Last weekend, two new films opened by famous filmmakers who are, to varying degrees, getting the hell out of the film business. Haywire director Steven Soderbergh has been teasing his early retirement for months now; it’s somewhat comical, actually, the way he keeps adding in projects that he wants to do before his self-imposed exile. George Lucas, who spent decades getting Red Tails made, told The New York Times that he was retiring, at least from the business of making blockbuster films (maybe).
Soderbergh is 49. Lucas is 67. Making movies doesn’t have a mandatory retirement age, like fighting fires or flying planes. But should it?
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Alain Resnais’ Wild Grass follows an irrational pair of would-be lovers through a series of unsettling, amusing, and often surreal misadventures.
The 88-year-old director of such classics as Hiroshima, mon amour and Last Year at Marienbad continues to explore an unconventional cinematic approach in his newest work, based on the novel L’incident by Christian Gailly. The film is a genre-defying work that’s at once a comedy, a psychological thriller, and a charming, modern-day fable.
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Tonight, the 47th NYFF opens its grand lineup with Wild Grass, a rapturous flight of fancy by 87-year-old French master Alain Resnais. Venerated the world over for his deconstructive, narrative-be-damned opuses Hiroshima mon amour and Last Year at Marienbad, Resnais’ latest tale of romantic obsession is based on Christian Gailly’s novel The Incident, but takes off on the inspiriting belief that “after the cinema, nothing surprises you. Everything is possible.” And, oui, he directs with such-minded freedom — totally, tenderly, tragically. Read More »
Tradition has it that every December since 1937, the gatekeepers of French haute cinema assemble at Le Fouquet’s on the Champs-Élysée — a café once frequented by the likes of Charlie Chaplin, François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard — to select the winner of the Prix Louis-Delluc, France’s most prestigious cinematic award. Named after director and critic Louis Delluc (a man forever known for coining the term “cinéaste”) the prize recognizes the most promising French film of the year, with winners joining the ranks of Criterion-ites Robert Bresson, Jacques Tati, and Alain Robbe-Grillet. Read More »
