The Film Comment Podcast

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Personal Problems (The Movie) Mar 06, 2018

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Featuring the talents of Bill Gunn (Ganja & Hess), Vertamae Grosvenor (Daughters of the Dust), Ishmael Reed, and many others, Personal Problems was originally intended as “an experimental soap opera” for WNET, the public broadcast station in New York. It never aired and was thought lost for many years, but the film has been newly restored by Kino Lorber and will be traveling theatrically soon, beginning with a run at Metrograph. Written by Ishmael Reed and shot in 1979, Personal Problems stars Vertamae Grosvenor as Johnnie Mae, a nurse’s aide at Harlem Hospital who’s having an affair behind the back of her uptight transit worker husband Charles (Walter Cotton). In the March/April 2018 issue, Howard Hampton writes about this incredible work, a “motion picture [that] is inventing its language as it goes along—a series of building blocks of different shapes, tones, and materials creating a homemade Cubist mosaic. Personal Problems balances hands-on and hands-off approaches.” Tobi Haslett, contributor to N+1, 4Columns, and The New Yorker, speaks with FC Digital Producer Violet Lucca about this distinctive work.

The Cinema of Experience II Feb 27, 2018

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From the way in which the experiences of African Americans are portrayed on screen, to the way skin color is captured on film, the history of movies and photography is inextricable from race. How do nonwhite, nonmale filmmakers create a language that equalizes a subject? What sort of language and historical practices are required to reflect these perspectives? In this live discussion at Film Comment Selects titled “Race and Representation,” Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold discusses these questions with Antonio Méndez Esparza, director of Life and Nothing More (the opening night film of the series), RaMell Ross, director of Hale County This Morning, This Evening (winner of a prize at Sundance), and Professor Racquel Gates, author of Double Negative: The Black Image and Popular Culture.

The Rise of Valeska Grisebach Feb 20, 2018

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Valeska Grisebach’s extremely precise yet highly naturalistic films take years to make: so far, we have been graced with only three features. In the January/February issue of Film Comment, Haden Guest discusses Grisebach’s process of “radical observation,” as well as her relationship to existing genre forms and aesthetics. Western, Grisebach’s latest film, follows a group of German workers building a hydroelectric plant in the backlands of Bulgaria. Separated by linguistic and cultural differences, one of the German workers—Meinhard—slowly begins to bridge the gap between the two camps. FC Digital Producer Violet Lucca is joined by Film Society of Lincoln Center programmers Dennis Lim and Dan Sullivan and Brooklyn Rail film section co-editor Leo Goldsmith to discuss the film, Grisebach’s filmography, and her relationship to new forms of realism.

China Goes To The Movies Feb 13, 2018

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After being notorious as a “hotbed” of piracy for many years, the Chinese market is now more rightly regarded as the second-largest in the world. In the January/February issue of Film Comment, Nick Pinkerton and Andrew Chan respectively report on Hollywood’s deals with mainland multiplexes and aspiring mogul Jia Zhangke. As the middle class has grown, new venues and festivals seek to satiate their desire for more entertainment options—big, small, or somewhere in-between. In this episode of the podcast, FC Digital Producer Violet Lucca is joined by Andrew Chan, web editor at the Criterion Collection, and Aliza Ma, head programmer at Metrograph, to discuss Chinese film culture, sprawling multiplexes, censorship, and the types of films that do and don’t get made anymore on the Mainland and off. Read Andrew’s feature online: https://www.filmcomment.com/article/jia-zhangke-pingyao-film-festival/

I Loved It When I Was a Kid Feb 06, 2018

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Recent episodes of The Film Comment Podcast have contemplated formative filmmaker obsessions, but what about the movies that struck us much earlier in life? Maybe your parents took you to see it, maybe you flipped by it on cable and couldn’t change the channel, or maybe you had a traumatic brush with the body horror of The Blob too early in life…whatever it is, we revisit our childhood fascinations on this week’s episode, giving us an occasion to reflect on how our tastes and critical faculties might begin to form at a young age, as well as what happens when beloved films may not withstand the test of time. FC Digital Producer Violet Lucca is joined by K. Austin Collins, staff writer for The Ringer; Nicholas Elliott, U.S. correspondent for Cahiers du Cinéma; and Mark Harris, regular contributor to Vulture and the author of FC’s 2017 column “Cinema ‘67 Revisited.”

Apichatpong Weerasethakul on SLEEPCINEMAHOTEL Feb 01, 2018

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One of the most curious entries at this year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam (which runs January 24 to February 4) isn’t a film at all, but a new one-off project by Apichatpong Weerasethakul: SLEEPCINEMAHOTEL. True to the title, this is a fully operational hotel, conceived and designed by Apichatpong in tandem with IFFR curator Edwin Carels and a team of collaborators. Over the festival’s first five nights, guests could reserve (for a 75-euro fee) one of six beds, which are tiered within a tall metal scaffold and flanked by a wall-sized circular screen projecting assorted found footage courtesy of the nearby EYE Filmmuseum and The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. Complete with bedside tables, lamps, and other accoutrements of a typical hotel—not to mention a fully stocked bar, breakfast options, and a balcony for public viewing—SLEEPCINEMAHOTEL fosters the sleep states so frequently conjured and portrayed in Apichatpong’s films. Film Comment was joined by Apichatpong at the exhibition on its final day to discuss how this unique project came to be, the influences behind the look and feel of the hotel, and how dreams function as a very particular and personal form of cinema.

Let’s Eat Jan 30, 2018

Show notes

Food is versatile on film. Consider the ways it’s used in Tampopo, Daisies, Babette’s Feast, and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover. This week’s episode of The Film Comment Podcast contends with how its significance varies with each story—both in the film and for the viewer. Each FC contributor—Michael Koresky, Editorial Director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center; Aliza Ma, Head Programmer at Metrograph; and Mayukh Sen, Staff Writer at Vice’s Munchies—talks about one film that reminds them of cooking while growing up, and another that simply makes them hungry. A meal could evoke the power dynamics of desire, the familial elements of grief, or even a Marxist critique of capitalism… all while looking deee-licious.

Sundance 2018: Day Seven Jan 24, 2018

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It’s Sundance, day seven! FC Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold is joined by Amy Taubin, FC contributing editor and Sundance veteran, to discuss the evolution of the festival over the years and, of course, what they’ve seen. Taubin touches on the problematic nature of Jennifer Fox’s The Tale, argues for the intelligence of Craig Michael Macneill’s Lizzie, and praises Crystal Moselle’s skater-girl-driven Skate Kitchen. Other films covered include Robert Greene’s hybrid reenactment drama Bisbee ’17, Reed Morano’s postapocalyptic I Think We’re Alone Now, Claire McCarthy’s Shakespeare-expansion Ophelia, Betsy West and Julie Cohen’s RBG (about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg), Nathaniel Kahn’s art world doc The Price of Everything. The Film Comment Podcast from Sundance is sponsored by Autograph Collection Hotels.

Steve James Jan 23, 2018

Show notes

Steve James returns to Sundance this week to present the first half of his ten-part miniseries America to Me, set to premiere in full this fall. James tells the story of Oak Park and River Forest High School, a well-funded, diverse public school in suburban Chicago, through the experiences of several of its students. By immersing viewers in the lives of his subjects, who encompass a range of personality types and grade levels, James vies for a comprehensive portrait of the school’s ecosystem, with particular attention given to its disparities across racial and academic backgrounds. In this episode of The Film Comment Podcast, James sits down with Eric Hynes, FC contributor and Curator of Film at the Museum of the Moving Image, to talk about the production process and his own experiences living in the community in which it’s set.

Sundance 2018: Day Six Jan 23, 2018

Show notes

We’re still going strong as we continue into our second week! FC Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold and Eric Hynes, FC contributor and Curator of Film at Museum of the Moving Image are joined by special guest April Wolfe for a rousing discussion of Sam Green’s A Thousand Thoughts, documentarian-turned-narrative-filmmaker Jennifer Fox’s candid The Tale, Desiree Akhavan’s adaptation of The Miseducation of Cameron Post, and Panos Cosmatos’s Mandy. The Film Comment Podcast from Sundance is sponsored by Autograph Collection Hotels.

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