Nyff 2007

[Chris Knipp]

Here is a preview of the lineup. Reviews will appear in the Festival Coverage section in late September and early October. The festival runs from September 28-October 14. More detail can be found on the website of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, www.filmlinc.com.

AGAIN, 28 OFFICIAL SELECTIONS, AND 7 OTHER SCREENING EVENTS

OPENING NIGHT
The Darjeeling Limited
Wes Anderson, US, 2007; 91m
Fox Searchlight
Three brothers travel and bicker on a train on a spiritual journey through India. Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody.

Screening with:
Hotel Chevalier
Wes Anderson, US, 2007; 12m
Fox Searchlight

CLOSING NIGHT
Persepolis
Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud, France, 2007; 95m
Sony Pictures Classics
Animated film version of Satrapi's graphic novels about growing up in revolutionary Iran.

CENTERPIECE
No Country for Old Men
Joel and Ethan Coen, US, 2007; 122m
Miramax
Adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel about a Texas drug deal gone bad. Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem and Tommy Lee Jones.

4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days
Christian Mungiu, Romania, 2007; 113m
IFC First Take
A desperate search for an illegal abortion in pre-perestroika Romania.

Actresses
Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, France, 2007; 110m
A middle-aged actress desperate to marry and have children. Starring Bruni-Tedeschi.

Alexandra
Alexander Sokurov, Russia, 92m
Rezo Films
An old lady visits her son's unit in Chechnya

The Axe in the Attic
Ed Pincus & Lucia Small, US, 2007; 110m
Documentary of the post-Katrina Gulf Coast diaspora.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Sidney Lumet, USA, 117m
ThinkFilm
A perfect crime plotted by two brothers that goes wrong . Philip-Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke.

RETROSPECTIVE:
Blade Runner: The Definitive Cut
Ridley Scott, US, 1982/2007; 118m
Warner Brothers

Calle Santa Fe
Carmen Castillo, France, 2007; 163m
Autobiographical remembrance of life as a revolutionary in Chile.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Julian Schnabel, France/U.S., 2007; 112m
Miramax
Adaptation of Jean-Dominique Bauby's autobiographical story about coping with paralysis.

SPECIAL EVENT
Fados
Carlos Saura, Spain/Portugal, 2007; 92m
Documentary of the song form. Another panel in Saura's musical series.

The Flight of the Red Balloon
Hou Hsiao-hsien, France, 2007; 113m
IFC First Take
A homage to the French children's classic with Juliette Binoche as the mother of a lonely boy who spends his days with a Chinese au pair.

A Girl Cut In Two
Claude Chabrol, France, 2007; 115m
Two men (Benoit Maginel, Francois Berleand) compete for the affections of a TV weather girl (Ludivine Sagnier)

Go Go Tales
Abel Ferrara, Italy/US, 2007; 96m
Willem Dafoe, Bob Hoskins, Sylvia Miles and Asia Argento struggle to keep a New York strip joint going before Times Square was sanitized.

RETROSPECTIVE
Hamlet
Sven Gade & Heinz Schall, Germany, 1920-21; 110m
Print Courtesy of the German Film Institute (Deutsche Filminstitut)
Piano accompaniment by Donald Sosin
Danish classic in which a woman plays Hamlet.

I Just Didn't Do It
Masayuki Suo, Japan, 2007; 143m
False indictment of a man for groping a girl on a train.

I'm Not There
Todd Haynes, US, 2007; 136m
The Weinstein Company
Impressionistic Bob Dylan biography with Dylan played alternately by Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Christian Bale, Marcus Carl Franklin, Heath Ledger, and Ben Whishaw.

In the City of Sylvia
Jose Luis Guerin, Spain/France, 2007; 90m
A young man sketching in a cafe pursues a lost love.

RETROSPECTIVE
The Iron Horse
John Ford, US, 1924; 132m
20th Century Fox
About the building of the transcontinental railway.

The Last Mistress
Catherine Breillat, France, 2007; 114m
IFC First Take
Amorous scandal surrounding a marriage in the reign of Louis Philippe.

RETROSPECTIVE
Leave Her to Heaven
John M. Stahl, US, 1945; 110m
Noir classic of a manipulative woman (Gene Tierney), a favorite of Pedro Almodovar.

The Man From London
Bela Tarr, Hungary/France/Germany, 2007; 132m
A man discovers a suitcase full of banknotes. Based on a Georges Simenon novel.

Margot at the Wedding
Noah Baumbach, US, 2007; 93m
Paramount Vantage
Sibling rivalry at a family gathering in Connecticut, with Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh as sisters.

Married Life
Ira Sachs, USA, 2007; 90m
A "four-hand roundelay" set in the Pacific Northwest in the Forties, based on a British crime novelist's book. With Chris Cooper, Patricia Clarkson, Rachel McAdams, Pierce Brosnan.

Mr. Warmth, The Don Rickles Project
John Landis, US, 2007; 90m
A documentary abut the abusive comic.

The Orphanage
Juan Antonio Bayona, Spain, 100m
Picturehouse
A supernatural thriller that turns darker.

SPECIAL EVENT
The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival, 1963-1965
Murray Lerner, US, 2007; 80m
Portraits of Bob Dylan going through a transitional period from chipper to darker using Lerner's footage from the time.

Paranoid Park
Gus Van Sant, US, 2007; 85m
IFC First Take
Memories and experiences of a skateboarder involved in an accidental murder.

Redacted
Brian DePalma, US, 2007; 90m
Magnolia
Fictionalized story of an American solider involved in an atrocity in Iraq.

The Romance of Astrea and Celadon
Eric Rohmer, France, 2007; 109m
Rezo Films
Rohmer, now 87, adapts Honore d'Urfe's 17th century pastoral romance.

Secret Sunshine
Lee Chang-dong, Korea, 2007; 142m
Complex story of a widow and her young son who relocate to the country.

Silent Light
Carlos Reygadas, Mexico, 2007; 142m
In Plautdietsch, about the Mennonite community in Norther Mexico, a tale of love and betrayal based on Carl Dreyer's Ordet.

SPECIAL EVENT
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin' Down a Dream
Peter Bogdanovich, US, 2007; 238m
A thoroughgoing history of the band.

RETROSPECTIVE
Underworld
Josef von Sternberg, US, 1927; 80m
Accompaniment by the Alloy Orchestra
Pioneering effort of the gangster genre.

Useless
Jia Zhang-ke, Hong Kong, 2007; 80m
A far-reaching documentary about clothing that examines in a free-form way what we wear and what we are.

[oscar jubis]

Very much looking forward to your reviews. As usual, I hope you don't miss a single film that doesn't have distribution. When do the previews start?

[Chris Knipp]

Probably around September 18th. I will make my coverage as complete as I can, at least on the 28 official selections. I can't promise any coverage of the numerous sidebar items, though. Whatever I have the stamina for, I'll do. It will depend a little on the scheduling too.

[oscar jubis]

Sounds good.
I just attended a screening of a 35 mm print of Leave Her to Heaven. Is it the Fest billing it as a "noir classic"? It's a campy and lurid melodrama with gorgeous technicolor cinematography. I enjoyed it for what it is.
The Reygadas film will probably get distribution in the future. It's been widely praised and described by some as significantly less transgressive than his two previous features.

[Chris Knipp]

A lot of things get called "noir" and a lot of things get called "noir classic," including this one. It's available on DVD at Netflix and has a good viewer rating, but sounds mediocre (though better than a lot they call "noir"). As I said, I'm only shooting for the official selections, not the sidebar items, so Stahl won't be included on my schedule, and may not be shown at a press screening. Some retrospective items might, and there might be interesting Q&A's with them--that would be what would justify attending: a good on stage discussion afterwards. I don't have to exclude any of the official selections as long as my health and stamina and the scheduling permit. The scheduling was very wearing last year and if they again show three or four a day day after day, I might skip some just to survive. Unfortunately. Let's hope they're better spread out as they were in 2005, though.

[oscar jubis]

Great. I hope it works out so that you can review all the official selections. Have fun!

You're right. A lot of things get called noir nowadays. I think the term "sells". Kevin Wynn of the local Rewind/Fast-Forward fest introduced the film here as a "woman's picture" as it was marketed in the 40s and emphasized its campy elements_aspects that have dated in a manner that provokes laughter from a segment of the contemporary audience (as opposed to a similarly-titled masterpiece like All that Heaven Allows which would generate no laughter from an audience). Afterwards, Kevin pointed out to me that it was mostly the males in the audience who were laughing whereas generally women took the film more seriously. I don't quite mean to refer to Leave Her to Heaven as "mediocre" but I wouldn't call it a "classic", much less a "noir classic". It's an engaging, compulsively watchable studio picture that has a crime element; enough for savvy programmers to bill it as a "noir classic". I had seen it on dvd but I wouldn't want to miss a repertory screening, rare as they are nowadays.

[Chris Knipp]

Yes, I see.

[cinemabon]

Nothing beats a new 35mm print for clarity and framing, something even the HD experience cannot duplicate, i.e. Academy framing, impossible with 16:9 televisions.

[Chris Knipp]

Indeed. Though re-dos of old B&W films for good DVD's are quite wonderful nowadays.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by cinemabon
Nothing beats a new 35mm print for clarity and framing, something even the HD experience cannot duplicate, i.e. Academy framing, impossible with 16:9 televisions.

I couldn't possibly agree more. I view the whole dvd business with great ambivalence. Absolutely NOTHING compares to theatrical screenings of 35 mm prints of studio films. The death of repertory theatres makes me so sad. My alma mater (UM) is considering building a new theater (the existing one can't handle 70 mm. and has to crop CinemaScope films somewhat) mostly to show a large collection of studio prints donated recently by a rich benefactor. There are funding issues they tell me so it might not happen. They are screening Bergman and Antonioni films this month, a combination of 35 mm. prints and digital projection. You know which ones I'm interested in.

[mouton]

Hey Chris ... I will be heading to NYFF for the first time this year. I'm really excited. Unfortunately, in the middle of the TIFF craze, I missed the onsale and now am scrambling for tickets online. It worked at TIFF so I'm hoping it works here too. I am hoping to catch NO COUNTRY FOR OLD ME and MARGOT AT THE WEDDING. I haev tickets to PARANOID PARK. The best thing about going to NYC though for a film fan is that even if I don't get the tickets I want, I can still see plenty of movies that won't play in Montreal for at least a few weeks. Last year I saw LITTLE CHILDREN there and the year before, I caught CAPOTE. Neither film played here for at least a month afterwards. Helps me get a bit of a jump on things. It would be great to catch the Julian Schnabel film or the Dylan pic but neither will be playing when I'm there. I hope you're going to see PERSEPOLIS. It was truly wonderful.

[Chris Knipp]

I hope to see all of them. The Schnabel picture shows to press Monday morning. Oscar feels, and I think he's basically right, that the important films to see at a festival are the ones that will not later be at a theater near you, ever. However, with the NYFF one gets both, and the selectinon quality level is high. If you'd like to get in touch while you're in NYC my email is ccknippart@gmail.com.

[Chris Knipp]

September 16, 2007, NYC.

Press screenings begin tomorrow. Watch this thread for links to the festival coverage.

Openers:

Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Masayuki Suo, I Just Didn't Do It.

[Chris Knipp]

JULIAN SCHNABEL: THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY

[Chris Knipp]

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MASAYUKI SUO: I JUST DIDN'T DO IT(2007)


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