An experimental film by an Irish playwright, shot in New York with a silent comedian at the twilight of his career? Samuel Beckett’s inquiry into the nature of movies (and existence?) befuddled viewers not versed in film theory; Ross Lipman’s retrospective documentary about its making asks all the questions and gets some good answers.
First there’s the film itself, called just Film from 1965. By that year our high school textbooks had already enshrined Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot as a key item for introducing kids to modern theater, existentialism, etc. … the California school system was pretty progressive in those days. But Beckett had a yen to say something in the film medium, and his publisher Barney Rosset helped him put a movie together. The Milestone Cinematheque presents the UCLA Film & Television Archive’s restoration of Film on its own disc, accompanied by a videotaped TV production...
First there’s the film itself, called just Film from 1965. By that year our high school textbooks had already enshrined Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot as a key item for introducing kids to modern theater, existentialism, etc. … the California school system was pretty progressive in those days. But Beckett had a yen to say something in the film medium, and his publisher Barney Rosset helped him put a movie together. The Milestone Cinematheque presents the UCLA Film & Television Archive’s restoration of Film on its own disc, accompanied by a videotaped TV production...
- 3/18/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Notfilm screens this Friday through Sunday (July 22nd-24th) at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 E. Lockwood, Webster Groves, Mo 63119). The film begins each evening at 8:00.
In 1964 author Samuel Beckett set out on one of the strangest ventures in cinematic history: his embattled collaboration with silent era genius Buster Keaton on the production of a short, titleless avant-garde film. Beckett was nearing the peak of his fame, which would culminate in his receiving a Nobel Prize five years later. Keaton, in his waning years, never lived to see Beckett’s canonization. The film they made along with director Alan Schneider, renegade publisher Barney Rosset, and Academy Award-winning cinematographer Boris Kaufman, has been the subject of praise, condemnation, and controversy for decades. Yet the eclectic participants are just one part of a story that stretches to the very birth of cinema, and spreads out to our understanding of human consciousness itself.
In 1964 author Samuel Beckett set out on one of the strangest ventures in cinematic history: his embattled collaboration with silent era genius Buster Keaton on the production of a short, titleless avant-garde film. Beckett was nearing the peak of his fame, which would culminate in his receiving a Nobel Prize five years later. Keaton, in his waning years, never lived to see Beckett’s canonization. The film they made along with director Alan Schneider, renegade publisher Barney Rosset, and Academy Award-winning cinematographer Boris Kaufman, has been the subject of praise, condemnation, and controversy for decades. Yet the eclectic participants are just one part of a story that stretches to the very birth of cinema, and spreads out to our understanding of human consciousness itself.
- 7/20/2016
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Visual consultant Haskell Wexler prior to a screening of “American Graffiti,” presented at Oscars® Outdoors by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Friday, August 2, 2013. credit: Todd Wawrychuk / ©A.M.P.A.S.
Haskell Wexler, one of Hollywood’s most famous and honored cinematographers and one whose innovative approach helped him win Oscars for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and the Woody Guthrie biopic “Bound for Glory,” died Sunday. He was 93.
From the AP:
Wexler died peacefully in his sleep, his son, Oscar-nominated sound man Jeff Wexler, told The Associated Press.
A liberal activist, Wexler photographed some of the most socially relevant and influential films of the 1960s and 1970s, including the Jane Fonda-Jon Voight anti-war classic, “Coming Home,” the Sidney Poitier-Rod Steiger racial drama “In the Heat of the Night” and the Oscar-winning adaptation of Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Haskell Wexler, one of Hollywood’s most famous and honored cinematographers and one whose innovative approach helped him win Oscars for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and the Woody Guthrie biopic “Bound for Glory,” died Sunday. He was 93.
From the AP:
Wexler died peacefully in his sleep, his son, Oscar-nominated sound man Jeff Wexler, told The Associated Press.
A liberal activist, Wexler photographed some of the most socially relevant and influential films of the 1960s and 1970s, including the Jane Fonda-Jon Voight anti-war classic, “Coming Home,” the Sidney Poitier-Rod Steiger racial drama “In the Heat of the Night” and the Oscar-winning adaptation of Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
- 12/27/2015
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Cinematographer with unshakeable radical convictions who won Oscars for his work on Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ? and Bound for Glory
One of the world’s most accomplished cinematographers, Haskell Wexler, who has died aged 93, was nominated five times for an Academy Award, and won for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and Bound for Glory (1976). Wexler worked equally on mainstream and independent films, fiction and documentaries, monochrome and colour. Yet, rare in cinematographers, most of whom are hired hands, he created a relatively homogeneous filmography and never swerved from his radical convictions.
These were instilled in him from an early age. Son of Simon and Lottie Wexler, he was born into a wealthy liberal Jewish family in Chicago, who sent him to the progressive Francis Parker school, where his best friend was Barney Rosset, who later became the owner of the iconoclastic Grove Press. At the age of...
One of the world’s most accomplished cinematographers, Haskell Wexler, who has died aged 93, was nominated five times for an Academy Award, and won for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and Bound for Glory (1976). Wexler worked equally on mainstream and independent films, fiction and documentaries, monochrome and colour. Yet, rare in cinematographers, most of whom are hired hands, he created a relatively homogeneous filmography and never swerved from his radical convictions.
These were instilled in him from an early age. Son of Simon and Lottie Wexler, he was born into a wealthy liberal Jewish family in Chicago, who sent him to the progressive Francis Parker school, where his best friend was Barney Rosset, who later became the owner of the iconoclastic Grove Press. At the age of...
- 12/27/2015
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Cinematographer with unshakeable radical convictions who won Oscars for his work on Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ? and Bound for Glory
One of the world’s most accomplished cinematographers, Haskell Wexler, who has died aged 93, was nominated five times for an Academy Award, and won for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and Bound for Glory (1976). Wexler worked equally on mainstream and independent films, fiction and documentaries, monochrome and colour. Yet, rare in cinematographers, most of whom are hired hands, he created a relatively homogeneous filmography and never swerved from his radical convictions.
These were instilled in him from an early age. Son of Simon and Lottie Wexler, he was born into a wealthy liberal Jewish family in Chicago, who sent him to the progressive Francis Parker school, where his best friend was Barney Rosset, who later became the owner of the iconoclastic Grove Press. At the age of...
One of the world’s most accomplished cinematographers, Haskell Wexler, who has died aged 93, was nominated five times for an Academy Award, and won for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and Bound for Glory (1976). Wexler worked equally on mainstream and independent films, fiction and documentaries, monochrome and colour. Yet, rare in cinematographers, most of whom are hired hands, he created a relatively homogeneous filmography and never swerved from his radical convictions.
These were instilled in him from an early age. Son of Simon and Lottie Wexler, he was born into a wealthy liberal Jewish family in Chicago, who sent him to the progressive Francis Parker school, where his best friend was Barney Rosset, who later became the owner of the iconoclastic Grove Press. At the age of...
- 12/27/2015
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Fund This ‘Notfilm’: About the 1965 Film ‘Film’ Written by Samuel Beckett and Starring Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton appeared in some very weird movies following the advent of sound pictures. There’s that Mexican sci-fi comedy Boom in the Moon I mentioned on Fsr a while back. There’s the Eastman Kodak industrial film The Triumph of Lester Snapwell, in which he plays a clumsy photographer who travels through time so he can experience an easy-use Instamatic camera. And of course all those crazy ’60s beach movies, where he performed silly slapstick involving bikinis, boobs and a politically incorrect portrayal of a Native American. But his oddest has to be Film, the 1965 short he reluctantly starred in, which was scripted by absurdist playwright Samuel Beckett (his only original written directly for the screen), helmed by theatre director Alan Schneider, produced by controversial publisher Barney Rosset, edited by Oscar-nominated documentarian Sidney Meyers (The Quiet One; The Savage Eye) and shot by legendary cinematographer Boris Kaufman (L’Atalante; On the Waterfront). Almost 50 years since its...
- 11/23/2013
- by Christopher Campbell
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Samuel Beckett made one motion picture, the short, almost-silent avant-garde film, "Film," starring Buster Keaton. In 1964, Beckett travelled to America for his first and only visit -- to undertake the ambitious project. Theater director Alan Schneider, publisher Barney Rosset and Academy Award-winning cinematographer Boris Kaufman worked on the notoriously difficult production, which was riddled with problems from the start. Beckett and Keaton disagreed about the film from early on and shooting during the hottest days of summer only exacerbated tension on the set. While working on the restoration of "Film," archivist Ross Lipman visited Rosset and discovered reels of film and audio that had been under Rosset's sink for decades-- including the legendary first scene, which had been cut from the film. "Two weeks or so before the production, Alan Schneider, Barney Rosset and Samuel Beckett decided to have a production meeting. Barney recorded it. This is a pretty incredible find,...
- 10/31/2013
- by Paula Bernstein
- Indiewire
From John Gall, art director for Vintage and Anchor Books, comes word that legendary publisher and film distributor Barney Rosset has passed away at the age of 89. Gall points us to a lively profile by Louisa Thomas that ran in Newsweek in late 2008: "Rosset's publishing house, Grove Press, was a tiny company operating out of the ground floor of Rosset's brownstone when it published an obscure play called Waiting for Godot in 1954. By the time Beckett had won the Nobel Prize in 1969, Grove had become a force that challenged and changed literature and American culture in deep and lasting ways. Its impact is still evident — from the Che Guevara posters adorning college dorms to the canonical status of the house's once controversial authors. Rosset is less well known — but late in his life he is achieving some wider recognition. Last month, a black-tie crowd gave Rosset a standing ovation...
- 2/24/2012
- MUBI
In 1951, Barney Rosset took charge of Grove Press, and via its flagship literary magazine Evergreen Review he spent the next few decades publishing some of the most important writers of the 20th century—Samuel Beckett, Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Edward Albee, and more—along with some of the most spurious. According to Neil Ortenberg and Daniel O'Connor's documentary Obscene, Rosset didn't just help shape his times; he was a product of them. Born in 1922 and raised in Chicago, Rosset fought his boyhood inclination to sympathize with anti-social types like John Dillinger, and instead tried to be an upstanding citizen, with a wife and a college degree and distinguished military service. But once Rosset was exposed to the freethinking European art community and the New York jazz scene, it occurred to him that both he and the American culture at large could handle a lot more free expression than they'd been.
- 10/2/2008
- by Noel Murray
- avclub.com
'I feel personally that a word has never been written or uttered that should not be published," free-speech hero Barney Rosset says in "Obscene," a compelling documentary about him directed by neophytes Neil Ortenberg and Daniel O'Connor.
As publisher of Evergreen magazine and owner of Grove Press in the 1960s, Rosset introduced Americans to such writers as Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, Malcolm X and Harold Pinter.
Perhaps more importantly, he sued...
As publisher of Evergreen magazine and owner of Grove Press in the 1960s, Rosset introduced Americans to such writers as Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, Malcolm X and Harold Pinter.
Perhaps more importantly, he sued...
- 9/26/2008
- by By V.A. MUSETTO
- NYPost.com
By Neil Pedley
If the old maxim "What I really want to do is direct" still holds true, this week's releases confirm that the filmmaking game is more open than ever. Anyone can have a crack at it; actors, teachers, digital artists, preachers. Perhaps you should have a go yourself. Hell, if Paul W.S. Anderson can get work doing it...
"The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela"
Offering up the most unlikely fairytale you're ever likely to see, Icelandic filmmaker Olaf de Fleur Johannesson draws on his documentary background with this endearing low-budget, semi-improvised Cinderella story. As a young Filipino lady-boy, the spunky, pre-op sex worker Raquela longs to be the belle of the ball as she trawls the Internet looking for love. When an American suitor pledges to be her Prince Charming and proposes a meeting in France, Raquela departs for her long-awaited date with destiny under the glittering Paris skyline.
If the old maxim "What I really want to do is direct" still holds true, this week's releases confirm that the filmmaking game is more open than ever. Anyone can have a crack at it; actors, teachers, digital artists, preachers. Perhaps you should have a go yourself. Hell, if Paul W.S. Anderson can get work doing it...
"The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela"
Offering up the most unlikely fairytale you're ever likely to see, Icelandic filmmaker Olaf de Fleur Johannesson draws on his documentary background with this endearing low-budget, semi-improvised Cinderella story. As a young Filipino lady-boy, the spunky, pre-op sex worker Raquela longs to be the belle of the ball as she trawls the Internet looking for love. When an American suitor pledges to be her Prince Charming and proposes a meeting in France, Raquela departs for her long-awaited date with destiny under the glittering Paris skyline.
- 9/22/2008
- by Neil Pedley
- ifc.com
Obscene, the chronicle of a publisher's fight to print the works of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Malcolm X, Che Guevara and others, has been picked up for worldwide distribution by Arthouse Films.
Neil Ortenberg and Daniel O'Connor's docu looks at Barney Rosset, the publisher of Grove Press and Evergreen Review who waged repeated U.S. court battles over freedom of the press. Interviews and footage with Amiri Baraka, Jim Carroll, Al Goldstein (no relation to the author), Erica Jong, Ray Manzarek, John Sayles, Gore Vidal, John Waters, Lenny Bruce and William S. Burroughs are featured.
Obscene, produced by the directors' New York-based Double O Film Prods., examines Rossett's public fights and personal demons. The soundtrack includes music by Bob Dylan, the Doors, Patti Smith, Warren Zevon, X and Ella Fitzgerald. Arthouse plans a 2008 theatrical and DVD release.
The deal was negotiated by Arthouse's David Koh and Curiously Bright Entertainment's Lilly Bright with Josh Braun of Submarine Entertainment on behalf of Ortenberg and O'Connor.
Neil Ortenberg and Daniel O'Connor's docu looks at Barney Rosset, the publisher of Grove Press and Evergreen Review who waged repeated U.S. court battles over freedom of the press. Interviews and footage with Amiri Baraka, Jim Carroll, Al Goldstein (no relation to the author), Erica Jong, Ray Manzarek, John Sayles, Gore Vidal, John Waters, Lenny Bruce and William S. Burroughs are featured.
Obscene, produced by the directors' New York-based Double O Film Prods., examines Rossett's public fights and personal demons. The soundtrack includes music by Bob Dylan, the Doors, Patti Smith, Warren Zevon, X and Ella Fitzgerald. Arthouse plans a 2008 theatrical and DVD release.
The deal was negotiated by Arthouse's David Koh and Curiously Bright Entertainment's Lilly Bright with Josh Braun of Submarine Entertainment on behalf of Ortenberg and O'Connor.
- 11/7/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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