Categories
Cinema

Rewind 2012: Sundance London

Sundance London 2012 Line-up

N.B. This is part of a series of posts looking back on the past year that I couldn’t write up at the time.

The news that the Sundance Film Festival was coming to London back in April was intriguing as the log cabins and snow of Utah in January seemed a world away from the cavernous spaces of the 02.

Since its relaunch in 2007 as a music venue with a multiplex cinema, it has shed its image as the white elephant formerly know as the ‘Millenium Dome’.

For the Sundance Institute it was a chance to experiment by taking a shorter festival abroad, (just four days) with a bigger emphasis on music and its relationship to film.

I couldn’t attend every film or event, but settled on two films and two sessions, which caught my eye.

DAY ONE (Thursday 26th April)

Liberal Arts (Dir. Josh Radnor): Radnor is most famous for being on the TV show ‘How I Met Your Mother’ and his debut as director ‘happythankyoumoreplease’ in 2010.

It went down well at the festival, winning the audience award, but its poor box office and mixed reviews meant that it faded away, not even getting a UK theatrical release.

To a degree, his second film has followed the same pattern – although it did secure distribution here it didn’t exactly set the box office alight.

It explores what happens when a careers adviser in his mid-30s (Radnor) accepts an invitation from an old professor (Richard Jenkins) to go back to his old Ohio college.

There he forms a connection with a student (Elisabeth Olsen) and generally takes stock of his life in much the same way that Zach Braff did in Garden State (2004).

But despite bearing some archetypal tropes of the typical US indie movie, Liberal Arts does contain some pleasures.
Radnor, Olsen and Jenkins are likeable in their roles and there is an interesting attempt to portray an early mid-life crisis that seems to be prevalent in Radnor’s generation.

But like Radnor’s character in the story, this is a US indie film that looks back with nostalgia to another era: quirky supportingĀ charactersĀ  acoustic guitars on the soundtrack – and is ultimately overwhelmed by that.

DAY TWO (Friday 27th April)

SHUT UP AND PLAY THE HITS (Dir. Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace)

Maybe it was just serendipity, but when the documentary of LCD Soundsystemā€™s premiered at Sundance in January, it seemed a natural fit for the inaugural London festival.

Not only did it tie in snugly with the overall ā€˜film and musicā€™ theme – it is one of the best concert films in quite some time.

When the New York band announced in February 2011 that they were splitting up – effectively at the height of their career – a farewell concert at Madison Square Garden was planned for April 2, 2011.

A four hour show with appearances by Arcade Fire, Reggie Watts and others, this was essentially The Last Waltz (1978) for the Pitchfork generation.

In a decade of turmoil for the music industry, it seemed a curiously appropriate gesture.

Like Scorceseā€™s classic concert film about The Bandā€™s farewell show, it intercuts concert footage with interviews, although much of this is dominated by frontman James Murphy.

The main advantage of seeing a concert film (or any film for that matter) in a cinema is the superior sound system (no pun intended) and the dynamic shifts were not only aural but visual.

Directors Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace, who previously made the Blur film No Distance Left To Run (2010), pace the action so that it becomes as much an intimate portrait of Murphy as a standard concert movie.

We see him the day after the concert inspecting the bandā€™s instruments, fielding unanswered voicemails and (in a very meta moment) being interviewed by a journalist about the end of the band.

Ultimately the theatrical potential for any concert film is limited in the modern era and most people will watch this on Blu-ray and DVD (it has since been released along with the full 4-hour concert).

But there was something joyful and exhilarating about experiencing the swansong of this band on the big screen.

It might not be in the same league as The Last Waltz or Talking Headsā€™ Stop Making Sense (1983).

N.B. A longer review of the Blu-ray will be forthcoming.

DAY 3 (Saturday 28th April)

The idea of a ā€˜Documentary Flash Labā€™ wasn’t one I was familiar with, but ultimately very impressed by.

A two-hour event hosted by Cara Mertes, director of the Sundance Institute Documentary Program and Fund, it was possibly the best event of its kind Iā€™ve ever been to.

Sometimes Q&A-style events at film festivals can be poorly hosted and plodding affairs with rambling non-questions from the audience.

Here was a textbook example of how it should be done: Mertes went through the history of Sundance and the importance of documentary to the festival and she was joined by directors Lauren Greenfield (The Queen of Versailles), Eugene Jarecki (The House I Live In) and Jeff Orlowski (Chasing Ice).

All gave informative insights into their respective films but about twenty minutes in, as Mertes introduced Orlowski, a familiar figure entered the room.

It turned out to be a surprise appearence by the founder of Sundance himself, Robert Redford.

He apologised for being delayed in London traffic, but went on give a quick speech about his love of documentary and how he first got hooked on factual content whilst watching a televised military hearing in the 1950s.

It was just a taste of Redfordā€™s commitment, but it has been a mainstay of the festival since the beginning, and his sincerity and contribution was obvious.

Over the years the festival he began has arguably become the global mecca for both filmmakers looking to sell their documentaries and distributors looking to buy them.

In retrospect 2012 has turned out to be a particularly strong year but it has also reflected both the frustrations and possibilities for documentarians.

Although each spoke eloquently about their films and the issues they explored, the question of how you actually get audiences to see them is another matter.

Eugene Jarecki expressed his desire to explore new was of getting his film out there, almost like a travelling musician going from city to city and forgoing more traditional distribution models.

On the one hand, it has always been difficult for documentaries to get attention in the theatrical marketplace, but reduced production costs (enabled by cheaper digital cameras, editing systems and prints) have dramatically levelled the playing field.

Representing the UK perspective was Jess Search, CEO of Channel Four BritDoc Foundation, and her enthusiasm matched that of her US counterparts as she went through the newer funding and distribution possibilities afforded by the web (e.g. Kickstarter, YouTube etc).

Two hours flew by and although there are deep anxieties about the technological revolution currently engulfing cinema, it was a session that left me excited about the shift to digital and the stories that will enable.

The downside is there will be plenty of bad films and documentaries made in the coming years, but overall I’m optimistic about the cream rising to the top.

DAY FOUR (Sunday 29th April)

Sunday afternoon was my personal highlight as Harry Gregson-Williams gave a two-hour talk on film music entitled ‘Film Music from the Composer’s Point of View’.

A composer probably best known for his collaborations with the late director Tony Scott (Unstoppable, Man on Fire), Ben Affleck (Gone Baby Gone, The Town) and various animated films such as Shrek.

Accompanied by the setup he uses on films and a group of musicians, the auditorium resembled a makeshift mixing stage.

After being introduced by Peter Golub, director of the Sundance Film Music Program, Gregson-Williams not only provided valuable insights into scoring for films but also dropped in some amusing anecdotes.

One of these was Ben Affleck’s disarming honesty in admitting that he actually wanted Thomas Newman to score Gone Baby Gone (2007) – there is a distinct Newman-esque vibe to the opening titles.

Not only that, but two years later for The Town (2010), he again admitted Affleck wanted Newman (!) before eventually hiring him.

It is hard to compress the session into neat sound bites but his music setup was connected to the screen and he was clear as he could be about the different stages in scoring a film, with practical examples on the screen behind him.

Throughout he displayed a refreshing self-deprecatingĀ wit and if the composing work ever dries up he could start a side-career as a public speaker.

He also spoke of the importance of Hans Zimmer to his career and discussed how scores are done on software programmes like Cubase, Logic and Pro Tools, but also how that ties in with live musicians.

When he first started out, his Zimmer told him to lock himself in a room for several days and learn Cubase – the audio software programme he still uses to this day.

One thing that struck me after the session was how long the digital revolution has been with filmmaking process.

In the 1980s computers became more prominent in scores and chart music generally; the 1990s saw the arrival of the Avid and non-linear editing; and in the last decade we have seen cameras and projection switch to digital.

Ultimately the step-by-step way he broke down the elements of a film score was fascinating.

Using a sequence from Unstoppable (2010), he began by showing time-coded footage and gradually added in the elements that made up the final mix.

At the time he was scoring a film at Abbey Road Studios and another nice touch was that he passed around the vintage microphones and instruments from that iconic studio.

They still actually use them and it was a salient reminder that although the digital revolution has enveloped the music and film world, there is still a place for analogue pleasures.

>Ā Sundance London
> Connect with them on Facebook (facebook.com/SundanceLondon) and Twitter (@sundancefestUK)
> More on the history of theĀ Sundance Film FestivalĀ andĀ The O2Ā at Wikipedia

Categories
DVD & Blu-ray

Rewind 2012: DVD & Blu-ray Picks from April to November

One of the major changes in home entertainment over the last year was the rise of video-on-demand, with services such as iTunes, Lovefilm and Netflix eating away at the disc market.

But discs are still alive and studios still control the major releases on Blu-ray and DVD, with some releases coming withĀ the cloud-based format called UltraViolet, which allows users to legally rip a digital copy.

We’ll have to wait and see how Christmas sales pan out, butĀ we are currently living through a profound change in how we watch films in the home.

At the time of writing, the current situation resembles a confusing technical soup with various companies having to figure out some very difficult problems in how they produce and distribute their content.

But that is the subject of a longer post.

Here are my DVD and Blu-ray picks .

MAY

The Story of Film (Network) [Buy at Amazon]
Falstaff: Chimes at Midnight (Mr. Bongo)Ā [Buy at Amazon]
Into the Abyss (Revolver)
The Jazz Baroness (3DD)
Treme: Season 2 (Warner Bros.)
Shame (Momentum)Ā [Buy at Amazon]
Martha Marcy May Marlene (Fox)
The Artist (EV)Ā [Buy at Amazon]

JUNE

Blue Velvet (Universal)Ā [Buy at Amazon]
Lost Highway (Universal)Ā [Buy at Amazon]
Odd Man Out (Network)Ā [Buy at Amazon]

JULY

Chariots of Fire (Fox)
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (StudioCanal)Ā [Buy at Amazon]
Total Recall (Optimum Home Entertainment)
Some Like It Hot (MGM Home Entertainment)
A Fish Called Wanda (MGM Home Entertainment) [Buy at Amazon]

AUGUST

Le Harve (Artificial Eye)Ā [Buy at Amazon]
Orlando (Artificial Eye)
This Must Be The Place (Trinity)
The Descendants (Fox)Ā [Buy at Amazon]
Marley (Universal)Ā [Buy at Amazon]
Rumble Fish (Eureka)

SEPTEMBER

Jaws (Universal)Ā [Buy at Amazon]
Les Enfants Du Paradis (Second Sight) [Buy at Amazon]
All Quiet On The Western Front (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
James Bond: Bond 50 (Fox)Ā [Buy at Amazon]
To Catch a Thief (Paramount) [Buy at Amazon]
That Obscure Object of Desire (StudioCanal)Ā [Buy at Amazon]
The Trial (StudioCanal)Ā [Buy at Amazon]
The Turin Horse (Artificial Eye)

OCTOBER

Lawrence of Arabia (Sony) [Buy at Amazon]
Walkabout (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
Dracula (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
Frankenstein (Universal)Ā [Buy at Amazon]
The Wolf Man (Universal)Ā [Buy at Amazon]
Ai Weiwei – Never Sorry (Artificial Eye)
Indiana Jones: The Complete Collection (Paramount) [Buy at Amazon]
Prometheus (Fox)
Shut Up and Play the Hits (Pulse Films) [Buy at Amazon]
The Curse of Frankenstein (Lionsgate UK)Ā [Buy at Amazon]
Woody Allen: A Documentary (Soda Pictures) [Buy at Amazon]
ET – The Extra Terrestrial (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
Glengarry Glen Ross (ITV DVD)
Nostalgia for the Light (New Wave Films)Ā [Buy at Amazon]
The Company of Wolves (ITV DVD)Ā [Buy at Amazon]
The Shawshank Redemption (ITV DVD) [Buy at Amazon]
Homeland: Season 1 (Fox)Ā [Buy at Amazon]

NOVEMBER

Citizen Kane (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
Groundhog Day (Sony) [Buy at Amazon]
Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection (Universal)Ā [Buy at Amazon]
Margin Call (Paramount) [Buy at Amazon]
The Man in the White Suit (Studiocanal) [Buy at Amazon]
Singin’ in the Rain (Warner Home Video)Ā [Buy at Amazon]

>Ā The Best DVD & Blu-ray Releases of 2011
> 2012 in Film

Categories
News

Rewind 2012

Although there’s grumbling every year that films are getting worse, 2012 did seem to be a lean year for cinema releases and the wider industry is still struggling to readjust from the financial and technological shocks of the last four years.

However, some notable events included:

Among the DVD and Blu-ray releases that came out were:

I’ll try to do as many ‘rewind’ posts as possible to cover some of the above, as well as notable end of year releases such as Argo, Amour and The Master.

If there is anything you want to ask about, just leave a comment below or get in touch.

> 2012 in film at Wikipedia
> Worldwide box office figures at Box Office Mojo