madre"

Film director Margherita (Margherita Buy) and her actor Barry Huggins (John Turturro) have an on-set discussion about his inability to remember his lines in Nanni Moretti's Mia Madre to be released this March. 

I have just added a link to my Ambassador Magazine interview (in "Feature Articles") with Italian writer-director Nanni Moretti. I spoke with Mr. Moretti about his semi-autobiographical movie at the New York Film Festival last October.

Mia Madre is shot from the point-of-view of an Italian film director, portrayed by Margherita Buy, who is in the midst of making a large-budget movie when she learns that her mother is dying of heart disease. Mr. Moretti plays her brother Giovanni, and John Turturro has a supporting role as an American actor in Margherita's film. In my interview with Mr. Moretti, he is quite candid about the fact that he wishes he had been more like his character, the devoted son Giovanni, when he discovered his own mother was dying during the making of We Have a Pope (2011). Mia Madre will be in theaters in March.

Brief Clips of My Bluestockings Bookstore Reading

I have just posted clips of my Bluestockings presentation on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgO_OQG4JSg In this reading (on October 14th), I discussed the conventions of the female quest for identity in The Silence of the Lambs and The Secret of Roan Inish, emphasizing my feminist reading of heroic journeys. Among the topics I touch upon are: disorientation at the start of the quest; the hero's self-sacrifice; and why many cinematic quests are action films. At a trim 6 1/2 minutes, it is a good intro to some of the key ideas in my book, Cinematic Quests for Identity: The Hero's Encounter with the Beast (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015). I hope you will take a look!

Sarah Gavron's "Suffragette"

Factory workers and British suffragettes Maud (Carey Mulligan) and Violet (Anne-Marie Duff) in a still from Suffragette.

In theaters now, Suffragette is that rare narrative film made from the point-of-view of a working class woman, in this case one living in early 20th century Britain. You can read my interview with the director, Sarah Gavron, here: http://www.filmjournal.com/features/demanding-be-heard-sarah-gavron%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98suffragette%E2%80%99-dramatizes-british-women%E2%80%99s-fight-vote

My review of Suffragette also appears in Film Journal International: http://www.filmjournal.com/reviews/film-review-suffragette

Patricio Guzmán's The Pearl Button: In Theaters this Weekend

A still from "The Pearl Button" of the Humboldt Current, which marks an area of low salinity ocean that flows along the west coast of South America and that marks a unique ecosystem. (Courtesy of distributor, Kino Lorber Pictures).

If there were a poet laureate of Chile’s Atacama Desert, it would be documentary filmmaker Patricio Guzmán. In Nostalgia for the Light (2011), Guzmán probed that high, arid land, famous for its observatories, and its spectacular views of the Milky Way, for evidence of crimes that are the subject of all of his documentaries. They were committed during the sixteen years of dictator Augusto Pinochet’s regime. In his latest documentary, The Pearl Button, the writer-director becomes the bard of oceans, and in his sublime narrative voice, ruminates on their depths as the repository for human history.

The Pearl Button is comprised of several storylines that arise from that quotidian object. One button represents the only piece of evidence in a murder case that will never be brought to trial. It was discovered off the Pacific coast of Chile, not far from the Atacama Trench, annealed to a railroad tie. These wooden ties weighed down the bodies of Pinochet-era victims dropped from helicopters. Guzmán re-enacts that chilling crime and imagines the body and mind of the “disappeared” person now flowing in oceanic memory, along with countless others who suffered the same fate. 

Writer-director Patricio Guzman on his epic voyage along Chile's Pacific coast during production of his sublime documentary, "The Pearl Button." (Courtesy of Kino Lorber Pictures.)

During production on The Pearl Button, the 74 year old writer-director embarked on a sea journey along Chile’s 2,600-mile coastline, mostly inaccessible by land or air. Along the way, he discovered another narrative thread: the story of Jemmy Button, an indigenous 19th-century man who was paid one pearl button to travel to England in order to be “civilized.” Button later returned to his coastal community, among many other nomadic aboriginal locations in what is now Southern Chile and its archipelago. Europeans eventually decimated the native peoples, although some escaped. Guzmán speaks to a few of their descendants, including the last Kawésqar speaker. Once ocean nomads, they are now prevented by the Chilean government from putting to sea in their traditional canoes.

At Bluestockings Book Store

Me at Bluestockings Bookstore on October 14th, discussing chapters from my book, Cinematic Quests for Identity.

Having the opportunity to do readings is definitely the best thing about writing a book. Last night, at Bluestockings Bookstore in New York City, I had a terrific audience of movie lovers, some of whom stayed afterward to talk about Jonathan Demme's "The Silence of the Lambs" and John Sayles's "The Secret of Roan Inish," and to tell me how much these quest movies meant to them. One woman shared a story about Howard Shore, Demme's composer, and another wondered why people continually embark on quests. (It's a lifelong struggle for those who wish to live the "examined life.") Thank you, Bluestockings staff and customers for a very special evening! (And to Pete and Brian for topping it off with baseball and nachos.)Please check back early next week for video clips from the reading.

My Bluestockings Bookstore Reading

Please attend if you are in New York City! You can see a full-size version of this invitation by going to "Upcoming Events" on my Facebook page. The "reading," which is a presentation on the quest in The Silence of the Lambs and The Secret of Roan Inish, is on Wednesday, October 14th at 7 PM, at Bluestockings Bookstore, http://bluestockings.com/

Nora Ephron Documentary at New York Film Festival

Jacob Bernstein's "Everything is Copy," which premiered at the New York Film Festival last week, is a documentary about Nora Ephron, the writer-director of Julie and Julia and many other romantic comedies. The filmmaker is Ephron's son. Read my review of "Everything is Copy" on Biography.com: http://www.biography.com/news/everything-is-copy-nora-ephron-documentary-review

Ongoing New York Film Festival Coverage

You can read my New York Film Festival coverage in several places this year, including this website. Links to the newest posts on Film Journal International are below. Please check back again in a few days. 

Haskell Wexler and Pamela Yates in Nicaragua on the set of Latino (1986). (Photo courtesy of Skylight Pictures.)

I spoke with Pamela Yates about Rebel Citizen, a documentary that is actually a candid, extended interview with Haskell Wexler, the two-time Oscar-winning cinematographer and director (Medium Cool, 1969). Yates (Granito: How to Nail a Dictator, 2011) speaks to Wexler about his little-known passion for making documentaries. Rebel Citizen will screen at NYFF on October 6th and 11th. Film Journal International’s Screener Blog: http://www.filmjournal.com/rebel-citizen-haskell-wexler-receives-documentary-tribute-new-york-film-festival

Filmmaker Laura Israel whose Don't Blink: Robert Frank screens at NYFF next week.(Photo courtesy of NYFF)

The second interview is with Laura Israel (Windfall, 2010) whose new documentary, Don’t Blink: Robert Frank, is about that Swiss-born photographer and filmmaker. Frank is best-known for his book of photos from 1955, The Americans. Israel has worked with him for many years, so her documentary is an intimate portrait of the artist, but it is also a skillfully rendered interpretation of his work. Don't Blink will screen at NYFF on October 4th and 6th. Film Journal International’s Screener Blog: http://www.filmjournal.com/dont-blink-new-york-film-festival-interview-director-laura-israel

My NYU Bookstore Reading

I hope you will take a look at clips of my recent presentation on Jonathan Demme's "The Silence of the Lambs" at NYU Bookstore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEnhvA10x7k&feature=em-upload_owner

Also, snippets of the question and answer session are here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spEWFMU8h38&feature=em-upload_owner

New York Film Festival Screens a New Documentary about Ingrid Bergman (First in a Series about NYFF)

Ingrid Bergman was an avid photographer and maker of "home" movies, footage of which appears in Stig Björkman's documentary. (Photo courtesy of the New York Film Festival.)

In Stig Björkman’s Ingrid Bergman in Her Own Words, which will screen at The New York Film Festival, an archivist observes that the radiant star of so many memorable films saved her photographs and “home” movies, as well as her school assignments, and her children’s school papers, because early in her life she had learned the value of such mementos. Orphaned as a young adult, Bergman went to live with relatives who died three months after her arrival.

Ingrid Bergman in Her Own Words is organized chronologically, moving from the actress's girlhood to her early work in Swedish theater, to her triumph in Hollywood, which began when Bergman was brought to the U.S. by David O. Selznick to make Intermezzo (1939). After working with Victor Fleming and Alfred Hitchcock, she went to Italy to realize her dream of working with Roberto Rossellini. Her affair with the director resulted in a swift and stinging rejection by the American public.

At first puzzled and then deeply wounded by this sudden withdrawal of admiration, Bergman would not return to Hollywood until 1956 when she appeared in Anatole Litvak’s Anastasia. Her final theatrical film, before her death from cancer, is also discussed in the documentary. It marked Bergman's return to Sweden to appear in Ingmar Bergman’s Autumn Sonata (1978).