KenBurns Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Paolo Cherchi Usai worked on his film Passio for six years. Scored to Arvo Part's "Passio," the film has been hailed by many as a masterpiece. Documentarian Ken Burns says "It seeks to do what most films and filmmakers shrink from: make a statement about all and everything; about who we are, where we have been, and where we are going." Werner Herzog thinks the film should be sent into space to represent human life, along with Beethoven's "Ode to Joy." And you will likely never get to see it. Usai doesn't want Passio to be in theaters or released on DVD. To make absolutely sure of it, he has destroyed the film's negative. Says Usai: "Film was never meant to be permanent. Film was born as something ephemeral. I consider film more as a performing art than an art of reproduction."

Passio made its U.S. premiere Friday at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City as part of the Tribeca Film Festival. It had only been performed once before - an Australian exhibition. Usai made just seven prints of the film, and will only allow viewings accompanied by a live orchestra and chorus. Says Usai: "This is a different animal. I wanted to make something where every experience will be radically different from another experience." Passio is a silent film full of disturbing, obscure film images such as: "the skull of a black man being measured by white scientists, a woman's seizure, the scraping of an eyeball," etc. The images are allegedly so extreme that a viewer fainted at the Australia screening. The film's mission is to expose "our neglected or repressed collective memory." If Passio sounds like something you might be interested in seeing, well...sorry. You probably won't get the chance.

Some bits before the weekend:

• So much for that whole story about Ken Burns buckling to pressure and re-editing his latest documentary, The War, as I alerted you to yesterday. Right after reports were released that the film would be edited, a PBS official said that he will not be re-cutting the WWII doc. Who knows how much we can trust any of this back and forth, but as of now, there will still be extra footage, but it will not be seamlessly integrated. According to PBS -- "To the viewer at home, it will be part of the same contiguous experience" with "the same tone and tenor and production qualities" of the long film.
• Yesterday, Jette Kernion let us know that Shane Meadows' This is England had been picked up by IFC and Red Envelope. Today, Twitch has linked to the movie's trailer, and if Martha Fischer's TIFF review wasn't enough to pique your interest, this trailer should be. The film looks flipping great, and the fact that it is based on Meadow's own life, as well as that of his young star, Thomas Turgoose, makes it irresistible in that car crash sort of way.
  
• A year and a half ago, Cinematical posted that Terry Gilliam was trying to get back his script to The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. According to Gilliam: "There was kind of a legal situation where the insurance company and French production company put up a lot of money, but it looks as though things are loosening up." Things weren't as loose as he thought, and all these months later, he still doesn't have it. However, while being interviewed at the Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival, Gilliam says that he's in "final, final, final stages of getting the script back." Once he does, he will talk to Johnny Depp and "find out if and when he's available." Will it happen? I won't hold my breath. "Loosening up" took over a year, so I have no idea how long "final, final, final" is! [via FilmIck]
  

For your mid-week movie nourishment:

• Earlier this month, Christopher Campbell posted that Latinos were protesting Ken Burns' latest documentary. Burns, who is the PBS powerhouse that brought us Jazz and Civil War has been working on The War, a documentary that details the WWII as told the residents of 4 towns. Yesterday, the filmmaker agreed to re-cut the documentary to include the war contributions of Latino and American Indian service members. At first, PBS declared that they would make an add-on for the film about the efforts of these groups. Now, it will be fully incorporated with the help of Hector Galan, who has produced PBS docs including Chicano! History of the Mexican-American Civil Rights Movement. The pair have to to hurry -- the DVD deadline for the film is this June, so they've got to conduct interviews, write, shoot and re-edit the documentary.
• Korean actress Moon So-Ri is the latest woman to sign on to The Best Moment of Our Life, the upcoming film by Yim Soon-rye. The feature, which has already signed on Kim Jeong-eun, Kim Ji-young and Jo Eun-ji, is about the Korean women's handball team while they were at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Moon will play the headstrong lead player of the team and Jeon-eun will be the team's leader. The team made it to the finals, defeating Brazil and France, before losing the gold to Denmark with a score of 38-36. The actresses have their work cut out for them -- before shooting, they will have 3 months of handball training, and the film is still planned to be released later this year.
• Years ago, my dad and I were sitting around at a wedding, musing over what my one-day wedding would entail. King Crimson was going to be the band, and Henry Rollins was going to officiate, of course. Unfortunately, I didn't think to write a sequel to a horror movie and schmooze the singer-writer-performer-actor in time, and Joe Lynch has stolen the idea. It seems that Rollins had a great experience with Lynch during the filming of Wrong Turn 2, and when the director asked, he couldn't say no. Fie! Rollins, if you're reading, what could I do to schmooze you? I'll accept you heading the nuptials, or being the man to slip the ring onto my finger.
  

When it comes to being offended by perceived racism in movies, people can typically only complain. But when it comes to complaining about perceived racism in PBS-funded documentaries, people can go to Washington and expect something to be done about it. The latter is the case with a group of Latinos who are protesting Ken Burns' upcoming doc series The War. The series, which focuses on World War II, apparently features no mention of the Hispanic contribution to the war, and the American GI Forum, a Hispanic veterans group, is trying to get that changed. But Burns' film is not a comprehensive look at the war in the way his The Civil War or PBS' Vietnam: A Television History were. Instead it looks at WWII through the experiences of four American towns -- Waterbury, CT; Luverne, MN; Mobile, AL; and Sacramento, CA -- that perhaps had no Hispanic citizens or soldiers in them.

Because this is a PBS project, the U.S. government may be able to interfere. The American GI Forum is trying to get people to write in complaints to Congress, and last week the group's president met in Washington with other Latino leaders and the head of PBS. The public television organization is expected to make its official response next week. I guess that the most logical solution, if necessary, would be for Burns to add on a fifth town, possibly Corpus Christi, TX, that could feature stories from Latino vets. But then could any other excluded minority make a similar claim and be as justly accommodated? I wonder if Native Americans, for instance, are given ample exposure in Burns' doc. Heck, why not allow every town not chosen as the four featured to protest the injustice of being left out. How long would it take Burns to make a series that caters to every town in America? Surely longer than his 15-year contract with PBS would allow.

PBS has scored big -- they have solidified a 15-year contract with filmmaker Ken Burns. Ultimately, this is a lifetime contract since Burns is no young pup. For those who don't know, Ken Burns is a phenomenal documentary director and producer. He is the creator of the 1990's documentary The Civil War that won many awards including two Emmy's and a Peabody. The film was incredible; my father was a huge fan and I'm glad ... or else I probably wouldn't have seen it. Burns' connection to that period in America's history leads the audience to a fascinating comprehensive look throughout the 680-minute mini series.

Ken Burns decided to continue with his war theme and subsequently made another 14-hour documentary studying World War II. The film is another masterpiece; LA Times reports the PBS network chief Paula Kerger describing it as "his greatest work." And, said "great work" will be aired exclusively on PBS until 2022 when his contract ends.

Would you be content with only having one outlet for you work to be aired? It must have been a huge decision for Ken Burns to make, especially with a brand new documentary that just wrapped and is ready for viewing. PBS believes that Burns' dedication to public broadcasting is what helped him make his decision. To this, I truly applaud. The PBS mission statement is "to enrich the lives of all Americans through quality programs and education services that inform, inspire and delight." It has done just that since 1969.

Burns' World War II documentary will air on PBS this September.

The holiday season is the time to ask for those big items you've been wanting all year, those toys or gadgets or appliances or DVDs that were just too expensive to splurge on with your own money. And now, with the holidays being so associated with the expectation of gifts, Christmas lists (and Hanukkah lists and Kwanzaa lists, etc.) are made by kids and adults alike. Nobody wants to receive a gift they don't desire, and nobody wants to buy a present that the recipient will not like, so it is now common to go ahead and tell Santa, your parents, your spouse and/or your friends exactly what you want from them. And depending on the gift-giver, you probably will wish for ask for tell them to get you something big.

When it comes to movies, single-title DVDs just aren't going to cut it. Criterion editions are almost there, but not quite. No, for your present demands, you need something bigger, like a box set. The same can be said for DVDs as it can be for CDs, that box sets are the greatest gifts for the holidays because few people purchase them at regular times of the year. Nowadays there are DVD sets for just about every movie fan. For the documentary lover, however, there are some titles that must be purchased in a box set (due to them being series), and many of them are essentials.

Be sure to be specific on your list, because there are a lot of cheap doc sets out there that might be interesting to watch, but which are not well made and which were definitely bought at the nearby drugstore rather than the video shop. Don't let your gift-giver be confused and/or frugal. And if you are the gift-giver, this list may be a good source for ideas for what to buy your gift-receiver, but keep in mind that documentaries can be an acquired taste for some. Sure, a baseball fan may be into Ken Burns' Baseball and a jazz fan should enjoy Burns' Jazz, but you really never know for sure unless they tell you so directly. And at doc box prices, you don't want to go wasting your money.