The red carpet will soon roll out for the 77th Festival de Cannes. The international film festival, playing out May 14-25, has a distinct American voice this year. “Barbie” filmmaker Greta Gerwig is the first U.S. female director name jury president. Many veteran American helmers are heading to the French Rivera resort town. George Lucas, who turns 80 on May 14, will receive an honorary Palme d’Or. Francis Ford Coppola’s much-anticipated “Megalopolis” is screening in competition, as is Paul Schrader’s “Oh Canada.” Kevin Costner’s new Western “Horizon, An American Saga” will premiere out of competition and Oliver Stone’s “Lula” is part of the special screening showcase.
Fifty years ago, Coppola was the toast of the 27th Cannes Film Festival. His brilliant psychological thriller “The Conversation” starring Gene Hackman won the Palme D’Or and well as a Special Mention from the Ecumenical Jury. The film would earn three Oscar nominations: picture,...
Fifty years ago, Coppola was the toast of the 27th Cannes Film Festival. His brilliant psychological thriller “The Conversation” starring Gene Hackman won the Palme D’Or and well as a Special Mention from the Ecumenical Jury. The film would earn three Oscar nominations: picture,...
- 4/25/2024
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (Raven Jackson)
A film that feels uprooted from deep beneath the earth, Raven Jackson’s poetic, patient debut is a distillation of cinema to its purest form, a stunning patchwork of experience and memory. Tethered around the life of Mack, a Black woman from Mississippi, as we witness glimpses of her childhood, teenage years, and beyond, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt becomes a sensory experience unlike anything else this year. Shot in beautiful 35mm by Jomo Fray and edited by Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s collaborator Lee Chatametikool, there’s a reverence for nature and joy for human connection that seems all too rarified in today’s landscape of American filmmaking. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: VOD...
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (Raven Jackson)
A film that feels uprooted from deep beneath the earth, Raven Jackson’s poetic, patient debut is a distillation of cinema to its purest form, a stunning patchwork of experience and memory. Tethered around the life of Mack, a Black woman from Mississippi, as we witness glimpses of her childhood, teenage years, and beyond, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt becomes a sensory experience unlike anything else this year. Shot in beautiful 35mm by Jomo Fray and edited by Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s collaborator Lee Chatametikool, there’s a reverence for nature and joy for human connection that seems all too rarified in today’s landscape of American filmmaking. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: VOD...
- 1/5/2024
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
The sound of music was back with us this week in the form of two polar opposite productions that may intrigue audiences but challenge marketers.
Maestro started streaming on Netflix after auditioning in a (very) few select theaters. Will its narcissistic protagonist, Leonard Bernstein, prove bigger than life on theater screens but too big for the tube?
Wonka, by contrast, is a study in promotional ubiquity, fragments popping up on everything from TBS to the Food Network. Its campaign reflects the determination of Warner Bros Discovery, like Netflix, to overcome the genre funk (think West Side Story or Dear Evan Hansen).
Hovering in the background are the bakeoffs, recaps and revisits fostered by an Academy eager to get out the vote for international candidates, fulfilling its global scenario.
Gil Cates, the colorful impresario who presided over 14 Oscar shows and rescued the genre from the Snow White debacle, would likely have been delighted by Barbenheimer.
Maestro started streaming on Netflix after auditioning in a (very) few select theaters. Will its narcissistic protagonist, Leonard Bernstein, prove bigger than life on theater screens but too big for the tube?
Wonka, by contrast, is a study in promotional ubiquity, fragments popping up on everything from TBS to the Food Network. Its campaign reflects the determination of Warner Bros Discovery, like Netflix, to overcome the genre funk (think West Side Story or Dear Evan Hansen).
Hovering in the background are the bakeoffs, recaps and revisits fostered by an Academy eager to get out the vote for international candidates, fulfilling its global scenario.
Gil Cates, the colorful impresario who presided over 14 Oscar shows and rescued the genre from the Snow White debacle, would likely have been delighted by Barbenheimer.
- 12/20/2023
- by Peter Bart
- Deadline Film + TV
26 October 2023 — Directed, written, produced by, and starring Bradley Cooper in the title role, opposite Carey Mulligan, Maestro is a towering and fearless love story chronicling the lifelong relationship between Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein. A love letter to life and art, Maestro at its core is an emotionally epic portrayal of family and love. Deutsche Grammophon is delighted to be releasing the original soundtrack album for the movie, which has already garnered widespread critical acclaim. All the music in the film was chosen by Cooper, and the new recordings on the soundtrack were made by the London Symphony Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who also worked closely with the actor-director as conducting consultant before and throughout the film-making process.
The album will be released digitally on November 17, 2023, and on CD and vinyl on December 1. A taster track featuring an excerpt from the Finale of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection”, with soprano Rosa Feola,...
The album will be released digitally on November 17, 2023, and on CD and vinyl on December 1. A taster track featuring an excerpt from the Finale of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection”, with soprano Rosa Feola,...
- 10/27/2023
- by Music Martin Cid Magazine
- Martin Cid Music
South Korea’s Oscar© 2023 Entry for Best International Feature: ‘Decision to Leave’ by Park Chan-wookSure to be on the top of many people’s list as one of the best films of the year (including my own along with ‘Eo’), at the very least it should be nominated for for best international feature Oscar. This melodrama keeps you in the tense suspense of ‘Double Indemnity’, ‘The Postman Rings Twice’ or ‘Gaslight’.
From a mountain peak in South Korea, a man plummets to his death. Did he jump, or was he pushed? When detective Hae-joon (Park Hae-il) arrives on the scene, he begins to suspect the dead man’s wife Seo-rae (Tang Wei). As he digs deeper into the investigation, he finds himself trapped in a web of deception and desire. By falling in love with her, he commits worst crime he could commit as a police officer.
writer Jeong Seo-kyeong
Decision to Leave is co-written by Jeong Seo-kyeong with the director Park Chan-wook. It is shot in and around Busan. The romantic thriller premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and is being released in select U.S. theaters by Mubi.
During the Hammer Museum- Moma Contender Series, the screenwriter Jeong Seo-kyeong spoke about her many collaboration with Park Chan-took.You can watch the 32 minute conversation here with film critic Katie Walsh. Or read below for the written version, slightly edited and abridged.
The music itself is exceptional. I wanted to go out immediately and buy it and could not stop singing it as I drove home from the movie. The original music was composed by his long time collaborator Cho Young-wuk (Oldboy, The Handmaiden, The Little Drummer Girl, Lady Vengeance, Thirst). The soundtrack is available to stream/download in most international markets and on Spotify. Watch the offical music video here for the theme song “Fog” or “Mist” (안개)” by Jung Hoon Hee(정훈희) & Song Chang Sick(송창식). Record label: Bertelsmann Music Group. Awards: Blue Dragon Film Award for Best Music, Grand Bell Award for Best Music, Korean Film Awards for Best Music.
Aside from the original mustic there is the recurring fourth movement of Mahler’s 5th Symphony thoughout the film. When asked her about the use of music this is what she answered.
When we were writing the script, the Mahler’s Fifth was actually the first score that we thought of. I needed a song that goes with someone in that lone space high up on the mountain, a music that speaks to how he feels separated from the rest of the world. That’s why I chose two songs by Mahler. And when Director Park saw the first draft, he called me up and he said, “Oh, it’s all good, but why did you have to use Mahler? Did you not watch Death in Venice? That song was perfectly used there already, so why would we have to use it again?”
But I never saw Death in Venice.
So he said, “Okay, I’ll try to work it out on my own.” And I think he did try his best to find something else, but he had to return to Mahler.
Have you seen Tar? They also use Mahler. No.
She conducts Mahler’s Fifth in Tar. So it’s a theme this year.
To return to her writing, Katie Walsh and Jeong Seo-kyeong’s conversation is below.
You started working with Director Park in 2005 with Lady Vengeance. So I’m so curious how you two connected and started working together on that film.
There was a short film competition and he was a jury member and he selected the film. And that’s how we got to know each other. From what I remember, the script of the short film was very weird and I think that’s exactly what he liked about it. So he said, I’ve got this idea. I’m working on this this vengeance trilogy and I want your sensibility on this.
At that point, just when we were about to start working together, he had just won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes [for Oldboy] and he became a worldwide director.
I thought to myself, wow, I’m going to be working with such a worldwide famous director. I was very stunned by that and he was busy at the time, so I had to start on the screenplay on my own at first.
He was on his promotional tour for the film and I was working on the first draft of the screenplay by myself. And from what I remember, it was a pathetic first draft.
But he was not taken aback by the draft at all. And instead he calmly said, “okay, let’s start revising it together”.
In Korea, there’s a method of working in which we share one hotel room and we stay there and work together for days. So the crew members were sitting around this large table in this hotel room. There are two monitors, two keyboards and one hard drive. And we were working together. When one person is writing, the other person can see it on the screen. Next to that table was a long couch where all the other crew members were sitting. It almost felt like writing that screenplay was a game of table tennis.
So he writes and then I write. I would see something that I ddin’t like and I would revise it. He would see something he didn’t like and he would revise it. So we would go back and forth like that. Instead of sharing conversations by mouth, we were seeing what was happening on the screen and that’s how we talked about the story.
At that time I was a first time writer and I was working on my first screenplay. So I really had to give it all my best to catch up with him. It really was an unfair game, if I may say. Whenever we would ask people which they liked better, they would always be on the director’s side.
But 20 years later, today, the crew member actually take my side more now.
So you still work like this?
No. Oh. After Thirst, I had my first child. And while we were working on Stoker I had my second child close. That’s why I couldn’t make a lot of time. And that’s why we can’t spend that much time together anymore.
So now I write the first draft of the screenplay and we revise it for three or four days or up to a week. Then he writes the final draft after a discussion with the crew members and the actors and myself.
Wow. That’s remarkable. I was going to ask how you guys work together, what you’re working process was like. So I’m I’m thrilled that it just came up naturally. And that is such a trial by fire. I mean, I’m sure that was like film school being in that hotel room, having to write against Park Chan-wook in a competitive manner.
I actually majored in screenwriting at school, but after graduation, I realized I actually don’t know anything about screenwriting. Like, really, like, genuinely. I was learning screenwriting from director Park Film School and I’m still learning today.
Park Chan-wook
And I’m sure director Park feels the same way.
Yeah. Yeah. So Decision to Leave is an original script.
You’ve worked on some adaptations before, but what was the spark of idea for this screenplay?
Director Park, while working on Little Drummer Girl in London, sent me an email. He suggested, “What about a story about a detective? And in his area, there are two husbands who are murdered by his wife.”
His idea at the time actually reminded me a lot of Thirst… a murder caused by adultery.
I told him, “I don’t think we can work on this one. First of all, neither of us can write a melodrama. But even more, I really can’t write a story about adultery.”
But Director Park answered, “What do you mean? I’m great at writing this stuff.”
I told him no. I don’t think we can work like this. So we had an argument about that, actually. During that argument, I realized I was already developing the characters for this story. And I found myself with a finished synopsis for the film. That’s how the film came to be.
It sounds like there’s some creative energy in the conflict or in the argument. Can you talk a little bit about that and how you’re sort of working against each other and then it’s generating ideas for you.
For this film and it’s so for most of the films that we work together on, I relate a lot to the female characters and director Park tends to relate to the male characters. And the reason I didn’t want to work on a melodrama is because I had a terrible memory from Thirst. I did not like the ending of Thirst. Why did the female character have to die when she did not want to. It would have been nice if she lived on as a vampire. So when the film was over I think I felt just like Tae-ju. She’s like, “I don’t want to die but since I love him, I guess there’s no other choice”. So I thought to myself, “Well, I don’t want it to be that way, but I guess I have no other choice.”
For Decision to Leave, I do like the ending but I did have to ask the question why the female character had to die. I had a lot of frustrations regarding that. Why Seo-rae seem to like Hae-jun more than he likes her. Why does Hae-jun seem like he can’t give up on his wife or Seo-rae.
Seo-rae says, “The moment you said you loved me, your love is over. The moment your love ends, my love begins.”
And Seo-rae has to give up give up her whole life for Hae-jun. But Hae-jun only gives up on his self-esteem.
But watching the finished film, I was struck with a realization that for some people, giving up on one’s self-esteem is the same as giving up one’s life.
There was some conflict while we were writing the film, but watching the finished film, I think I understood and connected with the overall ending.
I’m also curious about the casting of Tang Wei, who’s a Chinese actress, obviously living in Korea. And did you write the character of Seo-rae for Tang Wei or was it? Did you change that character to be Chinese once you knew she was going to be in the film?
I told director Park I didn’t want to write a melodrama because I was not confident I would do a good job. One exception was, that if the female character were played by Tang Wei, then I would write it. Because I was in love with Tang Wei.
That’s a good answer. Makes sense. I understand.
And that’s why the female character turned out to- turned out to be a Chinese person.
Well, she’s fabulous in the film. So we thank you for your instincts, for being in love with her.
One of the things I love about this film is the use of technology. It feels so honest as to how we use technology in our everyday lives, how we’re always texting and the way the characters communicate through technology. But also it becomes part of the mystery and how he solves the mystery and then also how he’s sort of driven mad at the end. So when you’re writing with director Park, how are you incorporating how the characters are using technology into the writing process? He makes it so cinematic, but I know that you must be putting that into the script as well.
If you consider authors like Agatha Christie at the time when she was writing her crime novel and compare them to those who are writing crime novels today, we have so much technology. Phones are always filming and are recording evidence. There’s not a lot that we can work with because anyone can take photos and have voice recordings and there are always CCTV cameras everywhere.
So I realized it’s impossible to have that romanticist classical crime story. Instead we must actively incorporate the use of modern technology. When Director Park first received a draft of the script. He asked me, “Why are there so many scenes with cell phones? I’ve never seen so many cell phones in a movie except in Searching.”
Director Park initially did not want to film any scenes with cell phones. But later he gave up on giving up on those cell phone scenes and instead filmed from the point of view of a cell phone. That is actually a very innovative, creative take on that. But I do feel that people took that in very well because we often feel that phones are looking at us.
As for me as a writer, the use of Apple Watches actually gave me a lot of creative freedom because it’s difficult to have scenes to incorporate the protagonist in a voiceover out of nowhere. But with the Apple Watch and the recording, it made that so much easier.
You have worked across so many genres with Director Park, vampire, vengeance, melodrama. The Handmaiden is a historical drama, romance. It’s an adaptation. Do you think there’s a consistent theme or tone that you and Director Park always come back to that spans your body of work?
The thing is, Director Park and I actually don’t agree on the themes most of the time. For instance, for Lady Vengeance, the theme was vengeance. But I don’t quite understand why people are so obsessed with vengeance.
So I actually called my friend and asked, “Why do people have to take revenge on each other instead of striving for peace?”
As for Thirst, the theme was guilt or salvation. But the thing is, I don’t feel a lot of guilt in my life. As long as I don’t do anything bad, there is no need for guit or salvation. That’s what I think.
If I were a vampire, I would think to myself, “Oh, this is how the mankind is going to evolve. So I should find a new method of life”.
So in those ways I don’t think the themes quite worked with me, but as we were working together, I didn’t realize we were working toward one common theme. I think it has to do with respect or the dignity of mankind.
In all of these different genres, the protagonists tend to be thrown into very extreme situations. And yet even in these extreme situations, these protagonists try not to lose their sense of dignity. I think when Hae-jun was talking about how Seo-rae had such upright posture, I think it really spoke to her sense of dignity.
That is a common theme throughout films like I’m a Cyborg But That’s Okayor The Handmaiden.
I was wondering, did you ever come up with that alternative finale or like, did you suggest an alternative finale?
The ending is actually something that makes logical sense. This is a story that begins very high up and then ends very low. We start on the mountain and close on the ocean. So conclusively it makes logical sense that it would end up with someone digging a hole.
I actually tend to think that an ending in which a woman dies for love is quite unnatural. But if a man dies, that’s a little more natural. But despite those personal frustrations, I cannot think of any other ending that would work better.
Director Park seems to write a lot of stories featuring female protagonists. What are the difficulties you face when you’re writing about a female protagonist while you’re working with a male director?
It is very easy. I’ve actually written a story in which it only features male protagonists. It’s called Believer. That story is filled with male characters. And I had such a hard time, I thought I was going to die.
I think one of the most difficult parts of being a writer is if a female writer is trying to write a good male character, and when a male writer is trying to write a good female character.
But despite all those difficulties, Director Park actually portrays the female characters very well. He writes characters in such a way that they don’t have to sacrifice their femininity in order to walk their path of life.
Over 20 years of working together, our collaboration has evolved so much that it’s actually difficult to tell which line is written by me and which line is written by Director Park.
In the movie The Handmaiden, one of the most feminine looking lines, was actually written by Director Park. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say that line out loud.
It’s a line by the character Sook-hee and she says, “If I could have milk from my breasts, I wish I could feed you, my lady.”
Can you imagine that?
Well, his female characters are so strong, I’m sure that is your influence, of course, in your writing, but also, in just the working relationship that he has with you.
I wish I could also have developed writing better male characters, but I think I’m a little behind if we have to make a comparison.
Keep writing women, we like it.
I wanted to ask about Seo-Rae’s mother-daughter relationship because I felt like that was such a pivotal moment in the story.
The relationship between Seo-rae and her mother was actually described in more lengthy terms. Because I think the entire story started the moment Seo-rae killed her mother. There is nothing more serious. She doesn’t commit a more serious crime than killing the mother that she loves so much.
So I think in some ways, Seo-rae has already died the moment she had to go through that.
I think she has taken a journey with her mother and her grandfather to the mountain that her mother said belonged to her, and then she starts her journey down. After she has placed the ashes of her mother and her grandfather at that mountain, she starts her own journey towards death down from the mountain. Because I think every animal, including mankind, wants to find death where they were born.
So that is why Seo-rae believed that her mother wanted to be buried in the mountains and Seo-rae goes towards the ocean because she belongs to the ocean.
I think the only way she might have found salvation from her ordeal could have been to leave and go somewhere else with Hae-jun, but that didn’t happen, so inevitably she had to go to the ocean.
And all of that began with the death of Seo-rae’s mother.
Well, thank you all so much for being here. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jiwon. Thank you, Chung Seo-kyung. And thank you for watching this film and talking to us about it.
The film’s producer, CJEnt is also the international sales agent as well as the So. Korean distributor of the film. Internationally it has licensed the film to Mubi for USA, UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Latin America, Turkey, India, and Airlines and to Arna Media and Vesta for Russia, Bac Films for France, Cinobo for Greece, Cinéart for Benelux, Golden Village Pictures for Singapore, Happinet Phantom Studios for Japan, Lucky Red for Italy, Madman Entertainment for Australia and New Zealand, Movie Cloud for Taiwan, NonStop Entertainment for Scandinavia, Plaion Pictures for Germany, Purple Plan (2022) (Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore, The Filmbridge for Mongolia, Alambique Filmes for Portugal, Avalon for Spain
MoviesOscarsSouth KoreaThriller...
From a mountain peak in South Korea, a man plummets to his death. Did he jump, or was he pushed? When detective Hae-joon (Park Hae-il) arrives on the scene, he begins to suspect the dead man’s wife Seo-rae (Tang Wei). As he digs deeper into the investigation, he finds himself trapped in a web of deception and desire. By falling in love with her, he commits worst crime he could commit as a police officer.
writer Jeong Seo-kyeong
Decision to Leave is co-written by Jeong Seo-kyeong with the director Park Chan-wook. It is shot in and around Busan. The romantic thriller premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and is being released in select U.S. theaters by Mubi.
During the Hammer Museum- Moma Contender Series, the screenwriter Jeong Seo-kyeong spoke about her many collaboration with Park Chan-took.You can watch the 32 minute conversation here with film critic Katie Walsh. Or read below for the written version, slightly edited and abridged.
The music itself is exceptional. I wanted to go out immediately and buy it and could not stop singing it as I drove home from the movie. The original music was composed by his long time collaborator Cho Young-wuk (Oldboy, The Handmaiden, The Little Drummer Girl, Lady Vengeance, Thirst). The soundtrack is available to stream/download in most international markets and on Spotify. Watch the offical music video here for the theme song “Fog” or “Mist” (안개)” by Jung Hoon Hee(정훈희) & Song Chang Sick(송창식). Record label: Bertelsmann Music Group. Awards: Blue Dragon Film Award for Best Music, Grand Bell Award for Best Music, Korean Film Awards for Best Music.
Aside from the original mustic there is the recurring fourth movement of Mahler’s 5th Symphony thoughout the film. When asked her about the use of music this is what she answered.
When we were writing the script, the Mahler’s Fifth was actually the first score that we thought of. I needed a song that goes with someone in that lone space high up on the mountain, a music that speaks to how he feels separated from the rest of the world. That’s why I chose two songs by Mahler. And when Director Park saw the first draft, he called me up and he said, “Oh, it’s all good, but why did you have to use Mahler? Did you not watch Death in Venice? That song was perfectly used there already, so why would we have to use it again?”
But I never saw Death in Venice.
So he said, “Okay, I’ll try to work it out on my own.” And I think he did try his best to find something else, but he had to return to Mahler.
Have you seen Tar? They also use Mahler. No.
She conducts Mahler’s Fifth in Tar. So it’s a theme this year.
To return to her writing, Katie Walsh and Jeong Seo-kyeong’s conversation is below.
You started working with Director Park in 2005 with Lady Vengeance. So I’m so curious how you two connected and started working together on that film.
There was a short film competition and he was a jury member and he selected the film. And that’s how we got to know each other. From what I remember, the script of the short film was very weird and I think that’s exactly what he liked about it. So he said, I’ve got this idea. I’m working on this this vengeance trilogy and I want your sensibility on this.
At that point, just when we were about to start working together, he had just won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes [for Oldboy] and he became a worldwide director.
I thought to myself, wow, I’m going to be working with such a worldwide famous director. I was very stunned by that and he was busy at the time, so I had to start on the screenplay on my own at first.
He was on his promotional tour for the film and I was working on the first draft of the screenplay by myself. And from what I remember, it was a pathetic first draft.
But he was not taken aback by the draft at all. And instead he calmly said, “okay, let’s start revising it together”.
In Korea, there’s a method of working in which we share one hotel room and we stay there and work together for days. So the crew members were sitting around this large table in this hotel room. There are two monitors, two keyboards and one hard drive. And we were working together. When one person is writing, the other person can see it on the screen. Next to that table was a long couch where all the other crew members were sitting. It almost felt like writing that screenplay was a game of table tennis.
So he writes and then I write. I would see something that I ddin’t like and I would revise it. He would see something he didn’t like and he would revise it. So we would go back and forth like that. Instead of sharing conversations by mouth, we were seeing what was happening on the screen and that’s how we talked about the story.
At that time I was a first time writer and I was working on my first screenplay. So I really had to give it all my best to catch up with him. It really was an unfair game, if I may say. Whenever we would ask people which they liked better, they would always be on the director’s side.
But 20 years later, today, the crew member actually take my side more now.
So you still work like this?
No. Oh. After Thirst, I had my first child. And while we were working on Stoker I had my second child close. That’s why I couldn’t make a lot of time. And that’s why we can’t spend that much time together anymore.
So now I write the first draft of the screenplay and we revise it for three or four days or up to a week. Then he writes the final draft after a discussion with the crew members and the actors and myself.
Wow. That’s remarkable. I was going to ask how you guys work together, what you’re working process was like. So I’m I’m thrilled that it just came up naturally. And that is such a trial by fire. I mean, I’m sure that was like film school being in that hotel room, having to write against Park Chan-wook in a competitive manner.
I actually majored in screenwriting at school, but after graduation, I realized I actually don’t know anything about screenwriting. Like, really, like, genuinely. I was learning screenwriting from director Park Film School and I’m still learning today.
Park Chan-wook
And I’m sure director Park feels the same way.
Yeah. Yeah. So Decision to Leave is an original script.
You’ve worked on some adaptations before, but what was the spark of idea for this screenplay?
Director Park, while working on Little Drummer Girl in London, sent me an email. He suggested, “What about a story about a detective? And in his area, there are two husbands who are murdered by his wife.”
His idea at the time actually reminded me a lot of Thirst… a murder caused by adultery.
I told him, “I don’t think we can work on this one. First of all, neither of us can write a melodrama. But even more, I really can’t write a story about adultery.”
But Director Park answered, “What do you mean? I’m great at writing this stuff.”
I told him no. I don’t think we can work like this. So we had an argument about that, actually. During that argument, I realized I was already developing the characters for this story. And I found myself with a finished synopsis for the film. That’s how the film came to be.
It sounds like there’s some creative energy in the conflict or in the argument. Can you talk a little bit about that and how you’re sort of working against each other and then it’s generating ideas for you.
For this film and it’s so for most of the films that we work together on, I relate a lot to the female characters and director Park tends to relate to the male characters. And the reason I didn’t want to work on a melodrama is because I had a terrible memory from Thirst. I did not like the ending of Thirst. Why did the female character have to die when she did not want to. It would have been nice if she lived on as a vampire. So when the film was over I think I felt just like Tae-ju. She’s like, “I don’t want to die but since I love him, I guess there’s no other choice”. So I thought to myself, “Well, I don’t want it to be that way, but I guess I have no other choice.”
For Decision to Leave, I do like the ending but I did have to ask the question why the female character had to die. I had a lot of frustrations regarding that. Why Seo-rae seem to like Hae-jun more than he likes her. Why does Hae-jun seem like he can’t give up on his wife or Seo-rae.
Seo-rae says, “The moment you said you loved me, your love is over. The moment your love ends, my love begins.”
And Seo-rae has to give up give up her whole life for Hae-jun. But Hae-jun only gives up on his self-esteem.
But watching the finished film, I was struck with a realization that for some people, giving up on one’s self-esteem is the same as giving up one’s life.
There was some conflict while we were writing the film, but watching the finished film, I think I understood and connected with the overall ending.
I’m also curious about the casting of Tang Wei, who’s a Chinese actress, obviously living in Korea. And did you write the character of Seo-rae for Tang Wei or was it? Did you change that character to be Chinese once you knew she was going to be in the film?
I told director Park I didn’t want to write a melodrama because I was not confident I would do a good job. One exception was, that if the female character were played by Tang Wei, then I would write it. Because I was in love with Tang Wei.
That’s a good answer. Makes sense. I understand.
And that’s why the female character turned out to- turned out to be a Chinese person.
Well, she’s fabulous in the film. So we thank you for your instincts, for being in love with her.
One of the things I love about this film is the use of technology. It feels so honest as to how we use technology in our everyday lives, how we’re always texting and the way the characters communicate through technology. But also it becomes part of the mystery and how he solves the mystery and then also how he’s sort of driven mad at the end. So when you’re writing with director Park, how are you incorporating how the characters are using technology into the writing process? He makes it so cinematic, but I know that you must be putting that into the script as well.
If you consider authors like Agatha Christie at the time when she was writing her crime novel and compare them to those who are writing crime novels today, we have so much technology. Phones are always filming and are recording evidence. There’s not a lot that we can work with because anyone can take photos and have voice recordings and there are always CCTV cameras everywhere.
So I realized it’s impossible to have that romanticist classical crime story. Instead we must actively incorporate the use of modern technology. When Director Park first received a draft of the script. He asked me, “Why are there so many scenes with cell phones? I’ve never seen so many cell phones in a movie except in Searching.”
Director Park initially did not want to film any scenes with cell phones. But later he gave up on giving up on those cell phone scenes and instead filmed from the point of view of a cell phone. That is actually a very innovative, creative take on that. But I do feel that people took that in very well because we often feel that phones are looking at us.
As for me as a writer, the use of Apple Watches actually gave me a lot of creative freedom because it’s difficult to have scenes to incorporate the protagonist in a voiceover out of nowhere. But with the Apple Watch and the recording, it made that so much easier.
You have worked across so many genres with Director Park, vampire, vengeance, melodrama. The Handmaiden is a historical drama, romance. It’s an adaptation. Do you think there’s a consistent theme or tone that you and Director Park always come back to that spans your body of work?
The thing is, Director Park and I actually don’t agree on the themes most of the time. For instance, for Lady Vengeance, the theme was vengeance. But I don’t quite understand why people are so obsessed with vengeance.
So I actually called my friend and asked, “Why do people have to take revenge on each other instead of striving for peace?”
As for Thirst, the theme was guilt or salvation. But the thing is, I don’t feel a lot of guilt in my life. As long as I don’t do anything bad, there is no need for guit or salvation. That’s what I think.
If I were a vampire, I would think to myself, “Oh, this is how the mankind is going to evolve. So I should find a new method of life”.
So in those ways I don’t think the themes quite worked with me, but as we were working together, I didn’t realize we were working toward one common theme. I think it has to do with respect or the dignity of mankind.
In all of these different genres, the protagonists tend to be thrown into very extreme situations. And yet even in these extreme situations, these protagonists try not to lose their sense of dignity. I think when Hae-jun was talking about how Seo-rae had such upright posture, I think it really spoke to her sense of dignity.
That is a common theme throughout films like I’m a Cyborg But That’s Okayor The Handmaiden.
I was wondering, did you ever come up with that alternative finale or like, did you suggest an alternative finale?
The ending is actually something that makes logical sense. This is a story that begins very high up and then ends very low. We start on the mountain and close on the ocean. So conclusively it makes logical sense that it would end up with someone digging a hole.
I actually tend to think that an ending in which a woman dies for love is quite unnatural. But if a man dies, that’s a little more natural. But despite those personal frustrations, I cannot think of any other ending that would work better.
Director Park seems to write a lot of stories featuring female protagonists. What are the difficulties you face when you’re writing about a female protagonist while you’re working with a male director?
It is very easy. I’ve actually written a story in which it only features male protagonists. It’s called Believer. That story is filled with male characters. And I had such a hard time, I thought I was going to die.
I think one of the most difficult parts of being a writer is if a female writer is trying to write a good male character, and when a male writer is trying to write a good female character.
But despite all those difficulties, Director Park actually portrays the female characters very well. He writes characters in such a way that they don’t have to sacrifice their femininity in order to walk their path of life.
Over 20 years of working together, our collaboration has evolved so much that it’s actually difficult to tell which line is written by me and which line is written by Director Park.
In the movie The Handmaiden, one of the most feminine looking lines, was actually written by Director Park. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say that line out loud.
It’s a line by the character Sook-hee and she says, “If I could have milk from my breasts, I wish I could feed you, my lady.”
Can you imagine that?
Well, his female characters are so strong, I’m sure that is your influence, of course, in your writing, but also, in just the working relationship that he has with you.
I wish I could also have developed writing better male characters, but I think I’m a little behind if we have to make a comparison.
Keep writing women, we like it.
I wanted to ask about Seo-Rae’s mother-daughter relationship because I felt like that was such a pivotal moment in the story.
The relationship between Seo-rae and her mother was actually described in more lengthy terms. Because I think the entire story started the moment Seo-rae killed her mother. There is nothing more serious. She doesn’t commit a more serious crime than killing the mother that she loves so much.
So I think in some ways, Seo-rae has already died the moment she had to go through that.
I think she has taken a journey with her mother and her grandfather to the mountain that her mother said belonged to her, and then she starts her journey down. After she has placed the ashes of her mother and her grandfather at that mountain, she starts her own journey towards death down from the mountain. Because I think every animal, including mankind, wants to find death where they were born.
So that is why Seo-rae believed that her mother wanted to be buried in the mountains and Seo-rae goes towards the ocean because she belongs to the ocean.
I think the only way she might have found salvation from her ordeal could have been to leave and go somewhere else with Hae-jun, but that didn’t happen, so inevitably she had to go to the ocean.
And all of that began with the death of Seo-rae’s mother.
Well, thank you all so much for being here. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jiwon. Thank you, Chung Seo-kyung. And thank you for watching this film and talking to us about it.
The film’s producer, CJEnt is also the international sales agent as well as the So. Korean distributor of the film. Internationally it has licensed the film to Mubi for USA, UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Latin America, Turkey, India, and Airlines and to Arna Media and Vesta for Russia, Bac Films for France, Cinobo for Greece, Cinéart for Benelux, Golden Village Pictures for Singapore, Happinet Phantom Studios for Japan, Lucky Red for Italy, Madman Entertainment for Australia and New Zealand, Movie Cloud for Taiwan, NonStop Entertainment for Scandinavia, Plaion Pictures for Germany, Purple Plan (2022) (Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore, The Filmbridge for Mongolia, Alambique Filmes for Portugal, Avalon for Spain
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- 12/20/2022
- by Sydney
- Sydney's Buzz
Many consider Dmitri Shostakovich the greatest composer of the 20th century. Born September 25, 1906, he might not have lived past his teens if he hadn't been talented. During the famines of the Revolutionary period in Russia, Alexander Glazunov, director of the Petrograd (later Leningrad) Conservatory, arranged for the poor and malnourished Shostakovich's food ration to be increased. Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1, his graduation exercise for Maximilian Steinberg's composition course at the Conservatory, was completed in 1925 at age 19 and was an immediate success worldwide. He was The Party's poster boy; his Second and Third Symphonies unabashedly subtitled, respectively, "To October". (celebrating the Revolution) and "The First of May". (International Workers' Day).
His highly emotional harmonic language is simultaneously tough yet communicative, but his expansion of Mahlerian symphonic structure, dissonances, sardonic irony, and dark moods eventually clashed with the conservative edicts of Communist Party officials. In 1936 he was viciously denounced by Pravda...
His highly emotional harmonic language is simultaneously tough yet communicative, but his expansion of Mahlerian symphonic structure, dissonances, sardonic irony, and dark moods eventually clashed with the conservative edicts of Communist Party officials. In 1936 he was viciously denounced by Pravda...
- 9/26/2016
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Even in Heddy Honigmann’s “Around the World in 50 Concerts,” ostensibly a 125th anniversary portrait/celebration of Amsterdam’s fabled Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the age disparity between the players and the patrons is as dramatic as Mahler. But Honigmann, the Peruvian-born Dutch documentarian, does what she usually does about questions of passion and age – demolishes them. Whether you happen to be a young Uruguayan bassoonist or an elderly Muscovite survivor of Stalin and Hitler, a love of “serious” music is about soul, not years. Much the same can be said about Honigmann’s films. “Around the World in 50 Concerts,” which the Museum of Modern Art is giving a weeklong run beginning Feb. 28, follows the group along a world tour that includes stops in Argentina, Amsterdam, Johannesburg and Moscow. And the film includes themes that have dominated Honigmann’s considerable body of nonfiction work. Music, for instance, has been a fascination...
- 3/1/2015
- by John Anderson
- Thompson on Hollywood
Having given the history of the "New World" in Part I, it seems wise to preface Part II with some words about how the symphony is constructed. The movements are:
I. Adagio; Allegro molto II. Largo III. Scherzo: Molto vivace IV. Allegro con fuoco
Unusually, every movement starts with an introduction. The first movement's is the most famous: starts with a striking slow introduction that establishes the current of nostalgia for, or homesickness for, the composer's native Bohemia. Another reminder of this comes with the famotus flute solo -- or does it? Some have remarked on its similarity to "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," but this is not so much a quote as a paraphrase, so to speak; small bits of "Chariot" are elided into something new that mingles many flavors: African-America spiritual, yes, but also Native American music and Bohemian folk music, which share a pentatonic flavor.
Note that the...
I. Adagio; Allegro molto II. Largo III. Scherzo: Molto vivace IV. Allegro con fuoco
Unusually, every movement starts with an introduction. The first movement's is the most famous: starts with a striking slow introduction that establishes the current of nostalgia for, or homesickness for, the composer's native Bohemia. Another reminder of this comes with the famotus flute solo -- or does it? Some have remarked on its similarity to "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," but this is not so much a quote as a paraphrase, so to speak; small bits of "Chariot" are elided into something new that mingles many flavors: African-America spiritual, yes, but also Native American music and Bohemian folk music, which share a pentatonic flavor.
Note that the...
- 12/7/2014
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
A classicist using Romantic harmonies, Johannes Brahms (1833-97) was hailed at age 20 by Robert Schumann in a famous article entitled "New Paths." Yet by the time Brahms wrote his mature works, his music was thought of as a conservative compared to the daring harmonies and revolutionary dramatic theories of Richard Wagner. But in the next century, Arnold Schoenberg's 1947 essay titled "Brahms the Progressive" praised Brahms's bold modulations (as daring as Wagner's most tonally ambiguous chords), asymmetrical forms, and mastery of imaginative variation and development of thematic material.
The son of a bassist in the Hamburg Philharmonic Society, Brahms was an excellent pianist who was supporting himself by his mid-teens. His first two published works were his Piano Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2, and throughout his career he penned much fine music for that instrument, not only solo (including the later Piano Sonata No. 3) and duo but also his landmark Piano Concertos Nos.
The son of a bassist in the Hamburg Philharmonic Society, Brahms was an excellent pianist who was supporting himself by his mid-teens. His first two published works were his Piano Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2, and throughout his career he penned much fine music for that instrument, not only solo (including the later Piano Sonata No. 3) and duo but also his landmark Piano Concertos Nos.
- 5/8/2014
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
While the rest of his cohort have fallen by the wayside or been absorbed into the Hollywood system, the film-maker has stayed weird, as his new movie of erudite vampire love reveals
The word "hipster" invariably crops up in discussions about American film-maker Jim Jarmusch, not least because he looks the part. He is tall, lean, often wears shades and has a famous shock of hair that started turning silvery grey in his teens; his basso drawl completes the uncanny resemblance to a certain Hollywood great, which inspired Jarmusch to found a jokey secret society, The Sons of Lee Marvin.
Jarmusch is without a doubt the most rock'n'roll of film-makers – although he obliges you to define the term. He has worked with a lot of musicians, either as composers or as actors – Neil Young, Tom Waits, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, hip-hop producer RZA. But if you look at the breadth of Jarmusch's references,...
The word "hipster" invariably crops up in discussions about American film-maker Jim Jarmusch, not least because he looks the part. He is tall, lean, often wears shades and has a famous shock of hair that started turning silvery grey in his teens; his basso drawl completes the uncanny resemblance to a certain Hollywood great, which inspired Jarmusch to found a jokey secret society, The Sons of Lee Marvin.
Jarmusch is without a doubt the most rock'n'roll of film-makers – although he obliges you to define the term. He has worked with a lot of musicians, either as composers or as actors – Neil Young, Tom Waits, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, hip-hop producer RZA. But if you look at the breadth of Jarmusch's references,...
- 2/23/2014
- by Jonathan Romney
- The Guardian - Film News
Musicals have been tap dancing their way into moviegoers' hearts since the invention of cinema sound itself. From Oliver! to Singin' in the Rain, here are the Guardian and Observer critics' picks of the 10 best
• Top 10 documentaries
• Top 10 movie adaptations
• Top 10 animated movies
• Top 10 silent movies
• Top 10 sports movies
• Top 10 film noir
• More Guardian and Observer critics' top 10s
10. Oliver!
Historically, the British musical has been intertwined with British music, drawing on music hall in the 1940s and the pop charts in the 50s – low-budget films of provincial interest and nothing to trouble the bosses at MGM. In the late 60s, however, the genre enjoyed a brief, high-profile heyday, and between Tommy Steele in Half a Sixpence (1967) and Richard Attenborough's star-studded Oh! What A Lovely War (1969) came the biggest of them all: Oliver! (1968), Carol Reed's adaptation of Lionel Bart's 1960 stage hit and the recipient of six Academy awards.
• Top 10 documentaries
• Top 10 movie adaptations
• Top 10 animated movies
• Top 10 silent movies
• Top 10 sports movies
• Top 10 film noir
• More Guardian and Observer critics' top 10s
10. Oliver!
Historically, the British musical has been intertwined with British music, drawing on music hall in the 1940s and the pop charts in the 50s – low-budget films of provincial interest and nothing to trouble the bosses at MGM. In the late 60s, however, the genre enjoyed a brief, high-profile heyday, and between Tommy Steele in Half a Sixpence (1967) and Richard Attenborough's star-studded Oh! What A Lovely War (1969) came the biggest of them all: Oliver! (1968), Carol Reed's adaptation of Lionel Bart's 1960 stage hit and the recipient of six Academy awards.
- 12/3/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
McM Expo/London Comic Con returns to ExCel London on 25th – 27th October. As well as hosting a galaxy of great sci-fi, movie, games, comics, anime and cosplay content, they’ve also got their usual huge line up of special guests – with more guests being added all the time! see www.mcmcomiccon.com for the latest London Comic Con news – but here’s a round-up of who’s been announced so far:
Red hot fantasy-noir show Lost Girl is coming to McM London Comic Com, with stars Ksenia Solo (Black Swan, Life Unexpected) and Rachel Skarsten (Transporter: The Series, Birds Of Prey) plus executive producer Jay Firestone (Andromeda, La Femme Nikita). Stars from hit sci-fi series Warehouse 13: Kelly Hu (Arrow, X-Men 2, The Vampire Diaries); Eddie McClintock (Bones, Desperate Housewives) and actor/director Saul Rubinek (Frasier, Curb Your Enthusiasm). The stars of new crime thriller By Any Means: Warren Brown (Luther,...
Red hot fantasy-noir show Lost Girl is coming to McM London Comic Com, with stars Ksenia Solo (Black Swan, Life Unexpected) and Rachel Skarsten (Transporter: The Series, Birds Of Prey) plus executive producer Jay Firestone (Andromeda, La Femme Nikita). Stars from hit sci-fi series Warehouse 13: Kelly Hu (Arrow, X-Men 2, The Vampire Diaries); Eddie McClintock (Bones, Desperate Housewives) and actor/director Saul Rubinek (Frasier, Curb Your Enthusiasm). The stars of new crime thriller By Any Means: Warren Brown (Luther,...
- 10/18/2013
- by Phil Wheat
- Nerdly
Underground cinema proves itself a force to be reckoned with as London film clubs unite to celebrate the late British film-maker
This month film clubs across the capital will unite in tribute to one of our greatest and most controversial film-makers, Ken Russell, who died in November 2011. Over 10 days and 10 venues, Ken Russell Forever promises to be a fittingly excessive, raucous and idiosyncratic tribute, with cinemagoers able to gorge themselves on films from a career that spanned biopic, horror, musicals, documentaries, thrillers, grindhouse and more. If eyes could get indigestion, you'll be rolling yours in crushed up Rennies by the end of this rich mix.
Bringing together this ragtag group of film clubs, independent cinemas and film blogs is no small feat – and it surely marks a "moment" in the evolution of the pop-up cinema movement that has been quietly gathering steam for some time. Outfits as varied as Strange...
This month film clubs across the capital will unite in tribute to one of our greatest and most controversial film-makers, Ken Russell, who died in November 2011. Over 10 days and 10 venues, Ken Russell Forever promises to be a fittingly excessive, raucous and idiosyncratic tribute, with cinemagoers able to gorge themselves on films from a career that spanned biopic, horror, musicals, documentaries, thrillers, grindhouse and more. If eyes could get indigestion, you'll be rolling yours in crushed up Rennies by the end of this rich mix.
Bringing together this ragtag group of film clubs, independent cinemas and film blogs is no small feat – and it surely marks a "moment" in the evolution of the pop-up cinema movement that has been quietly gathering steam for some time. Outfits as varied as Strange...
- 3/12/2012
- by Ruth Jamieson
- The Guardian - Film News
Punishment Park
When this film was released in 1971, the events that inspired it (such as the Kent State shootings and the Vietnam war) were still fresh in the audience's minds.
When it arrived on DVD a few years back, it was the incarcerations at Guantánamo Bay that drew obvious comparisons. It's only fitting that this latest release, on Blu-ray (and DVD again) arrives soon after rioting and general unrest in Egypt, London, America and, sadly, plenty of other locations. Highly influential director Peter Watkins again uses the documentary style he developed with earlier classics The War Game and Culloden to great effect. A collection of student, arty types and suspicious-looking longhairs are paraded in front of a community tribunal (more a kangaroo court) for various crimes against society (some no more than daring to question the status quo). They are told they can have their long prison sentences commuted to...
When this film was released in 1971, the events that inspired it (such as the Kent State shootings and the Vietnam war) were still fresh in the audience's minds.
When it arrived on DVD a few years back, it was the incarcerations at Guantánamo Bay that drew obvious comparisons. It's only fitting that this latest release, on Blu-ray (and DVD again) arrives soon after rioting and general unrest in Egypt, London, America and, sadly, plenty of other locations. Highly influential director Peter Watkins again uses the documentary style he developed with earlier classics The War Game and Culloden to great effect. A collection of student, arty types and suspicious-looking longhairs are paraded in front of a community tribunal (more a kangaroo court) for various crimes against society (some no more than daring to question the status quo). They are told they can have their long prison sentences commuted to...
- 1/21/2012
- by Phelim O'Neill
- The Guardian - Film News
Dan Ireland offers his rememberance of “Uncle Ken.”
A benefit of having such an eclectic stable of gurus is that our well of experience and stories about working in the business — often with and for giants — is increasingly deep. A number of our gurus, then, have Ken Russell (who died this past weekend) stories. Bernard Rose shared such a story in 2008. And Dan Ireland remembers the man just below.
One of the great joys of my life was my wonderful association with the great, the brilliant, the bad boy of British Cinema himself, Uncle Ken Russell.
Being an early devotee of Women In Love, The Music Lovers, The Devils, The Boyfriend, Savage Messiah, Mahler, Tommy, Altered States, Crimes of Passion and just about anything he did, I once tried in vain to get him to attend a tribute that I, along with my partner Darryl Macdonald, organized at the Seattle...
A benefit of having such an eclectic stable of gurus is that our well of experience and stories about working in the business — often with and for giants — is increasingly deep. A number of our gurus, then, have Ken Russell (who died this past weekend) stories. Bernard Rose shared such a story in 2008. And Dan Ireland remembers the man just below.
One of the great joys of my life was my wonderful association with the great, the brilliant, the bad boy of British Cinema himself, Uncle Ken Russell.
Being an early devotee of Women In Love, The Music Lovers, The Devils, The Boyfriend, Savage Messiah, Mahler, Tommy, Altered States, Crimes of Passion and just about anything he did, I once tried in vain to get him to attend a tribute that I, along with my partner Darryl Macdonald, organized at the Seattle...
- 11/30/2011
- by Danny
- Trailers from Hell
Russell got inside the psychological and emotional realities of the composers he loved, for which we should be ever grateful
I had two surpassingly strange obsessions as a teenage music lover: Anton Bruckner and Arnold Bax. And so, it turned out, did Ken Russell. I could hardly believe it when, after making his Bruckner film in 1990, The Strange Affliction of Anton Bruckner – a study of the Austrian composer's obsessive compulsive disorders, monastic seclusion and infatuation with young girls – Russell made a TV film a couple of years later about Bax, The Secret Life of Arnold Bax, the biggest prime-time exposure this otherwise little-known English composer is probably ever going to get.
Russell himself played Bax, and Glenda Jackson took the role of one of Bax's lovers, the pianist Harriet Cohen (in fact one of her last acting jobs before devoting her life to politics). But the scene that's burned into...
I had two surpassingly strange obsessions as a teenage music lover: Anton Bruckner and Arnold Bax. And so, it turned out, did Ken Russell. I could hardly believe it when, after making his Bruckner film in 1990, The Strange Affliction of Anton Bruckner – a study of the Austrian composer's obsessive compulsive disorders, monastic seclusion and infatuation with young girls – Russell made a TV film a couple of years later about Bax, The Secret Life of Arnold Bax, the biggest prime-time exposure this otherwise little-known English composer is probably ever going to get.
Russell himself played Bax, and Glenda Jackson took the role of one of Bax's lovers, the pianist Harriet Cohen (in fact one of her last acting jobs before devoting her life to politics). But the scene that's burned into...
- 11/29/2011
- by Tom Service
- The Guardian - Film News
It’s always sad when an actor or filmmaker dies, and in 2011 we have had to mourn the loss of many great stars of past and present. Pete Postlethwaite, John Barry, Maria Schneider, Jane Russell, Michael Gough, Elizabeth Taylor, Sidney Lumet, Peter Falk – all great losses, many of them at much too young an age. Only ten days ago John Neville, the delightfully charismatic star of Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, passed away peacefully aged 86.
But perhaps none of these deaths should be mourned more than that of Ken Russell, who died this week in his sleep at the ripe old age of 84. Aside from his short-lived and ill-advised appearance on Celebrity Big Brother, his name will be unfamiliar to the majority of young filmgoers – people who didn’t grow up with his biopics of Elgar and Mahler, people who didn’t spend their twenties listening to Who records,...
But perhaps none of these deaths should be mourned more than that of Ken Russell, who died this week in his sleep at the ripe old age of 84. Aside from his short-lived and ill-advised appearance on Celebrity Big Brother, his name will be unfamiliar to the majority of young filmgoers – people who didn’t grow up with his biopics of Elgar and Mahler, people who didn’t spend their twenties listening to Who records,...
- 11/29/2011
- by Daniel Mumby
- Obsessed with Film
British director Ken Russell has died in his sleep at the age of 84. Married four times, Russell is survived by Elize Tribble, whom he married in 2001, and his six children. After starting his career in the mid-1950s with various shorts and television projects, he made his feature debut with 1964 comedy French Dressing, which starred James Booth, Roy Kinnear and Marisa Mell. Spending his career as a director, producer, writer and even an actor, Russell was best known for films like Altered States, Tommy (based on The Who rock opera) and Women in Love, which earned him his one and only Academy Award nomination (the same can be said for the Golden Globes). In 1974 Russell brought Mahler, a biopic about composer Gustav Mahler, to the Cannes Film Festival and was both nominated for the Palme d'Or and won the Technical Grand Prize. Though he had some success with awards and...
- 11/29/2011
- cinemablend.com
The defiant romantic of British cinema never lacked for critics but his prime inspiration was surely in music
Part glam rocker, part wild-haired conductor, Ken Russell was the populist maestro of the screen, the great defiant romantic of British cinema. Russell's films showed his great love for music and composers: Elgar, Tchaikovsky, Delius, Strauss, Liszt – and Sandy Wilson and Roger Daltrey. Other film-makers might have found their creative impetus in novels or plays; Russell's inspiration was surely primarily in music. His ideas, his images, his rows, his career itself were all one colossal, chaotic rhapsody.
His adventures were a rebuke to British parochialism, literalism and complacency, and he had something of Kubrick's flair for startling or mind-bending spectacle. Russell gave us the nude wrestling scene between Alan Bates and Oliver Reed in the Oscar-winning Women In Love (1969) in which each actor, with Russell's cheerful consent, was said to have taken...
Part glam rocker, part wild-haired conductor, Ken Russell was the populist maestro of the screen, the great defiant romantic of British cinema. Russell's films showed his great love for music and composers: Elgar, Tchaikovsky, Delius, Strauss, Liszt – and Sandy Wilson and Roger Daltrey. Other film-makers might have found their creative impetus in novels or plays; Russell's inspiration was surely primarily in music. His ideas, his images, his rows, his career itself were all one colossal, chaotic rhapsody.
His adventures were a rebuke to British parochialism, literalism and complacency, and he had something of Kubrick's flair for startling or mind-bending spectacle. Russell gave us the nude wrestling scene between Alan Bates and Oliver Reed in the Oscar-winning Women In Love (1969) in which each actor, with Russell's cheerful consent, was said to have taken...
- 11/29/2011
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Naked wrestling, religious mania and The Who's Tommy: director Ken Russell transformed British cinema. His closest collaborators recall a fierce, funny and groundbreaking talent
Glenda Jackson
I worked with Ken on six films. Women in Love was the first time I'd worked with a director of that genius, and on a film of that size. What I remember most was the creative and productive atmosphere on set: he was open to ideas from everyone, from the clapperboard operator upwards. Like any great director, he knew what he didn't want – but was open to everything else.
As a director he never said anything very specific. He'd say, "It needs to be a bit more … urrrgh, or a bit less hmmm", and you knew exactly what he meant. I used to ask him why he never said "Cut", and he said, "Because it means you always do something different." They gave...
Glenda Jackson
I worked with Ken on six films. Women in Love was the first time I'd worked with a director of that genius, and on a film of that size. What I remember most was the creative and productive atmosphere on set: he was open to ideas from everyone, from the clapperboard operator upwards. Like any great director, he knew what he didn't want – but was open to everything else.
As a director he never said anything very specific. He'd say, "It needs to be a bit more … urrrgh, or a bit less hmmm", and you knew exactly what he meant. I used to ask him why he never said "Cut", and he said, "Because it means you always do something different." They gave...
- 11/29/2011
- by Melissa Denes, Laura Barnett
- The Guardian - Film News
Legendary British filmmaker Ken Russell, the notorious director famous for boundary-pushing films such as Women in Love, Altered States and The Devils, has died at 84 following a series of strokes.
For an artist who's been called an iconoclast, a maverick and a genius — one with a professed love for consciousness-altering drugs — Russell (born July 3, 1927) got his start in a fairly conventional manner. Following a stint in the service, Russell worked as a photojournalist to minor acclaim before going to work at the BBC as a director in 1959.
While at the BBC, Russell made a series of historical documentaries, still regarded as impressive for their impressionistic visual technique. This is the beginning of the flamboyant style that became synonymous with the name Ken Russell. Many of these television films focused on renowned composers, including Edward Elgar, Richard Strauss and Claude Debussy. Interestingly, this is subject matter Russell would return to often...
For an artist who's been called an iconoclast, a maverick and a genius — one with a professed love for consciousness-altering drugs — Russell (born July 3, 1927) got his start in a fairly conventional manner. Following a stint in the service, Russell worked as a photojournalist to minor acclaim before going to work at the BBC as a director in 1959.
While at the BBC, Russell made a series of historical documentaries, still regarded as impressive for their impressionistic visual technique. This is the beginning of the flamboyant style that became synonymous with the name Ken Russell. Many of these television films focused on renowned composers, including Edward Elgar, Richard Strauss and Claude Debussy. Interestingly, this is subject matter Russell would return to often...
- 11/28/2011
- by Theron
- Planet Fury
Director Ken Russell, best known for his movies featuring sex-starved nuns, nude male wrestling, "offensive" religious symbolism, and kaleidoscopic musical numbers, died Sunday, Nov. 27, in the United Kingdom. Russell had suffered a series of strokes. He was 84. Now hardly as remembered or admired as, say, '70s Hollywood icons Steven Spielberg, Robert Altman, or Martin Scorsese, Russell not only was — more than — their equal in terms of vision and talent, but he was also infinitely more daring both thematically and esthetically. In fact, Russell was so innovatively controversial that he was referred to as the enfant terrible of British cinema while already in his 40s and 50s. But if middle age brings out complacency and apathy in most people, its effect on Russell (born July 3, 1927, in Southampton) seems to have been the opposite. Following years of work on British television, Russell's 1969 film adaptation of D. H. Lawrence's Women in Love...
- 11/28/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
The first review I ever wrote — God help me — was of a movie directed by Ken Russell, the high-trash visionary of over-the-top British psychodrama who died Sunday at 84. It was 1975, the fall of my senior year in high school, and my friends and I had gone to the opening night show of Tommy, the deluxe, star-packed big-screen version of the Who’s rock opera. (Elton John as the Pinball Wizard! Tina Turner as the Acid Queen! Ann-Margret writhing in beans and suds! Jack Nicholson leering!) I thought parts of the movie were amazing, but it had a certain jaw-dropping vulgar psychedelic shamelessness that,...
- 11/28/2011
- by Owen Gleiberman
- EW - Inside Movies
Following a series of strokes, British film director Ken Russell died on Sunday at the age of 84. Russell was famed for being experimental and flamboyant with his films which had heavily sexual overtones and often rebelled against the otherwise rigid and subdued tone used by other famed British filmmakers. It earned him the nickname 'The Fellini of the North'.
Russell first came to notice with 1967's "Billion Dollar Brain", the third film in the Michael Caine-led Harry Palmer spy drama series based on Len Deighton's books. Two years later he directed his signature film - an adaptation of Dh Lawrence's "Women In Love".
'Women' scored numerous Oscar nominations and featured the now infamous nude wrestling scene between Oliver Reed and Alan Bates that broke the taboo of full frontal male nudity on camera in a mainstream film.
That lead to numerous films in the 1970's that have since become infamous.
Russell first came to notice with 1967's "Billion Dollar Brain", the third film in the Michael Caine-led Harry Palmer spy drama series based on Len Deighton's books. Two years later he directed his signature film - an adaptation of Dh Lawrence's "Women In Love".
'Women' scored numerous Oscar nominations and featured the now infamous nude wrestling scene between Oliver Reed and Alan Bates that broke the taboo of full frontal male nudity on camera in a mainstream film.
That lead to numerous films in the 1970's that have since become infamous.
- 11/28/2011
- by Garth Franklin
- Dark Horizons
Ken Russell with Twiggy on the set of The Boyfriend (1971)
By Lee Pfeiffer
Director Ken Russell, who once seemed destined to enter his family's shoe business, has died after a series of strokes at age 84. Russell served in the British navy before using his talents as a photographer to become a documentary film maker. Once he began making major studio films, they were often steeped in controversy. Russell seemed to have little regard for whether his movies had boxoffice appeal. Instead, he focused on his own creative visions of storytelling. One of Russell's most acclaimed films, the 1970 version of D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love earned him as Oscar nomination and was both a critical and financial success. The films he made in the years after were not as well regarded. His 1971 film The Devils was considered so shocking that it has been censored and cut into various versions throughout the world.
By Lee Pfeiffer
Director Ken Russell, who once seemed destined to enter his family's shoe business, has died after a series of strokes at age 84. Russell served in the British navy before using his talents as a photographer to become a documentary film maker. Once he began making major studio films, they were often steeped in controversy. Russell seemed to have little regard for whether his movies had boxoffice appeal. Instead, he focused on his own creative visions of storytelling. One of Russell's most acclaimed films, the 1970 version of D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love earned him as Oscar nomination and was both a critical and financial success. The films he made in the years after were not as well regarded. His 1971 film The Devils was considered so shocking that it has been censored and cut into various versions throughout the world.
- 11/28/2011
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Following the sad death of director Ken Russell yesterday, James looks back at his sometimes stunning body of work...
While his best years were clearly long behind him, the passing of director Ken Russell, one of the undoubted titans of post-war British cinema, still feels like a huge loss for the world of film. Contrarian, provocateur and a lover of excess in all its forms, Russell was a filmmaker whose work was rarely restrained, seldom safe and almost always memorable, although not necessarily for the right reasons.
Despite a childhood desire to be a ballet dancer, it was as a photographer that Russell initially made his name, and it was through this route that he secured a job in 1959 within the BBC.
Working as an arts documentarian during the 1960s, Russell honed his craft, creating a series of artful, evocative films, mainly focusing on composers such as Debussy, Elgar and Strauss.
While his best years were clearly long behind him, the passing of director Ken Russell, one of the undoubted titans of post-war British cinema, still feels like a huge loss for the world of film. Contrarian, provocateur and a lover of excess in all its forms, Russell was a filmmaker whose work was rarely restrained, seldom safe and almost always memorable, although not necessarily for the right reasons.
Despite a childhood desire to be a ballet dancer, it was as a photographer that Russell initially made his name, and it was through this route that he secured a job in 1959 within the BBC.
Working as an arts documentarian during the 1960s, Russell honed his craft, creating a series of artful, evocative films, mainly focusing on composers such as Debussy, Elgar and Strauss.
- 11/28/2011
- Den of Geek
Ken Russell, who has died aged 84, was so often called rude names – the wild man of British cinema, the apostle of excess, the oldest angry young man in the business – that he gave up denying it all quite early in his career. Indeed, he often seemed to court the very publicity that emphasised only the crudest assessment of his work. He gave the impression that he cared not a damn. Those who knew him better, however, knew that he did. Underneath all the showbiz bluster, he was an old softie. Or, perhaps as accurately, a talented boy who never quite grew up.
It has, of course, to be said that he was capable of almost any enormity in the careless rapture he brought to making his films. He could be dreadfully cruel to his undoubted talent,...
It has, of course, to be said that he was capable of almost any enormity in the careless rapture he brought to making his films. He could be dreadfully cruel to his undoubted talent,...
- 11/28/2011
- by Derek Malcolm
- The Guardian - Film News
"Ken Russell, the British director whose daring and sometimes outrageous films often tested the patience of audiences and critics, has died," reports the AP. "He was 84."
"Known for a flamboyant style that was developed during his early career in television, Russell's films often courted controversy," writes Henry Barnes for the Guardian. "Women in Love, released in 1969, became notorious for its nude male wrestling scene between Alan Bates and Oliver Reed, while Tommy, his starry version of The Who's rock opera, was his biggest commercial success, beginning as a stage musical before being reimagined for the screen in 1976. But Russell fell out of the limelight in recent years, as some of his funding resources dried up and his proposed projects ever more eclectic. He returned to the public eye in 2007, when he appeared on the fifth edition of Celebrity Big Brother, before quitting the show after a disagreement with fellow contestant Jade Goody.
"Known for a flamboyant style that was developed during his early career in television, Russell's films often courted controversy," writes Henry Barnes for the Guardian. "Women in Love, released in 1969, became notorious for its nude male wrestling scene between Alan Bates and Oliver Reed, while Tommy, his starry version of The Who's rock opera, was his biggest commercial success, beginning as a stage musical before being reimagined for the screen in 1976. But Russell fell out of the limelight in recent years, as some of his funding resources dried up and his proposed projects ever more eclectic. He returned to the public eye in 2007, when he appeared on the fifth edition of Celebrity Big Brother, before quitting the show after a disagreement with fellow contestant Jade Goody.
- 11/28/2011
- MUBI
It was his third film, the Oscar-winning Women In Love, that put him on the map in 1969 and over the next two decades he helmed an extraordinary succession of dramas, comedies, and horror films with an unmistakable flamboyance that garnered him a huge cult following. Ken Russell’s most successful was his filming of The Who’s Tommy in 1975 but his series of composer biographies (The Music Lovers, Mahler, Lisztomania) were among his most acclaimed. He tried his hand at Hollywood Musicals (The Boyfriend – 1971) and horror fans will always embrace The Devils (1971), Gothic (1986), Lair Of The White Worm (1988), and the insane Altered States (1982). Ken Russell’s films used to play constantly at the Tivoli back in its’ repertory days but Russell spent the last couple of decades working primarily in British television. Russell died on Sunday following a series of strokes at age 84.
From The UK Telegraph:
Russell, known for...
From The UK Telegraph:
Russell, known for...
- 11/28/2011
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
John Bridcut on Ken Russell, a film-maker who 'resisted the facts getting in the way of his visual imagination'
The wild visual imagination of Ken Russell brought classical music to a whole new audience, and made his name notorious in respectable musical circles. His feature films about composers went straight for the jugular – sometimes almost literally, as in his blood-soaked Mahler. He loved the music, but he also loved the sex. He sold the idea of The Music Lovers on the basis that it was a story about a nymphomaniac who fell in love with a homosexual, and sure enough the film opens in a bedroom, with an unbridled romp between Richard Chamberlain as Tchaikovsky and Christopher Gable as his lover.
His films on Liszt, Debussy, Richard Strauss and Wagner all involved sexual fantasy, to the dismay and outrage of people who took the music rather more seriously. Each one made headlines,...
The wild visual imagination of Ken Russell brought classical music to a whole new audience, and made his name notorious in respectable musical circles. His feature films about composers went straight for the jugular – sometimes almost literally, as in his blood-soaked Mahler. He loved the music, but he also loved the sex. He sold the idea of The Music Lovers on the basis that it was a story about a nymphomaniac who fell in love with a homosexual, and sure enough the film opens in a bedroom, with an unbridled romp between Richard Chamberlain as Tchaikovsky and Christopher Gable as his lover.
His films on Liszt, Debussy, Richard Strauss and Wagner all involved sexual fantasy, to the dismay and outrage of people who took the music rather more seriously. Each one made headlines,...
- 11/28/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
The director Ken Russell has died aged 84. We look back at his most memorable moments, from The Devils to Women in Love
• Ken Russell: films in photographs
After early attempts at carving out a career as a photographer, Russell and his future wife Shirley-Ann began making short films with a fantasy/parable bent – in contrast with the socially engaged spirit of the then influential Free Cinema movement. Peep Show (1956) was a parody of silent cinema, while arguably the most striking of the shorts was Amelia and the Angel, part funded by the BFI, about a girl looking for angel's wings for a school play.
Russell's proficiency got him noticed by the BBC, and he was put to work on the arts documentary strand Monitor. He made a string of TV programmes with increasingly elaborate formats – on everything from pop art to brass bands, culminating with his epic film about Edward Elgar,...
• Ken Russell: films in photographs
After early attempts at carving out a career as a photographer, Russell and his future wife Shirley-Ann began making short films with a fantasy/parable bent – in contrast with the socially engaged spirit of the then influential Free Cinema movement. Peep Show (1956) was a parody of silent cinema, while arguably the most striking of the shorts was Amelia and the Angel, part funded by the BFI, about a girl looking for angel's wings for a school play.
Russell's proficiency got him noticed by the BBC, and he was put to work on the arts documentary strand Monitor. He made a string of TV programmes with increasingly elaborate formats – on everything from pop art to brass bands, culminating with his epic film about Edward Elgar,...
- 11/28/2011
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
Actor best known as Paddy, the militant shop steward in the BBC's The Rag Trade
The actor Miriam Karlin, who has died of cancer aged 85, became famous in the early 1960s as Paddy, the militant shop steward of a London clothing firm in the BBC television comedy series The Rag Trade. As Paddy, who was always willing to signal a strike with a whistle and her catchphrase "Everybody out!", Karlin was watched by millions, and quoted by millions. But neither that success, nor her more serious roles on stage, removed the gnawing dissatisfaction she felt at not achieving something more serious. She channelled some of that feeling into promoting broadly leftwing causes as a member of the council of the actors' union Equity, and as a campaigner for the Anti-Nazi League, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Soviet Jewry.
She was born Miriam Samuels and brought up in Hampstead, north London,...
The actor Miriam Karlin, who has died of cancer aged 85, became famous in the early 1960s as Paddy, the militant shop steward of a London clothing firm in the BBC television comedy series The Rag Trade. As Paddy, who was always willing to signal a strike with a whistle and her catchphrase "Everybody out!", Karlin was watched by millions, and quoted by millions. But neither that success, nor her more serious roles on stage, removed the gnawing dissatisfaction she felt at not achieving something more serious. She channelled some of that feeling into promoting broadly leftwing causes as a member of the council of the actors' union Equity, and as a campaigner for the Anti-Nazi League, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Soviet Jewry.
She was born Miriam Samuels and brought up in Hampstead, north London,...
- 6/3/2011
- by Dennis Barker
- The Guardian - Film News
Stevie Wonder hits the UK, Toy Story goes 3D, and it's the last ever Big Brother – our critics pick the unmissable events of the season
Pop
Stevie Wonder
Anyone who can't face braving Glastonbury to see the Motown legend's Sunday-night set can head to London's Hyde Park for this headlining show. It's likely to be heavy on the hits, but a little too heavy on the audience participation, if complaints from disgruntled punters at Wonder's recent shows are anything to go by. And be warned: Jamiroquai seems to have been enticed out of retirement to provide support. Hyde Park, London W2, 26 June. Box office: 020-7009 3484.
T in the Park
This beloved Scottish festival is prized as much for its atmosphere as its lineup. And they're certainly wheeling out the big hitters this year: Eminem, Muse, Kasabian, Jay-z, Black Eyed Peas, Florence and the Machine, La Roux, Dizzee Rascal and Paolo Nutini,...
Pop
Stevie Wonder
Anyone who can't face braving Glastonbury to see the Motown legend's Sunday-night set can head to London's Hyde Park for this headlining show. It's likely to be heavy on the hits, but a little too heavy on the audience participation, if complaints from disgruntled punters at Wonder's recent shows are anything to go by. And be warned: Jamiroquai seems to have been enticed out of retirement to provide support. Hyde Park, London W2, 26 June. Box office: 020-7009 3484.
T in the Park
This beloved Scottish festival is prized as much for its atmosphere as its lineup. And they're certainly wheeling out the big hitters this year: Eminem, Muse, Kasabian, Jay-z, Black Eyed Peas, Florence and the Machine, La Roux, Dizzee Rascal and Paolo Nutini,...
- 5/24/2010
- The Guardian - Film News
If you've never been to or heard of Canada's Fantasia Film Festival, do yourself a favor: Become acquainted quickly and get your asses up to the Great White North as it's an event that's not to be missed! Now for a look at what's to come this year!
From the Press Release
While we’re still several weeks away from announcing our full 2010 festival line-up, the 14th annual Fantasia International Film Festival is making an early announcement to highlight several special events planned for this summer’s fest, including a stage play, multiple lifetime achievement awards and a gala performance/screening premiere revolving around one of the most significant silent-film restorations in the history of moving images.
The Complete Metropolis – A Gala Event At Place Des Arts
Seldom has the rediscovery of a cache of lost footage ignited widespread curiosity as did the announcement, in July 2008, that an essentially complete...
From the Press Release
While we’re still several weeks away from announcing our full 2010 festival line-up, the 14th annual Fantasia International Film Festival is making an early announcement to highlight several special events planned for this summer’s fest, including a stage play, multiple lifetime achievement awards and a gala performance/screening premiere revolving around one of the most significant silent-film restorations in the history of moving images.
The Complete Metropolis – A Gala Event At Place Des Arts
Seldom has the rediscovery of a cache of lost footage ignited widespread curiosity as did the announcement, in July 2008, that an essentially complete...
- 5/5/2010
- by Uncle Creepy
- DreadCentral.com
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