Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
What do film directors read? Is screenwriting literature? What are the best Indian films? Is there fame in film subtitling? All this and more, answered
Beautiful, informative, funny essay on history and practice of film subtitling. Who knew that Anita Loos made her name subtitling for Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith?
“While the U.K. has a long cinematic tradition, world-class facilities and a glut of homegrown talent, it has yet to develop a self-sustaining domestic film industry,” writes Slate’s Esther Bintliff
"MILA accompanies NATALIE back home and goes MUFF DIVING while parents and teenagers watching the movie together because they thought it would be about ballet freeze and unblinkingly stare straight ahead while feigning disinterest"
Case for screenwriting as literature. Coen brothers score highly: "He is the Dude. His rumpled look and relaxed manner suggest a man in whom casualness runs deep"
Darren Aronofsky, director of Oscar-nominated film Black Swan, has had his own battles with letting go, writes New York magazine's Thomas Shone in a revealing profile story
Finely-turned appreciation of John Ford, here praised as one of the greatest and subtlest of filmmakers. Works like "The Searchers" were rich in emotion and ideas, compassionate, sceptical, ambivalent
Aaron Sorkin's Facebook story is being hailed as a modern classic, a Citizen Kane. This short, sharp review hits all the high notes. "A hard-charging beast of a movie with a full tank of creative gas"
"How do we know, without struggling to process the fact, that a scene shot from three angles by three cameras is the same scene?" Interesting essay looking at how literature accustomed us to sudden jumps of visual imagery in film
The darkly obsessive director of Fight Club and The Social Network takes on the biggest franchise since Harry Potter—The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Illuminating story on director David Fincher and the anticipated film
Fascinating if you're a "Star Wars" fan, if not then maybe not. Gary Kurtz, original co-producer, says George Lucas betrayed franchise, led astray by merchandising. Toys earned triple what films did
Touching interview with Kubrick's widow, Christiane. Writer inspired by her resilience in the face of family tragedy, and the way she continues to guard her late husband's legacy
Interview pegged to release of Allen's latest film, “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger”, about a fortune-teller. "People who successfully delude themselves seem happier than people who can’t"
Movie-theatre projectionists tell their tales: of people dying in the cinema, of switching the lights on too soon after a porn film, of knowing just how to time a reel-change. Soon, digital will do away with them
Profile of Guillermo del Toro, director of "Hellboy", "Pan's Labyrinth". Now working on Lovecraft's "Mountains of Madness". Connoisseur of macabre. "He often seems less like a disciple of Alfred Hitchcock than of Hieronymus Bosch"
Profile of James Schamus, professor of cultural theory at Columbia, arthouse-film producer. Made "Milk", "The Pianist", "Lost In Translation". One smart guy. “I’m solving problems in the culture business"
Review of films by Spike Lee and others. "Ever-present white fear of black insurrection spiked after Katrina. There was a palpable longing for New Orleans to be reconstituted as another Charleston or Savannah—smaller, safer, whiter"
Interesting throughout. "Every time I made a film, I always knew what I thought the theme was, the core, in one word. In The Godfather, it was succession. In The Conversation, it was privacy. In Apocalypse Now, it was morality"
Making of modern-classic mob movie, "Goodfellas", retold through intercut interviews with cast and crew, including writer Nick Pileggi, director Martin Scorsese. And actor John Malkovich, who turned down a part
In memory of Dennis Hopper, NYRB pulls out its contemporary review of "Easy Rider". It admired the "mythic simplicity". Plus a fine reader's letter, and a review of "Alice's Restaurant"
What Chinese tourists want to see when visiting Europe. Among top British sights: a willow tree in grounds of King's College, Cambridge, celebrated in a poem by Xu Zhimo. Pinnacle of desire: glimpse of Chateau Lafite Rothschild
Harvey Weinstein lost not only his adored Miramax studio, and huge amounts of money, but also his desire for filmmaking. How Hollywood’s last genuine impresario returned in triumph – just in time for the Oscars
From James Dean's sidekick aged 19 to terrifying gas-sniffing pervert in Blue Velvet, he created characters we remember. The turning point though was that "little motorcycle picture".
Francis Ford Coppola on the making of his great Vietnam film. "It was becoming more and more surreal. All the pink smoke and strange helicopters. And three-quarters of the way through, I realised I didn't have an ending"
Before she wrote-directed 2009 Sundance darling The Greatest, Shana Feste sold antiques and took a screenwriting class for a boyfriend. Now the talented director is out with Country Strong, a Nashville tale starring Gwyneth Paltrow
"Is there a moment in our lives that inclines us to begin to form the events of our life into a narrative of some sort; to try to see a shape?" Author reflects on love, personal biography, dramatisation of his 2002 novel
Turner Prize-winning artist and filmmaker Douglas Gordon's new film K364 explores trains, chamber music and love. Stars his partner's ex-husband and was inspired by a journey taken by "four Jews and a goy" from Berlin to Poland
