We live in the best of times in which we are able to learn about the world and its incredible diversity of cultures/beings/places/perspectives in a way never historically possible. We live in the worst of times when we are able to isolate ourselves completely from anything different from our own narrow view/conception of the world/reality. The choice is yours!
"A sensitive, heartrending portrait of what it feels like to grow up different, Sciamma’s beautifully observed coming-of-age tale aches tenderly with the tangled confusion of childhood. When 10-year-old Laure’s family moves to a new neighborhood during the summer, the gender-nonconforming preteen (played by the impressively naturalistic Zoé Héran) takes the opportunity to present as Mickäel to the neighborhood kids—testing the waters of a new identity that neither friends nor family quite understand. Sciamma’s warmly empathetic tone is perfectly complemented by the soft-lit impressionism of Fournier’s glowing cinematography." - "The Female Gaze" (2018)
Baheyeldin, Khalid, et al. "The Book of Dune."Imaginary Worlds (July 12, 2017) ["Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel Dune and its sequels tackled a lot of big themes. The books are about ecology. They’re about journeys of self-realization through mind-altering substances. But religion is at the core of the series, since the main character Paul Atreides transforms from a teenage aristocrat into a messianic revolutionary leader of a nomadic desert tribe. And the real world religion that Frank Herbert borrows from the most is Islam. Khalid Baheyeldin, Salman Sayyid, and Sami Shah discuss why the book resonated deeply with them, despite the fact that Frank Herbert wasn’t Muslim. And Liel Liebowitz explains why the novel even spoke to him as an Israeli."]
Breen, Benjamin. "Pharmacology."The Los Angeles Review of Books (March 27, 2022)
Dick, Stephanie. "Computers."The Los Angeles Review of Books (March 27, 2022)
Dietrich, Christopher. "Harvesting."The Los Angeles Review of Books (March 27, 2022)
Engley, Ryan and Todd McGowan. "Blade Runner 2049."Why Theory (October 23, 2017) ["In this episode, Todd and Ryan discuss Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049. The conversation centers around how the film depicts ideology and what we mean when we say "ideology"; how the film conceives of desire ensuring subjectivity; and how the relationship between police and capital in the film exposes a link to how the two function in everyday life."]
Fox, Neil and Dario Linares. "Blade Runner 2049."The Cinematologists (October 18, 2017) ["With the original Blade Runner being a formative film for both Dario and Neil, they take the time to discuss the 2017 sequel directed by Denis Villeneuve: Blade Runner 2049. A lot has been said and written about this new incarnation, directly about the aesthetics, philosophical themes and narrative, but also regarding the wider ideological readings related to gender, race and class. We hope you enjoy our contribution to the discourse around a film which, if nothing else, reminds us of cinema's ability to provoke thought and exercise passion."]
Gerwig, Greta, et al. "63 Minute Directors Roundtable Talk."The Hollywood Reporter (Posted on Playlist: January 22, 2018) ["Angelina Jolie (“First They Killed My Father”), Patty Jenkins (“Wonder Woman”), Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird”), Joe Wright (“Darkest Hour”), Guillermo del Toro (“The Shape of Water”), and Denis Villeneuve (“Blade Runner 2049”)."]
Laczkowski, Jim, et al. "Denis Villeneuve."The Director's Club #140 (December 17, 2017) ["Now Playing Network Master of Ceremonies (and Director's Club founder) Jim Laczkowski joins us for this episode which has us looking at the films of French Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve! With Jim's help, we look at how Villeneuve brings his unique combination of thoughtfulness, pathos, family focus, and strangeness to dramas, genre thrillers, and films across the sci-fi spectrum. Includes lots of spiders and one talking fish."]
---. "The Problem of Other Minds – How Cinema Explores Consciousness." (Posted on Youtube: May 31, 2018) ["How have films engaged the problem of other minds? In this video essay, I discuss cinematic explorations into consciousness in the context of the cognitive revolution that has challenged many of the basic assumptions about what was for a long time believed to be a uniquely human trait." Uses Frans de Waal's book Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?: "Hailed as a classic, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? explores the oddities and complexities of animal cognition--in crows, dolphins, parrots, sheep, wasps, bats, chimpanzees, and bonobos--to reveal how smart animals really are, and how we've underestimated their abilities for too long. Did you know that octopuses use coconut shells as tools, that elephants classify humans by gender and language, and that there is a young male chimpanzee at Kyoto University whose flash memory puts that of humans to shame? Fascinating, entertaining, and deeply informed, de Waal's landmark work will convince you to rethink everything you thought you knew about animal--and human--intelligence."]
Fox, Neil and Dario Linares. "Blade Runner 2049."The Cinematologists (October 18, 2017) ["With the original Blade Runner being a formative film for both Dario and Neil, they take the time to discuss the 2017 sequel directed by Denis Villeneuve: Blade Runner 2049. A lot has been said and written about this new incarnation, directly about the aesthetics, philosophical themes and narrative, but also regarding the wider ideological readings related to gender, race and class. We hope you enjoy our contribution to the discourse around a film which, if nothing else, reminds us of cinema's ability to provoke thought and exercise passion."]
StudioBinder. "Denis Villeneuve & His Cinema of Ambiguity — Directing Styles Explained." (Posted on Youtube: April 6, 2020) ["Denis Villeneuve movies are made to confuse you. At every opportunity — in the story, in the cinematography, editing, and music, Villeneuve wants to keep you guessing. Watching Denis Villeneuve movies is to be placed in an environment of uncertainty. And that’s what makes them so interesting. In films like Enemy, Prisoners, Polytechnique, Blade Runner 2049, and Arrival, Villeneuve consistently creates awe and wonder with images and sounds we’ve never seen before. In Enemy, Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal) must confront the possibility that he is more than a single person. In Sicario, Kate (Emily Blunt) is pushed into the world of drug cartels by a tight-lipped company man (Josh Brolin) and a near-silent assassin (Benicio Del Toro). In Prisoners, Keller (Hugh Jackman) ventures into murky moral territory to find his kidnapped daughter. In Arrival, Louise (Amy Adams) and Ian (Jeremy Renner) are tasked with bridging the communication gap between beings from another dimension. In all these movies, the characters find themselves in new worlds without answers. In this video, we’ve cracked the code on Villeneuve’s love of ambiguity and we explain how his directing style works across 7 areas of focus including sound, color, production design, and more. Villeneuve creates movies that can be enigmatic but there’s no denying that he is a film artist in complete control of his medium. If you’re studying directing, cinematography, editing, or pursuing ANY career in filmmaking, there are a ton of lessons to be learned from Denis Villeneuve. This is the ultimate breakdown of Denis Villeneuve’s directing style."]
Art of the Title. "Know Your 2017 Below-the-Line Oscar Nominees."The Film Stage (January 30, 2017) ["The major below-the-line categories are Cinematography, Production Design, Sound Editing/Mixing, Visual Effects, Costume Design, and Makeup and Hairstyling . On the best productions (including those that the Academy labels Best Picture), the work of these crucial visual elements often blend together so seamlessly that it's hard to pick their creators' work.Thankfully, Art of The Film has created a series of supercuts called Oscars in One Minute that isolate the work of these artists so we can fully recognize their importance and beauty within each respective production."]
Koski, Genevieve, et al. "Contact / Arrival. Pt. 1."The Next Picture Show (November 29, 2016) ["This week, we look to the skies to consider two films about the difficulty of communication between worlds, and the inward journeys involved in looking to the stars. Inspired by Denis Villeneuve’s new ARRIVAL, we begin with an in-depth discussion of an earlier film with which it shares many thematic and narrative elements: Robert Zemeckis' 1997 Carl Sagan adaptation CONTACT. We consider the film’s ambition, dissect its blockbuster qualities, and try to determine what makes this unwieldy, emotional movie work so well, almost despite itself. (Spoiler: It’s mostly Jodie Foster.)"]
---. "Contact / Arrival, Pt. 2."The Next Picture Show (December 1, 2016) ["Our conversation about movies about talking to aliens moves to the present with Denis Villeneuve’s new ARRIVAL, which hits many of the same narrative points as CONTACT, but points them in a different emotional direction. We talk about our reactions to the newer film, and how its ideas about science, communication, and emotion compare with CONTACT’s."]
Laczkowski, Jim, et al. "Denis Villeneuve."The Director's Club #140 (December 17, 2017) ["Now Playing Network Master of Ceremonies (and Director's Club founder) Jim Laczkowski joins us for this episode which has us looking at the films of French Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve! With Jim's help, we look at how Villeneuve brings his unique combination of thoughtfulness, pathos, family focus, and strangeness to dramas, genre thrillers, and films across the sci-fi spectrum. Includes lots of spiders and one talking fish."]
Lapointe, Tanya. The Art and Science of Arrival. Titan Books, 2022. ["Official retrospective companion book to the Paramount film Arrival starring Amy Adams, Jereny Renner and Forest Whitaker, featuring concept art, sketches, behind-the-scenes photography and interviews with key creative and scientific team members. Since its release in 2016, Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival, based on the Hugo-nominated short story Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang, has embedded itself firmly in the minds of moviegoers around the world. The film garnered many accolades, including nine BAFTA nominations and eight Academy Award® nominations, proceeding to win an Oscar® for Best Sound Editing and a BAFTA for Best Sound. Since then, the film has generated larger conversations within the cultural landscape of academia including film, philosophy, and linguistics. In The Art and Science of Arrival, author and producer Tanya Lapointe revisits the film and its legacy with the production’s key team members. This lavish hardback volume recounts the genesis of this modern classic, from Ted Chiang’s short story The Story of Your Life to its premiere in Venice and its subsequent eight Academy Award(R) nominations. It explores the film’s concept of non-linear time, and showcases the remarkable concept art that brought the aliens, their ships and their startling logogram language to life."]
StudioBinder. "Denis Villeneuve & His Cinema of Ambiguity — Directing Styles Explained." (Posted on Youtube: April 6, 2020) ["Denis Villeneuve movies are made to confuse you. At every opportunity — in the story, in the cinematography, editing, and music, Villeneuve wants to keep you guessing. Watching Denis Villeneuve movies is to be placed in an environment of uncertainty. And that’s what makes them so interesting. In films like Enemy, Prisoners, Polytechnique, Blade Runner 2049, and Arrival, Villeneuve consistently creates awe and wonder with images and sounds we’ve never seen before. In Enemy, Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal) must confront the possibility that he is more than a single person. In Sicario, Kate (Emily Blunt) is pushed into the world of drug cartels by a tight-lipped company man (Josh Brolin) and a near-silent assassin (Benicio Del Toro). In Prisoners, Keller (Hugh Jackman) ventures into murky moral territory to find his kidnapped daughter. In Arrival, Louise (Amy Adams) and Ian (Jeremy Renner) are tasked with bridging the communication gap between beings from another dimension. In all these movies, the characters find themselves in new worlds without answers. In this video, we’ve cracked the code on Villeneuve’s love of ambiguity and we explain how his directing style works across 7 areas of focus including sound, color, production design, and more. Villeneuve creates movies that can be enigmatic but there’s no denying that he is a film artist in complete control of his medium. If you’re studying directing, cinematography, editing, or pursuing ANY career in filmmaking, there are a ton of lessons to be learned from Denis Villeneuve. This is the ultimate breakdown of Denis Villeneuve’s directing style."]
Deakins, Roger."Sicario."DP30 (November 14, 2015) Foley, Darren. "Sicario: Film Analysis."Must See Films (Posted on Youtube: March 28, 2016) Laczkowski, Jim, et al. "Denis Villeneuve."The Director's Club #140 (December 17, 2017) ["Now Playing Network Master of Ceremonies (and Director's Club founder) Jim Laczkowski joins us for this episode which has us looking at the films of French Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve! With Jim's help, we look at how Villeneuve brings his unique combination of thoughtfulness, pathos, family focus, and strangeness to dramas, genre thrillers, and films across the sci-fi spectrum. Includes lots of spiders and one talking fish."]
StudioBinder. "Denis Villeneuve & His Cinema of Ambiguity — Directing Styles Explained." (Posted on Youtube: April 6, 2020) ["Denis Villeneuve movies are made to confuse you. At every opportunity — in the story, in the cinematography, editing, and music, Villeneuve wants to keep you guessing. Watching Denis Villeneuve movies is to be placed in an environment of uncertainty. And that’s what makes them so interesting. In films like Enemy, Prisoners, Polytechnique, Blade Runner 2049, and Arrival, Villeneuve consistently creates awe and wonder with images and sounds we’ve never seen before. In Enemy, Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal) must confront the possibility that he is more than a single person. In Sicario, Kate (Emily Blunt) is pushed into the world of drug cartels by a tight-lipped company man (Josh Brolin) and a near-silent assassin (Benicio Del Toro). In Prisoners, Keller (Hugh Jackman) ventures into murky moral territory to find his kidnapped daughter. In Arrival, Louise (Amy Adams) and Ian (Jeremy Renner) are tasked with bridging the communication gap between beings from another dimension. In all these movies, the characters find themselves in new worlds without answers. In this video, we’ve cracked the code on Villeneuve’s love of ambiguity and we explain how his directing style works across 7 areas of focus including sound, color, production design, and more. Villeneuve creates movies that can be enigmatic but there’s no denying that he is a film artist in complete control of his medium. If you’re studying directing, cinematography, editing, or pursuing ANY career in filmmaking, there are a ton of lessons to be learned from Denis Villeneuve. This is the ultimate breakdown of Denis Villeneuve’s directing style."]
Laczkowski, Jim, et al. "Denis Villeneuve."The Director's Club #140 (December 17, 2017) ["Now Playing Network Master of Ceremonies (and Director's Club founder) Jim Laczkowski joins us for this episode which has us looking at the films of French Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve! With Jim's help, we look at how Villeneuve brings his unique combination of thoughtfulness, pathos, family focus, and strangeness to dramas, genre thrillers, and films across the sci-fi spectrum. Includes lots of spiders and one talking fish."]
StudioBinder. "Denis Villeneuve & His Cinema of Ambiguity — Directing Styles Explained." (Posted on Youtube: April 6, 2020) ["Denis Villeneuve movies are made to confuse you. At every opportunity — in the story, in the cinematography, editing, and music, Villeneuve wants to keep you guessing. Watching Denis Villeneuve movies is to be placed in an environment of uncertainty. And that’s what makes them so interesting. In films like Enemy, Prisoners, Polytechnique, Blade Runner 2049, and Arrival, Villeneuve consistently creates awe and wonder with images and sounds we’ve never seen before. In Enemy, Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal) must confront the possibility that he is more than a single person. In Sicario, Kate (Emily Blunt) is pushed into the world of drug cartels by a tight-lipped company man (Josh Brolin) and a near-silent assassin (Benicio Del Toro). In Prisoners, Keller (Hugh Jackman) ventures into murky moral territory to find his kidnapped daughter. In Arrival, Louise (Amy Adams) and Ian (Jeremy Renner) are tasked with bridging the communication gap between beings from another dimension. In all these movies, the characters find themselves in new worlds without answers. In this video, we’ve cracked the code on Villeneuve’s love of ambiguity and we explain how his directing style works across 7 areas of focus including sound, color, production design, and more. Villeneuve creates movies that can be enigmatic but there’s no denying that he is a film artist in complete control of his medium. If you’re studying directing, cinematography, editing, or pursuing ANY career in filmmaking, there are a ton of lessons to be learned from Denis Villeneuve. This is the ultimate breakdown of Denis Villeneuve’s directing style."]
Laczkowski, Jim, et al. "Denis Villeneuve."The Director's Club #140 (December 17, 2017) ["Now Playing Network Master of Ceremonies (and Director's Club founder) Jim Laczkowski joins us for this episode which has us looking at the films of French Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve! With Jim's help, we look at how Villeneuve brings his unique combination of thoughtfulness, pathos, family focus, and strangeness to dramas, genre thrillers, and films across the sci-fi spectrum. Includes lots of spiders and one talking fish."]
Said, Edward W. "Invention, Memory, and Place." Cultural Studies: From Theory to Action. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005: 256-269. [In BCTC Library and professor has a copy]
StudioBinder. "Denis Villeneuve & His Cinema of Ambiguity — Directing Styles Explained." (Posted on Youtube: April 6, 2020) ["Denis Villeneuve movies are made to confuse you. At every opportunity — in the story, in the cinematography, editing, and music, Villeneuve wants to keep you guessing. Watching Denis Villeneuve movies is to be placed in an environment of uncertainty. And that’s what makes them so interesting. In films like Enemy, Prisoners, Polytechnique, Blade Runner 2049, and Arrival, Villeneuve consistently creates awe and wonder with images and sounds we’ve never seen before. In Enemy, Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal) must confront the possibility that he is more than a single person. In Sicario, Kate (Emily Blunt) is pushed into the world of drug cartels by a tight-lipped company man (Josh Brolin) and a near-silent assassin (Benicio Del Toro). In Prisoners, Keller (Hugh Jackman) ventures into murky moral territory to find his kidnapped daughter. In Arrival, Louise (Amy Adams) and Ian (Jeremy Renner) are tasked with bridging the communication gap between beings from another dimension. In all these movies, the characters find themselves in new worlds without answers. In this video, we’ve cracked the code on Villeneuve’s love of ambiguity and we explain how his directing style works across 7 areas of focus including sound, color, production design, and more. Villeneuve creates movies that can be enigmatic but there’s no denying that he is a film artist in complete control of his medium. If you’re studying directing, cinematography, editing, or pursuing ANY career in filmmaking, there are a ton of lessons to be learned from Denis Villeneuve. This is the ultimate breakdown of Denis Villeneuve’s directing style."]
Professor in Polytechnique: “The universal law of entropy also tells us that any isolated system left on its own, is inevitably destined to irreversible degradation, to the point of self-destruction.”
Laczkowski, Jim, et al. "Denis Villeneuve."The Director's Club #140 (December 17, 2017) ["Now Playing Network Master of Ceremonies (and Director's Club founder) Jim Laczkowski joins us for this episode which has us looking at the films of French Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve! With Jim's help, we look at how Villeneuve brings his unique combination of thoughtfulness, pathos, family focus, and strangeness to dramas, genre thrillers, and films across the sci-fi spectrum. Includes lots of spiders and one talking fish."]
StudioBinder. "Denis Villeneuve & His Cinema of Ambiguity — Directing Styles Explained." (Posted on Youtube: April 6, 2020) ["Denis Villeneuve movies are made to confuse you. At every opportunity — in the story, in the cinematography, editing, and music, Villeneuve wants to keep you guessing. Watching Denis Villeneuve movies is to be placed in an environment of uncertainty. And that’s what makes them so interesting. In films like Enemy, Prisoners, Polytechnique, Blade Runner 2049, and Arrival, Villeneuve consistently creates awe and wonder with images and sounds we’ve never seen before. In Enemy, Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal) must confront the possibility that he is more than a single person. In Sicario, Kate (Emily Blunt) is pushed into the world of drug cartels by a tight-lipped company man (Josh Brolin) and a near-silent assassin (Benicio Del Toro). In Prisoners, Keller (Hugh Jackman) ventures into murky moral territory to find his kidnapped daughter. In Arrival, Louise (Amy Adams) and Ian (Jeremy Renner) are tasked with bridging the communication gap between beings from another dimension. In all these movies, the characters find themselves in new worlds without answers. In this video, we’ve cracked the code on Villeneuve’s love of ambiguity and we explain how his directing style works across 7 areas of focus including sound, color, production design, and more. Villeneuve creates movies that can be enigmatic but there’s no denying that he is a film artist in complete control of his medium. If you’re studying directing, cinematography, editing, or pursuing ANY career in filmmaking, there are a ton of lessons to be learned from Denis Villeneuve. This is the ultimate breakdown of Denis Villeneuve’s directing style."]
“People talk about the death of cinema, and they talk about the death of the novel. The novel has reinvented itself and changed form and been experimental and, therefore, has survived. I think movies should be inspired by that — the spirit of the possibility of the dramaturgy not being one thing. The dramaturgy or the structure of your telling is up for grabs, and it’s personal.” – Joachim Trier, Seventh Row Louder than Bombs Interview Part 1
“How to show thinking in cinema, it’s something I’m really interested in. I get so pissed when people say, “Oh, thinking, that’s for the novel. Cinema is about the exterior”. I disagree. Film can be incredibly subjective.” – Joachim Trier, Louder Than Bombs Interview Part 2
Louder Than Bombs (Norway/France/Denmark/USA: Joachim Trier, 2015: 109 mins)
Ihre, Jakob. "Louder Than Bombs."American Cinematographer Podcasts #71 (May 27, 2016) ["Director of photography Jakob Ihre sits down with filmmaker Jim Hemphill to discuss his work on the acclaimed independent film Louder Than Bombs. Ihre discusses the role of the cinematographer in facilitating great performances, his ongoing collaboration with director Joachim Trier, being influenced by films including Ordinary People and The Breakfast Club, and how he finds visual corollaries for emotional states."]
Lie, Anders Danielson, Renate Reinsve, and Joachim Trier. "The Worst Person in the World."Film at Lincoln Center #384 (February 2022) ["As proven in such exacting stories of lives on the edge as Reprise and Oslo, August 31, Norwegian director Joachim Trier is singularly adept at giving an invigorating modern twist to classically constructed character portraits. Trier catapults the viewer into the world of his most spellbinding protagonist yet: Julie, played by Cannes Best Actress winner Renate Reinsve, who’s the magnetic center of nearly every scene. After dropping out of pre-med, Julie must find new professional and romantic avenues as she navigates her late-twenties, juggling emotionally heavy relationships with two very different men (Trier regular Anders Danielsen Lie and engaging newcomer Herbert Nordrum). Fluidly told in 12 discrete chapters, Trier’s film elegantly depicts the precarity of identity and the mutability of happiness in our runaway contemporary world."]
O'Malley, Sheila. "The Worst Person in the World: Lost and Found."Current (June 28, 2022) ["Idleness” is a grave sin, perhaps the gravest, in a world where the answer to “What do you do?” is more important than the answer to “How are you?” Whatever it is that you “do” must fit into the appropriate container for your age and life phase. Everyone agrees you need ambition, goals, a plan. But what happens if your timeline doesn’t match up with expectations? What if you want to keep your options open? What if you are baffled at the idea of having to make a choice and stick to it for all time? What if you legitimately do not know what you want? Julie (Renate Reinsve), the woman on the cusp of thirty who stumbles and cavorts her way through Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World (2021), experiences all these questions, sometimes simultaneously. Saying “I don’t know”—as she often does—is seen as fickle, indecisive, but maybe Julie’s idleness is creating a clear enough surface for the “submerged truth” that Virginia Woolf describes, however eccentric it may be, to rise. It’s the rare film that allows a character to just be, loosing her from the constraints of plot, giving her a huge playground—here, the city of Oslo—in which to think, question, make mistakes, behave poorly, course-correct, all while having no idea what she’s doing or why."]
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