'Side by Side' is a documentary that examines the seismic shift in the acquisition format from film to digital. This film isn't geared toward a general interest audience and is much more of an exploration of the technical side of making films.
Film is dead. The writing is on the wall that film is not going to be the most popular acquisition format of the future (or even the 'now'). Of course film isn't dead and won't be for a long time but it will be a specialty format used for certain effects and by specific filmmakers. Over one hundred years film basically evolved slowly. Stocks got faster and grain got smaller and color film was introduced but overall the change was gradual. In the decade since the release of Star Wars Episode II, shot on the HDCAM format, digital technology has grown exponentially. It's come to the point that digital formats are exceeding the abilities of film. Just as there are advocates for the analog format of vinyl records film will also have it's advocates. Still, it's a moot point now as digital acquisition is clearly the winner and every year the stakes keep going higher and higher.
A decent film that will probably seem silly in a decade from now.
Side by Side Official Trailer (2012) from Company Films on Vimeo.
Thursday
Movies on Movies - Moguls and Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood
'Moguls and Movie Stars' is a 7 part series produced by Turner Classic Movies. The series explores the rise of the moguls from the original peep shows and nickelodeons to their eventual decline and extinction. It's a wonderful reminder of a time where the heads of studios were as passionate about films as they were about profits.
Movies on Movies - The Story of Film: An Odyssey.
Beyond all of the extras that are given on DVD and Blu-ray releases there are many excellent films about films and the filmmaking process. Many of the films I will list may be hard to find so I will start with some great films available on Netflix and DVD/Blu-ray.
First up is Mark Cousin's whirlwind examination of the history of film in his excellent fifteen part series 'The Story of Film'. Not only is this series rich with detail Cousins makes all sorts of wonderful connections between world cinema and Western cinema. It's a great series for those of us who grew up with a Hollywood-centric view of the history of the movies.
A great starting place for any lover of movies and movie history.
First up is Mark Cousin's whirlwind examination of the history of film in his excellent fifteen part series 'The Story of Film'. Not only is this series rich with detail Cousins makes all sorts of wonderful connections between world cinema and Western cinema. It's a great series for those of us who grew up with a Hollywood-centric view of the history of the movies.
A great starting place for any lover of movies and movie history.
Tuesday
From 'Paris Review'. An interview with Billy Wilder.
INTERVIEWER
You have a gold-framed legend on the wall across from your desk. How Would Lubitsch do it?
WILDER
When I would write a romantic comedy along the Lubitschian line, if I got stopped in the middle of a scene, I’d think, How would Lubitsch do it?
INTERVIEWER
Well, how did he do it?
WILDER
One example I can give you of Lubitsch’s thinking was in Ninotchka, a romantic comedy that Brackett and I wrote for him. Ninotchka was to be a really straight Leninist, a strong and immovable Russian commissar, and we were wondering how we could dramatize that she, without wanting to, was falling in love. How could we do it? Charles Brackett and I wrote twenty pages, thirty pages, forty pages! All very laboriously.
Lubitsch didn’t like what we’d done, didn’t like it at all. So he called us in to have another conference at his house. We talked about it, but of course we were still, well . . . blocked. In any case, Lubitsch excused himself to go to the bathroom, and when he came back into the living room he announced, Boys, I’ve got it.
It’s funny, but we noticed that whenever he came up with an idea, I mean a really greatidea, it was after he came out of the can. I started to suspect that he had a little ghostwriter in the bowl of the toilet there.
I’ve got the answer, he said. It’s the hat.
The hat? No, what do you mean the hat?
He explained that when Ninotchka arrives in Paris the porter is about to carry her things from the train. She asks, Why would you want to carry these? Aren’t you ashamed? He says, It depends on the tip. She says, You should be ashamed. It’s undignified for a man to carry someone else’s things. I’ll carry them myself.
At the Ritz Hotel, where the three other commissars are staying, there’s a long corridor of windows showing various objects. Just windows, no store. She passes one window with three crazy hats. She stops in front of it and says, “That is ludicrous. How can a civilization of people that put things like that on their head survive?” Later she plans to see the sights of Paris—the Louvre, the Alexandre III Bridge, the Place de la Concorde. Instead she’ll visit the electricity works, the factories, gathering practical things they can put to use back in Moscow. On the way out of the hotel she passes that window again with the three crazy hats.
Now the story starts to develop between Ninotchka, or Garbo, and Melvyn Douglas, all sorts of little things that add up, but we haven’t seen the change yet. She opens the window of her hotel room overlooking the Place Vendôme. It’s beautiful, and she smiles. The three commissars come to her room. They’re finally prepared to get down to work. But she says, “No, no, no, it’s too beautiful to work. We have the rules, but they have the weather. Why don’t you go to the races. It’s Sunday. It’s beautiful in Longchamps,” and she gives them money to gamble.
As they leave for the track at Longchamps, she locks the door to the suite, then the door to the room. She goes back into the bedroom, opens a drawer, and out of the drawer she takes the craziest of the hats! She picks it up, puts it on, looks at herself in the mirror. That’s it. Not a word. Nothing. But she has fallen into the trap of capitalism, and we know where we’re going from there . . . all from a half page of description and one line of dialogue. “Beautiful weather. Why don’t you go have yourselves a wonderful day?”
INTERVIEWER
He returned from the bathroom with all this?
WILDER
Yes, and it was like that whenever we were stuck. I guess now I feel he didn’t go often enough.
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