Watch This: Sal Mineo & Juliet Prowse’s Angst-Dance from WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR?
Sal Mineo, who was murdered under still-mysterious circumstances 40 years ago today, will of course always be best remembered for his deeply affecting performance as Plato in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE. It’s one of those rare perfectly cast movies and Mineo achieves his own immortality in the film alongside James Dean and Natalie Wood. He […]
From PORT OF SHADOWS to WINGS OF DESIRE: The Incredible Career of Cinematography Legend Henri Alekan
The remarkable, dreamlike black-and-white look of WINGS OF DESIRE (which screens twice this weekend) seems to exist outside of time. There’s a reason for this. Because his regular cinematographer Robby Muller was otherwise occupied shooting BARFLY, Wenders called again on the old hand Henri Alekan, with whom he had worked on THE STATE OF THINGS […]
Today Would Have Been James Dean’s 85th Birthday – Watch His Early Screen Test
James Dean, born in 1931 in Indiana, found his calling as an actor early, while appearing in stage productions during his one semester at UCLA. He began making the Hollywood rounds in 1951, playing bit parts in television shows and movies (including Samuel Fuller’s FIXED BAYONETS and Douglas Sirk’s HAS ANYBODY SEEN MY GAL?). By […]
Watch This: Harry Dean Stanton Smokes, Drinks Whiskey and Talks PARIS, TEXAS
Here’s the great Harry Dean Stanton in an interview filmed a couple of years ago talking about the backstory of his appearance in Wim Wenders’ 1984 classic PARIS, TEXAS. Wenders, David Lynch and Kris Kristofferson also chime in. The newly restored, PARIS, TEXAS screens twice at AFS@The Marchesa: Friday 2/5 and Sunday 2/7.
Flashback 1950: Directorial Titans Clash In Hollywood Over Communist Hysteria
After WWII the United States faced off against a new adversary, its former ally the Soviet Union. No shots were fired, but the two superpowers existed in a constant state of alert. In America, the fear of Soviet takeover amounted to a kind of national pathology. Demagogues like Senator Joseph McCarthy had their day, exploiting […]
RICHARD LINKLATER: DREAM IS DESTINY – First Wave of Sundance Reviews
The documentary RICHARD LINKLATER: DREAM IS DESTINY screened at Sundance yesterday and the first reviews are in. The doc, directed by Louis Black and Karen Bernstein, gives audiences the most complete portrait yet of Richard Linklater, writer, director and, yes, founder and Artistic Director of the Austin Film Society. John DeFore at The Hollywood Reporter […]
30 Years Ago: When Abe Vigoda Met Dr. Ruth
Abe Vigoda, who died today at the age of 94, seemed like a great guy. He was blessed with an unforgettable face and he was a fine actor whom everyone who worked with him seemed to love. Today most of us know him best from his role in THE GODFATHER as Sal Tessio. He was […]
Watch this: Sergei Eisenstein’s Avant-Dada Short Film from 1923
In 1923, 25-year old Sergei Eisenstein, destined to change the art of film forever as director of BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN and other seminal works, was working as a stage director. On one production he had the idea to add a multimedia element, a filmed fantasia that would serve as an act break and a cover for […]
Watch This: Fascinating Footage of Cecil B. DeMille Directing 1934’s CLEOPATRA
Pardon the poor video quality, this footage is worth it. It’s very rare to see footage of any Golden Age director actually going about the work of directing. The featurette is certainly staged, and stagey, but we get a sense of what Cecil B. DeMille was like as a director and also of his priorities […]
Happy 70th Birthday David Lynch – Enjoy These Behind-the-Scenes Photos of the Master
His name has practically become a byword for “original” and “weird.” He’s also one of our greatest film masters, with an untouchable filmography and a reputation that, if anything, improves every year. We’re lucky to have him among us, still working and still giving us the most accurate weather report of all at age 70. […]
Watch This: A Brilliant Short Film Starring Only Anonymous “Leader Ladies”
If you’ve watched 35mm feature films presented you have perhaps seen “Leader Ladies” or “China Girls.” These are the colloquial terms for the test frame attached to each reel processed in a color lab. Color and light density tend to be perceived subjectively by the mind, so a uniformly colored photograph is used to gauge […]
From The New Yorker: Werner Herzog on Virtual Reality
Werner Herzog has never been averse to new technology in his own work (his 2010 CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS was the first arthouse feature made in the contemporary 3D climate) so it’s not surprising that he is interested in the implications of Virtual Reality, which is on the cusp of becoming a mainstream phenomenon. He […]
