Stella Schnabel previously appeared in two films directed by her father, Basquiat and Before Night Falls, but in Ry Russo-Young’s You Won’t Miss Me, Schnabel makes her debut as a leading lady. And it’s a hell of a debut; I concur with Michael Tully, who recently confessed, “I cannot figure out how she manages to make Shelly so excruciating, so tender, so pathetic, so brave, so weak, and so hilarious all at once.” The magic of the performance is that Schnabel’s acting is invisible: you never see the gears turning, you never see her do anything that looks calculated.
Shortly before the festival began, I spoke with Stella (who is also credited as co-writer on Miss Me) about acting as catharsis, the attraction of a challenge, and why no one should hire her just because she’s Julian Schnabel’s kid.
This post is part of a series of brief, email interviews that we’re conducting with select filmmakers who are showing work at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. All of our Sundance 2009 coverage lives here.
Ry Russo-Young, whose first feature Orphans was recently released on DVD by Carnivalesque Films, makes her first trip to Sundance next week with You Won’t Miss Me. Described as a “kaleidoscopic narrative”, this New Frontiers section selection stars Stella Schnabel (daughter of Julian) and incorporates a wide variety of formats, including 16mm film and 1-chip video.
You can check out the trailer at the filmmaker’s web site; her answers to The Four Questions We Ask Everyone, including praise for Steve Martin and creative Xeroxing, are below the jump. Miss Me has its premiere on Friday, January 16 at the Holiday Village.
The winner of our Julian Schnabel Poster Contest is Ed Howard. Ed’s contest entry is posted after the jump; you can also check out his extended thoughts on The Diving Bell and the Butterflyat his blog. Congratulations, Ed––and please contact us with your mailing address at karina AT spout DOT com so we can get the poster out to you.
Here’s your final reminder: if you want a chance to win that limited-edition Diving Bell and the Butterfly one-sheet, designed by Julian Schnabel himself, go here and enter our contest. We’ll accept entries until midnight tonight, and will announce a winner on Friday.
Above: a detail of the special edition Julian Schnabel-designed Diving Bell poster that we’re giving away. The deadline to enter our giveaway was supposed to be earlier this week, but whilst at Sundance we got too busy to promote it. So, we’re extending the deadline to Wednesday, February 6. Full details on how to enter here.
Amelie Gilette at The Onion A.V. Club “always thought that Jamie Foxx’s natural career progression would be Booty Call, Ray, Oscar win, release of the R&B album Unpredictable, release of the R&B album Hot Tub, Academy Award (These Are The Words I’m Sayin’ To You), followed by the launch of Academy Award Winner: The Fragrance (musky ego with notes of ugh).” She was wrong.
“In 1993 Justin Timberlake joined the Mickey Mouse Club. In 1993 I officially joined the Mrs Doubtfire Fan Club. While membership is small, we all still share a love of vaccuming to Aerosmith’s ‘Dude Looks Like a Lady.’” Paul Scheer breaks down what sets him apart from the superstar with whom he shares a birthday.
“It’s all in there,” James Toback tells Michael Musto of his upcoming Mike Tyson documentary. “The ear biting, the rape charge, which was indeed a setup, and the solitary confinement. Mike’s survived, but he’s not sure into what future. He talks about being 40 as if it were 105 because a lot of people around him are drugged out or dead. Where does he go now?”
The combo of last week’s DGA contract agreement and yesterday’s announcement of the Oscar noms may have set the WGA in a new direction towards ending the writer’s strike. Yesterday afternoon the WGA announced it had withdrawn demands for jurisdiction over reality and animation, which the AMTPT was dead against recognizing. The two sides are reportedly meeting together today.
Even if the strike is not over in a month, let alone today, there will still definitely be an Oscar telecast. It will be heavy on clips honoring the past 80s years of cinema, according to Gil Cates, who compared the strike to the presidential race.
2008 Oscar-nominee Michael Moore is making a stand on the issue of documentary and foreign film exhibition, stating that his new year’s resolution is to sit down with theater owners and urge them to reserve one auditorium per multiplex devoted to specialty films. Hopefully he’ll document it, and one day we can sit in that auditorium and watch the result.
The fate of Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassushas not been officially announced yet, but Variety points out that Heath Ledger’s involvement in the movie was integral to its financing. I doubt the film could easily replace the late actor and go back and reshoot all of his scenes, but I also hope Gilliam isn’t left with another unfinished work (ala The Man Who Killed Don Quixote). Could Gilliam & Co. go the route of The Crow and digitally add Ledger’s face to a double?
Diving Bell and the Butterfly fans, take note: Spout is giving away a limited edition one-sheet poster, designed by Julian Schnabel, with an original poem by the painter/filmmaker imprinted on one side. We’ve pasted a detail of the poster above; you can see a larger view here. It’s a very cool prize, but we only have one to give away, so we want to make sure we give it to the right person.
So here’s what we’re going to do: sometime between now and January 29, tell us in 200-500 words why you love Schnabel and/or Diving Bell, why you deserve to win the poster, and where you’ll put it if we pick you. Post your answer, or a link to your answer on your own blog, in the comments to this post. We will review entries the last week of January and announce a winner on Friday, February 1. Good luck!
Here they are, your last strike bites before Christmas: the AMPTP has produced the figure that 74 percent of Americans report that their viewing habits unaffected by the strike. Which is nice, but when 26 percent of Americans report something, isn’t that, like, a lot? Also: the WGA has granted a waiver to allow writers to work on the Independent Spirit Awards. Rainn Wilson from The Office will host. Which is, um, also nice.
Speaking of events living or dying based on a WGA waiver: uncertainty over whether or not stars will cross the picket line to attend the Golden Globes has thrown party planners into a panic. Yes, it’s that slow of a news day.
Lou Reed will be the keynote speaker at the SXSW Music Conference. In conjunction, the SXSW Film Festival will screen Julian Schnabel’s concert film, Lou Reed’s Berlin.
Sunday night strike stories: According to Carl DiOrio at The Hollywood Reporter, “The WGA will respond to studio reps’ latest contract proposal on new-media pay by advancing its own new proposals.” Though DiOrio admits that “the simple fact is that nobody knows where this roller-coaster ride of collective bargaining will end,” his is still the glass half-full take compared to Variety’s take. Dave McNary says that while the WGA has been surprisingly lenient in the past few days about allowing writers to work on benefits and awards shows, “Optimism for a quick resolution as negotiations resume Tuesday has faded to nearly nonexistent.”
With Enchanted expectedly taking the number one spot at the overall box office for the second week in a row, the real story this weekend is in the specialty market. The Savages opened to the best per-screen average of the week, with $38,280 in each of its five locations; The Diving Bell and the Butterfly opened to $85,300 across three screens, making it Julian Schnabel’s most impressive opening to date; and I’m Not There dropped a respectable 33% whilst expanding to 138 screens. To their credit, this time Variety managed to report it without being totally condescending.
Deals: Ridley Scott will direct a Gucci family biopic for Fox 2000; Variety confirms fanboy whispers that Christian Bale is “closing in on the role of John Connor in Warner Bros.’ reboot of the Terminator franchise.”
We didn’t do a New in Theaters last week, and many Thanksgiving releases are expanding this weekend, so this is basically a recap of every film we’ve reviewed that’s been released in the past two weeks.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: Paul was “blown away” by Julian Schnabel’s latest at Telluride; at NYFF, Karina called the film “an almost excessively beautiful aestheticization of misery [that's] often a little too good at conveying Baudy’s isolation within his own head.” Check out today’s podcast, which includes an interview with Schnabel from Telluride, and an argument between Karina and Paul.
The Savages: At Telluride, Paul called Tamara Jenkin’s long-awaited feature follow-up to Slums of Beverly Hills “a really rich movie, full of dark humor you have to develop when things aren’t funny.”
Starting Out in the Evening: Karina caught Andrew Wagner’s second feature in Denver and had this to say: “[Evening] unfolds in comfortably-worn indie drama territory: New York academics and struggling artists collide cross generations, their almost complete lack of self-awareness failing to keep them from brutally criticizing and actively manipulating one another…but Lauren Ambrose and Frank Langella make each moment on that path feel startlingly real.”
Protagonist:Guest SpoutBlogger Pamela Cohn on Jessica Yu’s experimental tackling of Euripedes: “Juxtaposing live interviews with four different male characters, and using archival footage of their lives intercut with highly-stylized scenes of puppets reciting Euripides‘ in the original Greek acting out the tragedies being narrated on-screen, Yu orchestrates a provocative and deeply-thoughtful chorus based on the structure of a Greek tragedy…yes, it is quite challenging to watch, but far from boring.”
We interview Julian Schnabel, director of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, opening tonight. Karina and I cross wires on its watch worthiness. We also interview Brian Poyser, director of Dear Pillow. It’s a complicated, divisive, raw look at porn leading Kevin and I into some verbal wrastlin’.
Chris Thilk points to a new trailer for Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Chris writes: “I love the music that plays, since it creates a sort of tone-poem feel to the trailer. Unfortunately that will likely be lost in the final film.” Actually, “tone poem” is a pretty dead-on description of large sections of the final film–if anything, this trailer is maybe more straightforward in terms of narrative than the full feature. Check it out above.
For the New York coterie of film critics, bloggers, and anyone else who can make a reasonable case for a press or industry pass, the first day of New York Film Festival press screenings every September is something akin to the first day of school. (That is, for people who really, really liked school.) But it’s also kind of like embarking on a four-week vacation right in the middle of the city. Screenings are held at Lincoln Center on the Upper West Side, a part of town that I personally rarely have occasion to visit, and once you’ve made your way through a maze of construction and up a hidden escalator to the Walter Reed Theater, it’s difficult to hold on to everyday concerns and not get completely wrapped up in the excitement of what is about to unfold.
NYFF press screenings are perhaps most appreciated for their leisurely schedule. Each day starts out with a fair amount of breakfasty schmoozing over the bagels, juice and coffee provided every morning by the press screening sponsor. There are generally just two screenings a day, five days a week, for four weeks. Most screenings are followed by a lengthy press conference; this year, the only American filmmaker whose work is in the fest who is conspicuously absent from the press conference schedule is Gus Van Sant. It’s the rare film festival that’s actually possible to cover in the nooks and crannies of a normal day job––although, having tried that last year, I have to say that I far prefer camping out at Lincoln Center for full days to sneaking in screenings here and there during lulls in the odd work day.
Because I’m still working on some Toronto odds and ends, I was only able put in a half day at yesterday’s NYFF 2007 opener, but I’ll be able to catch the afternoon film, Masayuki Suo’s I Just Didn’t Do It, when it re-screens later in the fest (if you can’t wait, Keith Uhlich has already reviewed it here). In the morning, I did catch Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. More on that after the jump.
With the Toronto Film Festival beginning tomorrow, we’ve just about concluded our Telluride coverage. Here are some highlights. You’ll find a full guide to our Telluride reportage, minus Friday’s upcoming all-Telluride episode of FilmCouch, after the jump.
“In Superbad, Michael Cera fantasizes about a world in which ‘girls weren’t weirded out by our boners, but actually wanted to look at them.’ Juno takes place in that world.” Karina reviews the Festival’s biggest buzz-getter, and Paul interviews director Jason Reitman.
We love People on Sunday. Paul says the 1929 silent film “contains the most seductive first kiss I’ve ever seen on film. No joke.” Karina looks at the historical context.
“It’s true that I was in a rather fragile, sleep-deprived state at the time, but even now, the morning after, as it were, I still love this film.” Kevin’s talking about I’m Not There. He also talked to that film’s director, Todd Haynes.
“When I was 20 years old, I moved from Chicago to San Francisco, and I did it for George Kuchar.” Karina offers some thoughts on the experimental legend/Telluride honoree.
Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly won him the Director award at Cannes this year. After seeing it this morning, I can’t argue with the Cannes’ jury. I was simply blown away. How can somebody tell a gripping story of a man who–resulting from a stroke–can only communicate with one eyelid? All I can say is you will simply be amazed.
I interviewed Julian Schnabel and asked why he continues to orbit around intensely creative but “doomed” men (his previous two films are Basquiat and Before Night Falls, biopics about Jean Michel Basquiat and Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas).
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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The winner of our Julian Schnabel Poster Contest is Ed Howard. Ed’s contest entry is posted after the jump; you can also check out his extended thoughts on The Diving Bell and the Butterfly 
