Citizen Kane was titled American at one point. Seeing its values demonstrated time and again over the decades since its release, it's no wonder. The film is quintessential and speaks to our inner drives. The series of myths we tell ourselves are couched within its scenes. It is a textbook on what being American is.
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I watched Breathless for the first time last night.
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What follows are my tests of the Moondog Labs 1.33x anamorphic adapter and the Ikan Fly-X3 Plus gimbal.
Since hearing about Sean Baker's use of the adapter on his Sundance hit Tangerine I have been curious how practical it might be to shoot a film using the iPhone. I write this, having had experience with everything from Canon to Sony to Panasonic to Red to ARRI digital cinema cameras. What matters to me is that the tool being used to shoot the film be able to tell the story of the film.
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No one can grow without failing. If we are to be successful at anything, that success will be measured by what we learned from our mistakes. The point is not to avoid failure, but to accept the reckoning of each failure and improve with the knowledge we acquire from it. The more we do, the more we learn. The more we learn, the more able we are to succeed.
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I was sick this week and, luckily, was out of commission for only a day. I try to watch movies I've either missed or don't demand too much of me whenever I'm stuck at home. Here are a few I caught while I had the flu...
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Black Angel is the directorial debut of Roger Christian (Nostradamus), who served as art director on the original Star Wars. It played before The Empire Strikes Back in the United Kingdom, Australia and Scandinavia during its original theatrical release. It was believed lost (after the bankruptcy of Rank Film Laboratory) until 2011, when it was found by archivists at Universal Pictures and subsequently restored.
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Venus in Fur is the work of a master at the height of his abilities. It is nothing short of a masterpiece. To see the dynamism of two characters sparring with each other in one location and that it remains interesting throughout is a testament to great writing, acting, and directing...the power of cinema.
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I've been intrigued by the story of The Other Side of the Wind since first learning of it. Orson Welles began and abandoned many projects throughout the later years of his life, mostly due to financing issues. He simply did not have the social media and crowdfunding tools we have today to complete all the independent films his prodigious mind began (and hoped would be funded by disparate investors). His final film is one that has captivated the imaginations of many filmmakers, frustrated we have never been able to see it.
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It Follows is the story of a young woman named Jay (Maika Monroe) and her fight to escape a malevolent spirit that follows her. The setup is simple enough: the spirit exists before the story begins. We never know who or what created it, but we learn soon enough that it is passed from one person to another by sexual intercourse. Jay sleeps with her new boyfriend Hugh (Jake Weary) for the first time and learns from him afterward that she is next.
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