Archive for the 'Claire Denis' Category

Chris Smith Directed “Sr.”, A Lovely Film On R. Downey Jr. & His Father

Wednesday, December 7th, 2022
  • Independent CO UK

    ‘We can’t paint a rosy picture’: Robert Downey Sr’s life of drugs, taboo-busting films and parental regrets

    Robert Downey Jr. Reveals Making of Sr. was Improvisational

    Indewire Interview on Downey Jr and Chris Smith

    Making “‘Sr.’” was a transformative experience for both Downey and Smith, with the latter saying it had a “huge profound impact” on the way he shoots and directs future projects. “Robert says early on, ‘My dad’s a lover of process.’ And I felt like that was something that was always with me during the process of making this film. And I do so many other films that are done in a different way, that there was something very exciting and it reminded me of how I started, which is like on this film called ‘American Movie,’ where it was me with a camera on my shoulder, little to no crew, just trying to figure it out as we went along. And to me, that’s the most exciting,” said Smith.

  • Many of us not so familiar with Robert Downey Sr. learn from watching this documentary that Robert Downey Sr. appeared in “Boogie Nights”, or that Senior and Paul Thomas Anderson were close friends. (Many of their conversations were on youtube).

    Robert Downey Jr Admits he was ‘a tad bit jealous’ of Paul Thomas Anderson’s relationship with his father

    Watch this,
    Paul Thomas Anderson & Robert Downey Sr Talk Putney Swope/

  • Because of “Jim and Andy: The Great Beyond”, the producer suggested that Chris Smith contact Robert Downey Jr to make his documentary.

    1andyJimcarry
    (Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond” .)

  • Christhepool
    (The Pool in Goa)

    Chrissmith

    Chris Smith Interview – Filmmaker

    Filmmaker: When did you first read Randy Russell’s short story? And when did you decide you want to transpose it to Goa?

    Smith: I’m always looking for something that looks interesting and engaging. For me, it was one of those stories that I read and then came back to. It just sort of stuck with me; it was so simple and some of the themes seemed so universal. I thought back to the experience I had when I was in India about four or five years ago helping some friends shoot a movie, where we were living at that hotel and interacting with the roomboys and getting a sense of their lives. The idea of putting those two worlds together seemed really interesting to me, and I thought the two could be combined in a way that could provide a lot of rich material to work from.
    2)The kids didn’t know how to read so for me it was more important to get a good performance than to get word-for-word.

    Claire Denis – Two Early Films

    Friday, January 3rd, 2014
  • Claire

  • See full film here.

  • Family Films of a Very Different Sort (Claire discusses Bastards – her new film)

  • Vitro Nasu now has an archive for Claire Denis.

    Claire Denis – 2010

    Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

    Happy birthday Claire Denis
    Finally saw 35 Rums last night.
    Claire on Yasujiro Ozu

    Partial list of films dedicated to Ozu
    Hou Hsiao Hsien Cafe Lumiere – Dorris Dorie, Cherry Blossoms, Wayne Wang – Dim Sum and a documenatary by Wim Wenders Tokyo Ga

    Claire Claire_Denis Denis

    The Auteurs

    In an Ozu film, you are instantly invited into a story, and you are also invited into the past of the character. They have a past. It’s not just a movie with a beginning and and= end. It has already begun and it’s going on, as life is going on. So everything, like weddings, funerals. ..

    And now people are so anxious about working or not working. And now I understand more about Ozu he was really a visionary about the importance of work in our modern world. Maybe the family he describes is more traditional, but you gain an appreciation of it because it’s the only solid thing facing the fragility of existing as an employee.

    Darren Hughes – Best of 2009 film list
    Darren chose “Beau Travail” the Best film of the decade.
    Darren Hughes interivewed Claire Denis (Senses of Cinema)
    Claire on writers.

    Yes, but I don’t like Nadine Gordimer. I’ve met her a few times and our chemistry … We didn’t experience Africa the same way.
    The only person I can feel so much is Doris Lessing. Nadine Gordimer is too dictatorial and she has no heart. I prefer [J. M.] Coetzee.

    Claire Denis is excellent – Previous post

    From Chocolate to Ecclair – Claire Denis is Excellent

    Thursday, April 21st, 2005

    “Our brains are full of literature – my brain is. But I think we also have a dream world, the brain is also full of image and songs and I think that making films for me is to get rid of explanation. … I think, you get explanation by getting rid of explanation. I am sure of that.” (from an interview by Jonathan Romney here. On music and Beau Travail from here.)

    Claire Denis

    Happy Birthday!
    Today is Claire‘s birthday. She was born on April 21, 1948 in Paris
    “A provocative director whose films offer richly textured, contemplative examinations of cross-cultural tensions and alienation, Claire Denis is one of French cinema’s most distinctive and humanistic storytellers. A prolific filmmaker who is more concerned with the drive of her characters rather than the plot that weaves them together, she has been dubbed by one critic as one of the only current French directors who “has been able to reconcile the lyricism of French cinema with the impulse to capture the often harsh face of contemporary France.”

    Claire is versatile and elusive, two interviews from senses of cinema, here she talks about her apprenticeship with Rivette, Eustache, Wender and here on L’Intrus.

    Ten minutes older:the Cello-with Jean Luc Nancy from here.

    Performing the narrative of seduction and a non-localized sexuality, from here.
    A review of Beau Travail, here with great photos of Michel Subor and Gregoire Colin

    Beau Travail
    Beau Travail

  • See full film Beau Travail .. (youtube)

  • “My films, sadly enough, are sometimes unbalanced,” says filmmaker Claire Denis as we sip tea at the Toronto International Film Festival. “They have a limp or one arm shorter or a big nose, but even in the editing room when we try to change that, normally it doesn’t work.”
    I nearly choke on my tea at this. Denis’ films are as graceful as they come. Bold and musical, warm and intelligent at the same time, they’re so subtle the flms often seemingly work on a subconscious level. Revisiting her movies invariably turns up something new, something placed carefully in the flow of the story by a sure hand, something that went previously unseen. A limp? A big nose? More like Fred Astaire. ”
    (Intruding Beauty from Errata Magazine.)

    News on Claire’s new documentary from Villagevoice reporting on Tribeca Film Festival
    “Towards Mathilde” – Claire Denis’s absorbing documentary on modern dance maven Mathilde Monnier is in many ways the apotheosis of the director’s career-long obsession with the human body. Chronicling the rehearsal process with an intimate (but never intrusive) eye, Denis revels in the elasticity of human skin and sinew while the grainy cinematography (by Agnès Godard and Hélène Louvard) imparts a pointillist abstraction to the bodies on display. The scenes in which Mathilde breaks loose to the music of PJ Harvey are boldly unselfconscious and inevitably recall the pop freak-out climax of Beau Travail. NG

    Claire is a Professor, here.