Nyff 2014

[Chris Knipp]

Links to reviews:

'71 (Jann Demange 2014)
Beloved Sisters/Die geliebten Schwestern (Dominik Graf 2014)
Blue Room, The/La Chambre bleue (Mathieu Amalric 2014)
Citizenfour (Laura Poitras 2014)
Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas 2014)
Eden (Mia Hansen-Løve 2014)
Foxcatcher (Bennett Miller 2014)
Gone Girl (David Fincher 2014)
Goodbye to Language/Adieu au langage (Jean-Luc Godard 2014)
Heaven Knows What (Josh & Benny Safdie 2014)
Hill of Freedom 자유의 언덕/Jayuui Eondeok (Hong Sang-soo 2014)
Horse Money/Cavalo Dinheiro (Pedro Costa 2014)
Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson 2014)
Iris (Albert Maysles 2014)--Spotlight on Documentary
Jauja (Lisandro Alonso 2014)
Life of Riley/Aimer, boire et chanter (Alain Resnais 2014)
Listen Up Philip (Alex Ross Perry 2014)
Maps to the Stars (David Cronenberg 2014)
Merchants of Doubt (Robert Kenner-Spotlight on Documentary
Misunderstood/Incompresa (Asia Argento 2014)
Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh 2014)
National Gallery (Frederick Wiseman 2014)--Spotlight on Documentary
Pasolini (Abel Ferrara 2014)
Princess of France, The/La principessa de Francia (Matías Piñeiro 2014)
Red Army (Gabe Polsky 2014)--Spotlight on Documentary
Saint Laurent (Bertrand Bonello 2014)
La Sapienza (Eugène Green 2014)
Seymour: An Introduction (Ethan Hawke 2014)--Spotlight on Documentary
Silvered Water, Syria Self-Portrait/ماء الفضة/maa' al-fiḍḍa (Ossama Mohammed, Wiam Simav Bedirxan 2014)
Tales of the Grim Sleeper (Nick Broomfield 2014)
Timbuktu (Abderrahmane Sissako 2014)
Time Out of Mind (Owen Moverman 2014)
Two Days, One Night/Deux jours, une nuit (Jean-Pierre, Luc Dardenne 2014)
Two Shots Fired/Dos disparos (Martin Rejtman 2014)
Whiplash (Damien Chazelle 2014)
Wonders, The/Le meraviglie (Alice Rohrwacher 2014)


Filmleaf NYFF 2014 Festival Coverage: click.

Lincoln Center's NYFF news click.

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[Chris Knipp]

Some 2014 NYFF revivals have been announced:

NYFF52 REVIVALS « Main Series Listings

Burroughs: The Movie
HOWARD BROOKNER | 1983 | 86 MINS
An evocative and one-of-a-kind portrait of William Burroughs, built around a series of encounters with the great American writer himself and interviews with many friends, including Allen Ginsberg, Terry Southern, John Giorno. and Brion Gysin. A true New York movie.

The Color of Pomegranates
SERGEI PARAJANOV | 1968 | 88 MINS
A cine-poem of the life of the 18th-century Armenian/Georgian poet and singer Sayat-Nova by Sergei Parajanov, which Michelangelo Antonioni once called a film of “stunningly perfect beauty,” now impeccably restored.

Hiroshima Mon Amour
ALAIN RESNAIS | 1959 | 90 MINS
This debut feature from Alain Resnais, written by Marguerite Duras, a story told in two tenses about the aftereffect of the atomic bomb as experienced by two lovers in Hiroshima, is one of the great masterworks of modernist cinema, now fully restored.

Once Upon a Time in America
SERGIO LEONE | 1984 | 251 MINS
Sergio Leone’s final and perhaps greatest film, a New York gangster saga housed within an intricate construction that shuttles through time, with Robert De Niro, James Woods leading a remarkable cast. This restoration, including material previously unseen in the U.S., preserves the director’s original structure.

[Chris Knipp]

All of the 2014 NYFF Main Slate list has now been announced. See below.

The 52nd New York Film Festival (2014) Main Slate

Opening Night Gala Selection
GONE GIRL
Director: David Fincher

Centerpiece Gala Selection
INHERENT VICE
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

Closing Night Gala Selection
BIRDMAN OR THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE
Director: Alejandro G. Iñarritu

BELOVED SISTERS (Die geliebten Schwestern)
Director: Dominik Graf

THE BLUE ROOM (La chambre bleue)
Director: Mathieu Amalric

CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA
Director: Olivier Assayas

EDEN
Director: Mia Hansen-Løve

FOXCATCHER
Director: Bennett Miller

GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE (Adieu au langage)
Director: Jean-Luc Godard

HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT
Directors: Josh & Benny Safdie

HILL OF FREEDOM (Jayuui Eondeok)
Director: Hong Sang-soo

HORSE MONEY(Cavalo Dinheiro)
Director: Pedro Costa

JUAJA
Director: Lisandro Alonso

LIFE OF RILEY (Aimer, boire et chanter)
Director: Alain Resnais

LISTEN UP PHILIP
Director: Alex Ross Perry

MAPS TO THE STARS
Director: David Cronenberg

MISUNDERSTOOD (Incompresa)
Director: Asia Argento

MR. TURNER
Director: Mike Leigh

PASOLINI
Director: Abel Ferrara

THE PRINCESS OF FRANCE (La Princesa de Francia)
Director: Matas Pieiro

SAINT LAURENT
Director: Bertrand Bonello

LA SAPIENZA
Director: Eugne Green

'71
Director: Yann Demange

TALES OF THE GRIM REAPER
Director: Nick Broomfield

TIMBUKTU
Director: Abderrahmane Sissako

TIME OUT OF MIND
Director: Oren Moverman

TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT (Deux jours, une nuit)
Directors: Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne

TWO SHOTS FIRED (Dos Disparos)
Director: Martn Rejtman

WHIPLASH
Director: Damien Chazelle

THE WONDERS (Le meraviglie)
Director: Alice Rohrwacher


GONE GIRL: ROSAMUND PIKE, BEN AFFLECK

The selection committee: Kent Jones, chair, plus Dennis Lim (FSLC Director of Programming), Marian Masone (FSLC Senior Programming Advisor), Gavin Smith (Film Comment Editor), and Amy Taubin ( Film Comment and Sight & Sound Contributing Editor).

[Chris Knipp]

Main Slate. Comments on the selections.

To a significant extent, as usual, a third of the total this time, the Slate constitutes a Best Of (and Other Interesting Items From) Cannes (Two Days, One Night; The Wonders; Foxcatcher; Mr. Turner, Clouds Of Sils Maria, Goodbye To Language, Saint Laurent, Maps to the Stars, Juaja, The Blue Room, Timbuktu), plus a few very top as yet unreleased titles from Sundance (Whiplash, Listen Up Philip).

The rest of the 2014 Main Slate predictably includes new films from longtime NYFF faves (Abel Ferrara, Hong Sang-soo, Pedro Costa, Alain Resnais, Abderrahmane Sissako, Asia Argento). Eden and Pasolini will come out first at Toronto and Venice. I am a fan of Mia Hansen-Løve, and the FSLC has featured every one of her previous films in one series or another.

It's always worth seeing the best of Cannes, a category that includes many of the year's finest films. The Dardennes and Mike Leigh have never disappointed me and Assayas rarely has. I liked Rorhwacher's first feature more than most did. Whiplash sounded like the must-see of the festival when I was following Sundance.

The featured American film premieres, David Fincher for the opening night film and Paul Thomas Anderson for the centerpiece, look very interesting, and PTA's offering will draw cinephiles hot to see a December release (Gone Girl comes out October 3rd). Alejandro G. Iñárritu's Birdman or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance in the closing night slot sounds more doubtful -- though Venice response has been positive. I'm pleased they're including Bonello's Saint Laurent. The French at Cannes appreciated it more than English-language writers; and I like Bonello and Ulliel and want to compare this with the earlier-released tamer Bergé-approved YSL biopic with Pierre Niney. Bonello's will come out in France around this time so we can see how it does critically there.

Nick Bloomfield's Battle for Haditha (2007) was the best film about the Iraq war. His new one, a documentary, returns to a topic he has filmed before, a serial killer. Oren Moverman has been good and I'm interested in new German film: Dominik Graf did one of the Dreileben films of several years ago, a bit disappointing then but we'll see. Amalric hasn't seemed as good a director as actor and at Cannes the Variety wasn't impressed. Alonso's Juaja is an atmospheric headscratcher and period Viggo Mortensen vehicle enthusiastically received at Un Certain Regard.

Every year they edge up the number of selections. It was 28, then 29, then 30. This time though last year's raft of somewhat dubious English comedies is happily missing, and the selection is more international.

There doesn't look to be much torturous or long-slog material here, and what may be hidden between the lines will be from distinguished sources (Costa, Godard). Goodbye to Language, by the way, is in 3D.


GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE

[Chris Knipp]

NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL SEPTEMBER 26-OCTOBER 12, 2014: The Film Society of Lincoln Center has announced the opening, closing, and centerpiece films for the fall festival.

In addition to the previously announced Opening Night selection, David Fincher's Gone Girl, the lineup will include Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Reese Witherspoon, and Benicio Del Toro, as Centerpiece and Alejandro G. Iñárritu's Birdman or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance, starring Michael Keaton, Zach Galifianakis, Edward Norton, Andrea Riseborough, Amy Ryan, Emma Stone, and Naomi Watts, as Closing Night.



PTA directing Daniel Day Lewis in THERE WILL BE BLOOD [from THE DISSOLVE]

Paul Thomas Anderson's INHERENT VICE, from the Thomas Pynchon novel, the NYFF 2014 Centerpiece film, will debut in some cities December 12. THE DISSOLVE presents a brief preview of it currently with a photo showing a different looking Joaquim Phoenix, whose favoring by important directors (Anderson, James Gray) now makes him more than rival his beloved brother the late River. INHERENT VICE also features Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Reese Witherspoon, and Benicio del Toro. You will get to read about this much anticipated new film in detail first right here in the Filmleaf Festival Coverage section's NYFF 2014 thread.


BEN AFFLECK IN DAVID FINCHER'S GONE GIRL

[Chris Knipp]

Josh Brolin and Joaquin Phoenix [from Indiewire], Inherent Vice.

[Chris Knipp]

Toronto 2014 (4-14 September).

Mike D'Angelo has given his "first pass at" a schedule of, at this point, 49 films he plans to watch in nine days at this year's Toronto Film Festival. Seveb are NYFF titles, several more Cannes. http://www.panix.com/~dangelo/prev/tiff14.html. Single-time scheduling of a bunch of films he wants to see early on prevents him from seeing them. He explains reasons for each choice. Some are due to "dead slot" times when nothing he wants to see is showing in press screenings. Directors include Lucas Belvaux, Céline Sciamma, Roy Andersson, Takashi Miike, Laurent Cantet, Tetsuya Nakashima, Martin Rejtman, Jason Reitman, David Gordon Green (MANGLEHORN is the title), Johnnie To, Christian Petzold, Noah Baumbach, Nick Broomfield (NYFF), just to give a few.

As before he will no doubt provide on-the-spot Tweet reviews with his "fanatically" precise numberical 1-100 ratings of each.

[Chris Knipp]

D'Angelo noted scheduling issues in these two tweets this morning:

Of the 40 or so films on my TIFF shortlist, 18 (!!!) are screening for press on Day One and only on Day One. Unreal.

and

(And I’ve already seen a bunch of other major films that are also screening only that first day: Ceylan, Dardennes, Dumont, etc.)

Film festival scheduling is not rocket science, but it's not easy, evidently (I have enough trouble scheduling my own life). I've noted how the NYFF press screenings bunch up sometimes so it becomes much harder some days than others. But if you are available you can see all the main slate films. What he's saying is for Toronto he can't begin to see all his first choices. You can never get it all out of one festival.

[Chris Knipp]

FSLC announces 15 'Spotlight on Documentary' titles.


Jung Yoon-suk's Non-fiction Diary.

Posted Aug. 20, 2014. You'll find them all here.

'Nonfiction took the spotlight Tuesday as the Film Society of Lincoln Center unveiled 15 documentaries, including one World Premiere and four U.S. Premieres, slated to join the lineup of the 52nd New York Film Festival. New films by Les Blank, Debra Granik, Ethan Hawke, Robert Kenner, Albert Maysles, Joshua Oppenheimer, Ed Pincus, Martin Scorsese, J.P. Sniadecki, Frederick Wiseman, are part of this year's roster.

Highlights from yesterday's additions include Scorsese and David Tedeschi's look at The New York Review of Books, The 50-Year Argument and Joshua Oppenheimer's The Look of Silence, his follow-up to his Oscar-nominated The Act of Killing, about the aftermath of genocide in Indonesia. Documentary mavericks Albert Maysles and Frederick Wiseman's latest works also join the lineup. Maysles's Iris focuses on fashion- and interior-design master Iris Apfel, while Wiseman's National Gallery centers on the art of painting.

Les Blank and Ed Pincus will also return to NYFF and the Film Society. Blank and Gina Leibrecht’s How to Smell a Rose: A Visit with Ricky Leacock in Normandy chronicles a visit by Blank to Leacock in which the two filmmakers spend time together discussing, among other things, Leacock’s philosophies of living and filmmaking. Pincus and Lucia Small’s One Cut, One Life, meanwhile, reunites the two filmmakers for a treatise on life with a demonstration of the necessity of love, work, and beauty.

Filmramming and Selection Committee Chair. "It’s kind of a commonplace to think of documentary as an add-on to fiction, something extra, and of course nothing could be further from the truth: cinema started with documentary, and it will always be at the core of the art form. These 15 films, so vastly different in outlook and method and tone, represent the best in documentary filmmaking today. And I need to say that the presence of new work by some of the greatest figures in the documentary strain known as vérité—Fred Wiseman, Al Maysles, and the final films by Ed Pincus and Les Blank, whose doc is about Ricky Leacock—is, for me, both exciting and moving."


Other highlights include Gabe Polsky’s Red Army, which explores the story of the Soviet Union’s Red Army hockey team—arguably the most successful sports dynasty in history; Robert Kenner’s Merchants of Doubt, which sheds light on the methods with which opponents of policy to counteract climate change go about their work to confuse and muddy the issue; and J.P. Sniadecki’s The Iron Ministry, in which the filmmaker looks at the lives and personalities of the people that ride the railway cars crossing China every day.

Additional special screenings, events, filmmaker conversations and panels, as well as NYFF’s Projections and the full Convergence programs, will be announced in subsequent days and weeks."maker Debra Granik, whose 2010 film Winter's Bone received four Oscar nominations, returns to the director's chair this time with Stray Dog, a documentary portrait of Ron “Stray Dog” Hall—who appeared in Winter's Bone—an aging biker, RV park manager, and veteran in southern Missouri who was transformed by his tours in Vietnam and dedicates his life to helping his loved ones and fellow vets. Actor Ethan Hawke also takes a turn behind the camera to look at the life of pianist Seymour Bernstein with Seymour: An Introduction. Hawke traces the life’s journey and the balance ultimately achieved by a man that mastered the piano very early and had great success on the concert circuit before giving it all up to devote his life to helping others develop their talent.

"This section of the festival has become increasingly important to us, and to me personally," commented Kent Jones, NYFF's Director of Programming."'

Last year's NYFF docs included Afternoon Of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq p, The Dog, about the real person Dog Day Afternoon was based on, and Joachim Pinto's What Now? Remind Me,.

[Chris Knipp]

The Press & Industry screening schedule has been announced. It will run from Monday, September 15 to Friday, October 11. This schedule will determine the order in which my Main Slate reviews will appear. Stay tuned!

[Chris Knipp]

Alejandro G. Iñárritu's BIRDMAN - the buzz.



Iñárritu's BIRDMAN recently debuted as the opening night film at Venice and reviews give an impression of a major tour de force; the dp is the same who did fellow Mexican Cuarón's GRAVITY, the tour de force that was the opening film at Venice last year. The London Telegraph says "Birdman isn’t much like anything else at all. Think Black Swan directed by Mel Brooks and you’re in the vicinity, but only just." This combination does not appeal to me at all, but for some reason descriptions make me think of Cronenberg's COSMOPOLIS, which I loved.

Peter Debruge in his Variety review says, "it’s a thrill to see Inarritu back from whatever dark, dreary place begat '21 Grams,' 'Babel' and 'Biutiful,' three phony, contrived melodramas engineered to manipulate, while posing as gritty commentaries on the harsh world we inhabit." Debruge says the film's "a triumph on every creative level, from casting to execution, that will electrify the industry, captivate arthouse and megaplex crowds alike, send awards pundits into orbit and give fresh wings to Keaton’s career."

Why do I feel so resistant to it, in advance? (I like that Debruge came out and called those earlier films "phony." Maybe AMORES PERROS was "phony" too, but the first part was so good it didn't quite matter, and the introduction of Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal and a new generation of strong Mexican directors to an international audience.) Of course it is useless, even wrong, to comment on a movie one has not yet seen. But this is one of the featured films at NYFF 52, and it is going to be one of the most talked-about of the year, I imagine. So let the chatter begin!

NB: This is a social satire, not a superhero movie; this still is a flashback to the Keaton protagonist's most famous role.

[Chris Knipp]

More on Cannes at the 2014 NYFF. Prizes; on-the-spot comments from D'Angelo.

A number of the 2014 NYFF jury's selections that debuted at Cannes were big prizewinners there. The top prize, Palme d'Or, winner, WINTER SLEEP (Nuri Bilge Ceylan), isn't included in the NYFF; but dissents saying it's a big bore (and correspondingly very long slog to watch) may help explain its exclusion. (I found Ceylan's last film ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA, included in the 2011 NYFF, a terrible slog.) Anyway WINTER SLEEP (telling title?) begins limited US theatrical release 19 December.
THE WONDERS (Alice Rohrwacher) won the (second-to-top) Cannes Grand Prize.
FAREWELL TO LANGUAGE (Jean-Luc Goadard) won one of two Cannes Jury Prizes.
Timotny Spall of MR. TURNER (Mike Leigh) won Best Actor at Cannes. This offsets the fact that European critics liked this film less than some other contenders.
Julianne Moore of MAPS TO THE STARS won Best Actress.
FOXCATCHER (Bennett Miller) won Best Director. (Not sure yet what that may mean.)
TIMBUKTU (Abderrahmane Sissako) won both the Ecumenical Jury Prize and the Françcois Chalais Prize. This was a European critics' favorite.
MAPS TO THE STARS won Best Soundtrack.

In this context I just reread Mike D'Angelo's ten days of Cannes 2014 bulletins on The Dissolve. He is overall remarkably unenthusiastic about FOXCATCHER and MAPS TO THE STARS. He has mixed but good things to say about MR. TURNER. He finds THE WONDERS a "A minor work, but thoroughly enjoyable." He says of the Dardennes' TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT, "These guys may yet sell me on this whole 'humanism' thing." He likes TIMBUKTU, and appreciates its being less social-critically didactic than recent previous films (BAMAKO, in NYFF 2007. Of Assayas' CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA he tweeted "Relentlessly brainy, to the point where it's constantly interpreting itself. Really sharp, though." He finds all Godard's late work baffling, but loves the exceptionally innovative use of 3D in FAREWELL TO LANGUAGE and this is his favorite Godard film since WEEKEND, which was made before he was born. But there were other films at Cannes this year that D'Angelo waxed enthusiastic about, IT FOLLOWS (Mitchell), BIRD PEOPLE (Ferran, already showing at the NYC IFC theater), and TU DORS NICOLE (Lafleur) The NYFF Cannes choices are safer and more conventional than some of D'Angelo's.

In VARIETY from Cannes Justin Chang gave FOXCATCHER is a rave for the acting and the drama; but Peter Debruge thoroughly panned MAPS TO THE STARS as a "toxic," tone-deaf piece based on an old screenplay that had passed its expiration date. That leaves one wondering, if MAPS TO THE STARS is a stinker and FOXCATCHER is blah, why include them? Other Cannes films in the NYFF that didn't get prizes D'Angelo rated high, TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT and CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA.

[Chris Knipp]

A current FSLC series.

[Chris Knipp]

Confirmations have now been sent out to us that pretty much all the highest profile premiere film NYFF 2014 stars and directors as well as filmmakers of the main documentaries shown in the upcoming P&I screenings will be present for the press conferences. The decision has been made to have no remote Skype Q&As this year.

[Chris Knipp]

Press and Industry screenings for the 52nd NYFF, 2014 edition, begin today (15 October).

Asia Argento: Misunderstood/Incompresa (2014)

Argento softens her fiestiness for this semi-autobiographical tale of a nine-year-old girl in Rome growing up alternately ignored and mistreated, with rich and famous and spectacularly egocentric parents. A bold, indigestible, colorful gesture of a movie, a bit more gesture than substance.