Melville, segueing into the Brooklyn Rail and MovieMaker.

Premiere's Glenn Kenny binges on Jean-Pierre Melville: "The current perception of Melville here is that of a somewhat hardboiled cinephile, which he certainly was to a certain extent, what with the likes of later crime pictures such as Le Samouraï and Le Cercle Rouge. But of the four pictures I chose... only one, Le Doulos, is a genre picture. The other films give a different means of access to Melville the cinematic poet and thinker. After my immersion, I'm almost ready to put him alongside Buñuel."

"Le Doulos shows a director in transition," writes Jesi Khadivi in the July/August issue of the Brooklyn Rail. The film "shares some of Bob Le Flambeur's light-heartedness and predates the distilled existential dread of Melville's masterpiece Le Samouraï."

"The Siren can understand the admiration for the steel-colored perfection of Le Samouraï's look," she conceded a couple of weeks ago. "But watching [Alain] Delon dart around the Metro, in fear for his life, left her as cold as Harry Lime looking down from the Ferris wheel. The Siren has resigned herself to more lonely iconoclasm, but she did find this. Merci, M Rosenbaum, for expressing a few reservations. And apologies to Girish."

Back to the Brooklyn Rail. What else is in this summer issue:

Godard "once said that sport, in contrast to politics, literature and cinema, does not lie because it is the only action where the body does not act," writes Jenny Schlenzka in a review of Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait. "This might be one reason why [Douglas] Gordon and [Philippe] Parreno refuse to tell the story of Zidane's heroic rise. Instead, they focus on the power of his image, the image of him doing what he knows best: playing soccer. The premise of their film is as strikingly simple as it is effective."

"What does legendary singer Edith Piaf have in common with a secretive guy who murders innocent strangers for thrills?" asks Tessa DeCarlo, reviewing La Vie en Rose and Mr Brooks. "Both are hostages to their own dark sides, according to two films that use addiction as a shorthand way to pose a fundamental question: is it possible to become a better person?" Related: Joe Leydon talks with Kevin Costner for MovieMaker.

Sarahjane Blum on Nancy Drew:

Generations of women have learned from Nancy, Bess, and George that girls can dream, and think, and act. Now they see that girls can't, but Nancy can. Outside of the fantasy land of River Heights (where Bess and George remain full of moxie) a powerful girl remains an aberration. A circular argument arises: girls like to shop, Nancy would rather sleuth, Nancy isn't really a girl. And it's true: Nancy isn't really a girl. Even after hundreds of books and films devoted to her, the character barely feels human.

"Since the mid-90s, director Shane Meadows has defined himself as the definitive voice of lower-class Northern England," writes Karl O'Toole in a review of This Is England. "Meadows' films come across as the observations of a concerned insider rather than an outsider taking a quick tour."

Hong Sang-soo's Woman is the Future of Man sparks an association in Jed Lipinski's with Jules and Jim: "[U]nlike Jeanne Moreau, who 'revealed her goals only after she'd achieved them,' Sung Hyunah seems almost entirely a product of her mistreatment by guys; a clean slate covered in lewd men's room scrawl."

With Pete Tombs's guide Mondo Macabro as a starting point, Br Cleve is off in search of Bollywood horror.

David N Meyer and David Wilentz line up a string of reviews from the New York Asian Film Festival.

And MovieMaker:

Henry Jaglom argues - occasionally in italics - that "this is the very best time in history to be an independent moviemaker!" Related: Jennifer M Wood has a good long talk with Jaglom, who then also adds a good short list of "Things I've Learned as a Moviemaker."

"While autonomy used to be the battle cry of the generations of both John Cassavetes and Martin Scorsese, today's indie studios are in a better position to expose a film to an array of audiences," writes Jerry Weinstein. "No two outfits share the same business model, even though they do share a mission of broadening the audience for independent film."

"With all the entertainment options and technologies vying for audience attention, today's movie theaters are under attack." Mark Sells counts the many, many ways.

"In the movie industry as we knew it, production was always production and post was always post—but the buzzword of the future is 'workflow.' With digital technology enveloping all stages of the moviemaking process, it is now easier than ever to transition seamlessly from shooting a film to editing it and getting it viewed by an audience." Then Nick Dager gets geeky.

Jennifer Straus talks with Julia Stiles about writing and directing her first short, Raving.

And Bob Fisher talks with cinematographer Guillermo Navarro about shooting Pan's Labyrinth.

Posted by dwhudson at July 19, 2007 4:36 PM