If you're anywhere near New York City this weekend, you simply must check out the work of this great new filmmaker named Harmony Korine, whose strangely fantastical movie, Mister Lonely, opened yesterday at the IFC Center (it hits Los Angeles on May 9). Some readers may confuse this Korine for the angry young radical who wrote Larry Clark's teen sex drama Kids when he was 19 and later directed the startling divisive, sharply confrontational films Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy.
I assure you that the 1990's-era Korine is long gone -- or, rather, has morphed into an agreeably warmer artist. Mister Lonely, which stars Diego Luna as a Michael Jackson impersonator and New German Cinema legend Werner Herzog as an eccentric priest, doesn't always make sense, but that's precisely what Korine was going for. "I've always been interested in making a perfect nonsense," he told a crowd at the Apple store in lower Manhattan Thursday night. "I never really cared much about plot. I wanted to make movies about moments that went through you, that were experiential."
The writer/director Harmony Korine might have been -- and might still be -- one of the most audacious and terrifying new American talents in some time. At the age of 19, he wrote the script for Larry Clark's Kids (1995) and made his own directorial debut with Gummo (1997), a film so astonishing that most reviewers panned it simply to get it out of their heads. He then made the first official American Dogme 95 film, Julien Donkey-Boy (1999), and cast one of his biggest fans, director Werner Herzog, in a starring role.
All three films conjured up images that inspired the gag reflex. It was hard to look away, though. They were odd and sad and not a little repulsive. From there, he retreated into other art forms, such as photography and music (he directed music videos for Cat Power and Sonic Youth), returning to features only to write Clark's Ken Park (2002), which was so lurid it failed to secure a U.S. distributor. Indeed, like many of the most cutting edge American directors, most of Korine's fans, and financiers, currently reside outside the U.S.
If there's one thing you can say, it's that Werner Herzog has diverse talents. He can not only eat a shoe, but now tune pianos! The Hollywood Reporter posts that he will write and direct a new film called The Piano Tuner for Focus Features. Based on a book by Daniel Mason, the script was first written by Peter Buchman, and is now being handed over to Herzog for a rewrite.
Centering on a piano tuner named Edgar Drake, the project is about much more than just music and tuning. Set in the late 19th-century, Drake is a quiet piano tuner living in London, who is commissioned by the British War Office to repair a piano housed in a remote village in Burma, which is owned by an eccentric colonel. He makes the long journey there and tunes the piano, but that's only the start. He gets brought in on a peace mission, and as THR describes it: "Drake falls in love with a Burmese woman and her country, but as the officer wins over locals through music and medicine, things grow treacherous when his troops begin to suspect him of treason."
The image of Lugosi's Dracula is heavily copyrighted; Nosferatu is, by contrast, an open source vampire; you could tell that from his cameo a few years back on Sponge Bob Square Pants. The silent classic was originally a bootleg version of Bram Stoker's novel. When Werner Herzog went to work on a remake of F. W. Murnau's 1922 vampire film, he could call his creature Count Dracula, thanks to public domain laws. Herzog preserved much of the original's style out of admiration for Murnau and "the most important film ever made in Germany" (maybe so...any other suggestions?).
But Herzog's skeptical, neo-documentary approach--seen this summer in Rescue Dawn--wouldn't permit him to use Murnau's mistier plotting. He took pains to see how Nosferatu works. Why has no one burned the evil castle down in daylight? Simple: it doesn't really exist except in ruins, "except in the minds of men" who are tricked by the darkness of night. How does the vampire beat Harker home? There's a line about how the sea voyage is faster than heading back from Transylvania overland. (Unlike the book, this is set about the time Murnau set his version, 1838; there are no railroads yet in Central Europe.)
Back in high school, I was one of those kids who wore mostly band t-shirts. Now that I'm older and more interested in movies than music, I've filled my wardrobe with movie t-shirts instead. But what if I could combine the two? Well, I kinda already have with my Un Chien Andaloushirt, which I sometimes tell people is a Pixies shirt (it only has the eyeball-cutting shot, with no title mentioned). However, I could also sport these excellent designs, made and sold by CineFile Video in Los Angeles. They combine the names of four of our favorite foreign filmmakers with the logos/fonts of heavy metal bands. There's Von Trier in the Van Halen font, Fassbinder in the Metallica font, Ingmar Bergman in the Iron Maiden font and Herzog in the Danzig font. What better way to pay homage to your favorite filmmaker while also appearing pretentiously hip?
Hopefully CineVideo will design some more, possibly utilizing non-metal logos. I don't know who would work with this, but someone has to be applied to the AC/DC font. And I know it's a bit long, but couldn't Kurosawa be done up with the Kiss logo? Here are some other ideas that I'd be interested in buying: Buñuel as Boston; Wenders as Weezer, Antonioni as Aerosmith; De Sica as Def Leppard; Ozu as Ozzy Jean-Luc Godard as Journey; Jean Renoir as Judas Priest (or the last two the other way around). Okay, some of these are stretching, and I still can't find good ones for Truffaut, Fellini, or Eisenstein. Any ideas? Unfortunately, CineFile is only selling these shirts at their store on Santa Monica Blvd. Anybody want to ship one to NYC for my birthday (ps: I like the Herzog one best).
The Toronto International Film Festival continues to sweeten the pot of films it is screening, having now released some of the documentaries that will be shown next month. Leading the charge in world premieres is Grizzly Man director Werner Herzog, who has moved from bears to Antarctica in Encounters at the End of the World. Following are Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland) who has made a doc about former Gestapo commander Klaus Barbie called My Enemy's Enemy and Phil Donahue, yes, the talk show host, who cooked up a film with Ellen Spiro about the Iraq War called Body of War, which also has music from Eddie Vedder.
From there, the docs are all over the map and handle a multitude of subjects as part of TIFF's Real to Reel program. There's a doc called Trumbo, which details the blacklisting of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, with appearances by big names like Michael Douglas and Joan Allen. Another doc, called A Jihad for Love, which might sound like a war film, is actually a movie about homosexuality and Islam by Parvez Sharma. On the musical side of things, there is Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts, featuring the composer's work and interactions with names like Woody Allen. There's even some time spent on child prodigies with My Kid Could Paint That, which delves into what constitutes art and details the rise of 4-year-old painter Marla Olmstead. It's a pretty great list of films, many of which are just starting to screen, so I suggest heading over to Twitch. They've posted a great primer for the list that includes each film, location, filmmaker and topic.
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.
December, 1560. Gonzalo Pizarro leads his band of explorers-cum-treasure-hunters-cum-soldiers out of the Peruvian Andes. Weighed down by the out of place trappings of modern warfare and ludicrous luxury items, the tiny band is dwarfed by its surroundings and chillingly out of place. On the fringes of the group stands a man wearing an incongruous bright pink shirt, a battered helmet, and a strange set of armor that seems to consist entirely of studded leather straps. When he moves, he leans backwards and walks stiffly, his body clearly ravaged by a difficult, violent life. Mostly, though, he watches, his enormous green eyes taking in the fear, malleability and desperation around him, while his impossibly broad, feminine lips embrace their permanent sneer. Like he does, we knew immediately that his time will come.
This man is Don Lope de Aguirre, the title character of what is arguably Werner Herzog'sgreatest film. Played by the inimitable Klaus Kinski, Aguirre dominates the film in every way, effortlessly manipulating the men around him by quietly turning his own ambitions into theirs. Despite Kinski's wild eyes and the character's eventual eruption, there's a surprising subtlety and intelligence to Aguirre, who grows in complexity with each viewing. Though at first he appears to be nothing but a terrifying, ambitious madman (the film's title, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, comes from Aguirre's own description of himself), repeated viewings reveal much more about the character, and shed further light on his companions.
There's a shot late in Werner Herzog'sRescue Dawn that is on par with anything the master has ever produced. An emaciated, bewildered Christian Bale stands slightly to the right of center-screen. The top half of his torso is visible, and he's wearing a tattered flight suit, rendered grey by the dirt and grit of months of imprisonment. Behind Bale, almost filling the screen, is the Laotian jungle, an impenetrable curtain of giant leaves and dense shadow. Bale is slightly out of focus and the jungle behind him more-so; as we gaze upon it, the shot morphs from a recognizable image into a flood of colors and emotion -- there must be 20 different shades of green on display, and everything looks a little too bright to be real. It's a magical, breathtaking moment, and the kind of thing fans of Herzog have come to expect from his films. The problem is that there are no more like it in Rescue Dawn, a disappointingly by-the-numbers effort from a filmmaker of rare and true genius.
Just hours before it was to be screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, MGM (with the fest's first notable buy) acquired all North American distribution rights to Rescue Dawn, written and directed by Werner Herzog. In the pic, Herzog (who seems to have a knack for telling survival stories) brings us the real-life story of Dieter Dengler (Christian Bale), an American pilot whose plane was shot down during a top-secret mission in Viet Cong territory at the start of the Vietnam War.
After he's taken hostage, tortured and held in some sort of POW camp along with other captured prisoners, Dengler plans a daring escape, only to realize the jungles around them are just as dangerous. Steve Zahn and Jeremy Davies also star, with MGM planning a December 2006 theatrical release. For more on Rescue Dawn, stay tuned for Martha's TIFF review coming up later this week.
The people behind the Toronto International Film Festival have released yet another list of titles that will be featured at this year's event, the great majority of which are world premieres, added to the slate to increase TIFF's profile as a film market. Festival co-director Noah Cowan believes the fact that filmmakers are choosing to debut in Toronto rather than at major European festivals is a sign of TIFF's rising status, and says that he's fielded calls from major American distributors about nearly every film on this list.
Among the most interesting films on this latest list are: Werner Herzog's Rescue Dawn, a fictional version of the story told in his 1997 documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly; Fay Grim, Hal Hartley's long-awaited follow up to Henry Fool; Scott Caan's second directorial effort debut, The Dog Problem; This Is England, Shane Meadows' story of a boy who becomes a skinhead in 1980s England; the rather frightening-titled Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show, a documentary that "chronicles the personal and professional journeys of four rising comedians as they traverse the country on a tour bus with Vaughn"; Alatriste, the Viggo Mortensen-speaking-Spanish flick we told you about last year.
Herzog is joined in the cast by a host of poker-loving actors, including Ray Liotta, Woody Harrelson, Cheryl Hines, Ray Romano and Jason Alexander who, if his appearances on Celebrity Poker Showdown are anything to go by, will prove himself both annoying and painfully unfunny. Penn's plan is to direct from a screenplay outline, but to allow the actors to improvise most of their dialogue as they play real poker on their way to the championship round of a pretend international tournament; he starts shooting next month.
Werner
Herzog, everyone's favorite mad genius, is not what you would call a conventional filmmaker. Among other things, his
path to direction involved welding, a harrowing childhood cohabitation with Klaus Kinski, and a walk from Munich to Paris, so it's not exactly
shocking that he believes "film students could learn more about cinema by walking 5,000 kilometers alone than by
sitting in a classroom." What's perhaps a bit more surprising, however, is that someone is actually giving it a
shot.
Lee Kazimir, a 24-year-old filmmaker from Chicago, is currently about a week into his planned trek
from Madrid to Kiev, a solitary voyage that he (of course) is documenting with a small HD camera. Though the trip has
been partially funded by donations to his website, Kazimir plans to travel
on the cheap, sleeping mostly in a tent (which he's also carrying) or on the couches of friendly folks he meets while
on the road.
While More Shoes, the film Kazimir hopes will come out of the trip, could potentially
be great, doing something weird doesn't guarantee him either good footage or the talent to make people care. At best,
the film could be like something by Ross
McElwee: both self-aware and self-effacing, and smart without being cloying. At worst, however, it'll be a precious
vanity project that no one not related to Kazimir can sit through. (And, based on the film's trailer, I have to say I'm sort of worried.)
"Dear Diary: In the mall I pass a clothing
store. A colorful T-shirt is on a mannequin in the window. The message on the T-shirt says 'No Fear.' I break through
the window with my hands and shred the T-shirt into pieces. I am not being made fun of by this clothing."
Werner
Herzog's already-insane life has gotten noticeably more outrageous recently, what with his heroic rescue
of Joaquin Phoenix and his subsequent mid-interview shooting. In the
interests, then, of making a little sense of the man's existence, The Morning News has rounded up a collection
of his personal diary entries.* The excerpts cut right to the director's core, and include musings on such mysteries as
crackers, whenever minutes, and the disappearance of spinach. Though the entries make a lot more sense if you're a
complete Herzog obsessive who has an understanding of his highly unusual worldview, they're pretty darn fantastic no
matter what your relationship is with him.
*They're Herzog's, that is, if you overlook the 'Rosecrans
Baldwin' byline. And it's best if you do.
Just in
case you haven't gotten your quota of movie-related bizarre today, here's one that's sure to satisfy. The BBC was
videotaping an interview with Wener Herzog about 2005 movie Grizzly
Man, a documentary about how young environmentalists Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard were killed by bears
while attempting to live among them in Alaska. (The
movie was reviewed this past August by our own Ryan Stewart.) Cue the bizarre: while filming an outside scene, some
miscreant shot at Herzog with an air rifle, apparently hitting him in the abdomen. Herzog insisted he wasn't hurt, and
said he didn't want the BBC to try and chase down the offender.
The bizarro scene is even more amazing
considering the interview that follows. At the interview's 4:00 minute mark, we see Herzog sitting with Treadwell's
ex-girlfriend, listening to the tape that Treadwell made during the attack; the lens cap was on Treadwell's video
camera, so only the sound was captured. Herzog whispers to the woman: "Julie, you must never listen to
this." "I know, Werner," she replies tearfully, "I'm never going to." (Herzog chose not
to include the audio in his film.) In another clip, Herzog describes Treadwell's irrational fearlessness of nature, and
his belief that the natural world was in "balance and harmony". "I believe the common denominator of the
universe is not harmony," intones Herzog, "but chaos, hostility, and murder."
Maybe the
shooter was just trying to drive the point home.
If you're anywhere near New York City this weekend, you simply must check out the work of this great new filmmaker named Harmony Korine, whose strangely fantastical movie, Mister Lonely, opened yesterday at the IFC Center (it hits Los Angeles on May 9). Some readers may confuse this Korine for the angry young radical who wrote Larry Clark's teen sex drama Kids when he was 19 and later directed the startling divisive, sharply confrontational films Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy. 
If there's one thing you can say, it's that 
Back in high school, I was one of those kids who wore mostly band t-shirts. Now that I'm older and more interested in movies than music, I've filled my wardrobe with movie t-shirts instead. But what if I could combine the two? Well, I kinda already have with my 
The Toronto International Film Festival continues to 
Paolo Cherchi Usai
Just hours before it was to be screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, MGM (with the fest's first notable buy) acquired all North American distribution rights to 
The people behind the 
Who would have thought 
"Dear Diary: In the mall I pass a clothing
store. A colorful T-shirt is on a mannequin in the window. The message on the T-shirt says 'No Fear.' I break through
the window with my hands and shred the T-shirt into pieces. I am not being made fun of by this clothing."
Just in
case you haven't gotten your quota of movie-related bizarre today, here's one that's sure to satisfy. The BBC was
videotaping an interview with Wener Herzog about 2005 movie 
Insert Caption: Indiana Jones DVDs_thumbnail.jpg)
Cinematical Seven: When an Animated Series Goes Live Action ... and Gets it Right_thumbnail.jpg)
Full 'G.I. Joe' Cast Photos!
