Word: filmâ
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Everybody who makes documentaries (and after writing and directing 37 of them, I am among them) gets tired of their constraints. That?s especially true of the talking heads, experts and eyewitnesses commenting upon whatever the film???s topic, whether lightsome or lugubrious, may be. These people often offer useful information and, occasionally, blinding insights. And since the filmmaker frequently does not have all the raw, original footage he requires to tell his story, they are sometimes the only source available to fill in his narrative gaps...
...There is, to begin with, the film???s score by Hollywood composer Danny Elfman, which would pass virtually without notice in a fictional melodrama, but which here rings and thunders with portent. These are accompanied by sound effects of dubious provenance. Then there are the inserts, like the famous deck of playing cards, carrying pictures of Saddam Hussein and his leading henchmen, which was distributed to American troops in Iraq, Images of some of these cards, very handsomely photographed against black, fly artfully, abstractly across the screen in a manner that is distinctly at odds with the essential grubbiness...
...coercion. It brings to mind the worst excesses of the Stalinist period: the public show trials and confessions exacted through torture, the random arrests and midnight executions in the infamous Lubyanka prison. KGB "sleepers" penetrating to the heart of Western intelligence services are now a staple of espionage fiction, film???and reality. Reports that Bulgarian agents in Rome may have aided Turkish Terrorist Mehmet Ali Agca in his attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in May 1981 have only added to Western suspicions of the KGB. In the view of many Westerners, the KGB would surely have been behind...
...Coast Bureau Chief William Rademaekers in his reporting on Beatty: "I was looking for fun, but it took more time and work than I thought. The essence of producing is to get a good collaborative mix of talent. Yet, no matter what you do, a film is still a film???a couple of hours of moments, some good, some bad, and you have to replace the bad with the good." Only days before its opening, Beatty was in New York City refining the details of his movie's release. "Anyone who would make films and ignore the final phase?...
...having finally braved the Bel-Air party circuit on Dinah's arm, he now shuns it. The wall-to-wall mirror on his bedroom ceiling nowadays often reflects a man reading poetry (Eliot and Frost, among others) and sipping a Tab. He is also a serious, intelligent student of film???old, exotic and by competitors. He will still shower gifts on his friends?though he admits he does not know how to accept them, or compliments, in return. Of course, he will still fill an actress's dressing room with flowers, or an actor's with a favorite libation...