It’s less the question if Claire Denis and Tindersticks are modern cinema’s greatest director-musician collaboration; it’s more a matter of how far above the competition they stand. But many of their soundtracks––as rich as any of the studio albums that make Tindersticks one of our greatest working bands––haven’t streamed, instead relegated to a (treasured) collection released in 2011. Completists sometimes have to rely on the films themselves: frontman Stuart A. Staples’ solo score for Let the Sunshine In and the band’s full assembly on Both Sides of the Blade have remained unreleased.
To promote forthcoming shows that juxtapose their soundtracks with Denis’ images––tickets are online if you’re in Paris or Lyon––Tindersticks have released a handful of soundtracks once only in the collection and the aforementioned scores for Sunshine and Blade. (The former veers between ethereal and jazzy; the latter sounds like a through-and-through horror film.
To promote forthcoming shows that juxtapose their soundtracks with Denis’ images––tickets are online if you’re in Paris or Lyon––Tindersticks have released a handful of soundtracks once only in the collection and the aforementioned scores for Sunshine and Blade. (The former veers between ethereal and jazzy; the latter sounds like a through-and-through horror film.
- 10/10/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
It’s not so much the question of whether or not Claire Denis and Tindersticks are modern cinema’s most fruitful director-musician collaboration; it’s more a matter of how far above the competition they stand. By my count their soundtrack for her new feature, Stars at Noon, adds an additional bound or two to that distance—it’s frankly amazing a group in its 30th year would deliver something playing to their milieu and strengths while adding new textures to the fold.
As a major fan of the group—the studio albums, the Denis soundtracks, frontman Stuart A. Staples’ solo work and experimental doc Minute Bodies—I couldn’t have been happier to talk with Staples, who Zoomed from a rather homely recording studio. Our 40-minute conversation is as follows.
The Film Stage: Where are you right now?
Stuart Staples: I’m in my studio.
This is separate from your living space?...
As a major fan of the group—the studio albums, the Denis soundtracks, frontman Stuart A. Staples’ solo work and experimental doc Minute Bodies—I couldn’t have been happier to talk with Staples, who Zoomed from a rather homely recording studio. Our 40-minute conversation is as follows.
The Film Stage: Where are you right now?
Stuart Staples: I’m in my studio.
This is separate from your living space?...
- 10/31/2022
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
The centerpiece of Claire Denis’ “Stars at Noon” plays out in a stilled, near-empty nightclub suffused with violet light, where two strangers in a strange land share a moment of swooning intimacy. We glimpse Trish (Margaret Qualley) first adrift in the dark before two hands, belonging to the Englishman (Joe Alwyn) she’s become entangled with, materialize at her waist. She grips a sleeve of his white linen suit, clutching its fabric, as he leans close enough to breathe her scent; they sway, eyes shut, before she throws her arms around him.
Awash in the languid, discarnate grooves of a title track crooned by Stuart Staples, of long-time Denis collaborators Tindersticks, the two cling together as if drowning, their slow dance slipping out of time and space into a realm of overpowering emotional and physical sensation, if only for a few minutes.
Continue reading ‘Stars At Noon’: Claire Denis & Margaret Qualley On Slow-Dancing,...
Awash in the languid, discarnate grooves of a title track crooned by Stuart Staples, of long-time Denis collaborators Tindersticks, the two cling together as if drowning, their slow dance slipping out of time and space into a realm of overpowering emotional and physical sensation, if only for a few minutes.
Continue reading ‘Stars At Noon’: Claire Denis & Margaret Qualley On Slow-Dancing,...
- 10/13/2022
- by Isaac Feldberg
- The Playlist
An astronaut on an odyssey to a distant black hole faces the challenges of parenting – and existential panic – in Claire Denis’ superbly eerie, mysterious space drama
Claire Denis’s deep-space trauma High Life is an Old Testament parable catapulted forward into the 23rd century, a primal scene in a pressurised cabin of sci-fi pessimism, suppressed horror and denied panic. As if in a recurring dream, Denis brings us repeatedly to the image of a cream-panelled spaceship corridor that curves sharply around to the right; the area is at first pristine and then, as the years go by, shabby and derelict, stained with what may be body fluids. And what is around that corner?
This is a bizarre new creationist myth for those of us who ever wondered in childhood, and then forgot to wonder, about the taboo-breaking involved in propagating a race from just two people in the Garden of Eden,...
Claire Denis’s deep-space trauma High Life is an Old Testament parable catapulted forward into the 23rd century, a primal scene in a pressurised cabin of sci-fi pessimism, suppressed horror and denied panic. As if in a recurring dream, Denis brings us repeatedly to the image of a cream-panelled spaceship corridor that curves sharply around to the right; the area is at first pristine and then, as the years go by, shabby and derelict, stained with what may be body fluids. And what is around that corner?
This is a bizarre new creationist myth for those of us who ever wondered in childhood, and then forgot to wonder, about the taboo-breaking involved in propagating a race from just two people in the Garden of Eden,...
- 5/8/2019
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
As the vampire stud of the Twilight franchise, Robert Pattinson hit multiplex paydirt. Since then, he’s been raising his personal bar in the indie sphere (Good Time, Damsel). The star does himself proud in this elusive but bracing brainteaser from Claire Denis, the great French filmmaker (Beau Travail, Trouble Every Day) who’d much rather challenge audiences than coddle them. High Life is the writer-director’s first film in English, and the only one set in space. In the script she wrote with Jean-Pol Fargeau, her concerns about existence...
- 4/2/2019
- by Peter Travers
- Rollingstone.com
A24 has bought North American distribution rights to Claire Denis’ sci-fi drama “High Life,” starring Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, Mia Goth and André Benjamin.
“High Life” premiered Sept. 9 at the Toronto Film Festival and is the first English-language feature film for Denis, who directed from a script she wrote with Jean-Pol Fargeau and Geoff Cox.
The story is set on a spaceship traveling with a group of criminals on board. The criminals have been tricked into believing they will be freed if they participate in a mission towards a black hole to find an alternate energy source, while undergoing sexual experiments by the scientists on board. Pattinson’s character is caring for his baby daughter while on the ship.
Jessica Kiang gave “High Life” a positive review for Variety: “This kinky, often grotesque melding of genre science-fiction with all-out body horror is an audacious project, but the scope of its...
“High Life” premiered Sept. 9 at the Toronto Film Festival and is the first English-language feature film for Denis, who directed from a script she wrote with Jean-Pol Fargeau and Geoff Cox.
The story is set on a spaceship traveling with a group of criminals on board. The criminals have been tricked into believing they will be freed if they participate in a mission towards a black hole to find an alternate energy source, while undergoing sexual experiments by the scientists on board. Pattinson’s character is caring for his baby daughter while on the ship.
Jessica Kiang gave “High Life” a positive review for Variety: “This kinky, often grotesque melding of genre science-fiction with all-out body horror is an audacious project, but the scope of its...
- 9/13/2018
- by Dave McNary
- Variety Film + TV
When we use the term “science fiction,” almost invariably the branch of science we’re thinking of is physics: Quantum levels and warp speeds, artificial intelligence and advanced alien technologies. But Claire Denis’ first English-language film, the extraordinary, difficult, hypnotic, and repulsive “High Life” doesn’t give a damn about physics, and not just in the way that bodies tumble wrongly out of airlocks and nobody seems to spend a moment of their day engaged in cosmic problem-solving. In the science fiction of Denis’ forbiddingly austere and audacious imagining, the science is biology: Out here, we are not made of stars but of blood, hair, spit and semen.
We’re far from earth but this earthiness is everywhere. “Never drink your own urine, never eat your own shit — even if they’ve been recycled,” murmurs crew member Monte (Robert Pattinson) to the little baby in his care. “It’s what we call a taboo.
We’re far from earth but this earthiness is everywhere. “Never drink your own urine, never eat your own shit — even if they’ve been recycled,” murmurs crew member Monte (Robert Pattinson) to the little baby in his care. “It’s what we call a taboo.
- 9/10/2018
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
Sergei Eisenstein. Leni Riefenstahl. Michael Moore. Steve Bannon? At an event entitled “Alternative Facts: The Steve Bannon Reality Show” on the opening weekend of the Copenhagen International Documentary Festival (Cph:dox), writer and host Lars Trier Mogensen argued that Trump’s chief strategist might just be the most influential filmmaker among these titans of polemical documentary. A year ago, that claim might have seemed far-fetched.
Back then, the young crowd now packed into the “Social Cinema,” a performance hall in festival’s new center Kunsthal Charlottenborg, had likely never heard of this alt-right auteur. Lounging on stylish sofas, they were willing to sit through nine tedious Bannon trailers and a two-hour analysis of populism and propaganda with a Princeton professor, political scientist Jan-Werner Müller, and artist Christian von Borries. Given Bannon’s disdain for factual integrity, it would be hard to claim that his 90-minute political screeds could even be called documentaries.
Back then, the young crowd now packed into the “Social Cinema,” a performance hall in festival’s new center Kunsthal Charlottenborg, had likely never heard of this alt-right auteur. Lounging on stylish sofas, they were willing to sit through nine tedious Bannon trailers and a two-hour analysis of populism and propaganda with a Princeton professor, political scientist Jan-Werner Müller, and artist Christian von Borries. Given Bannon’s disdain for factual integrity, it would be hard to claim that his 90-minute political screeds could even be called documentaries.
- 4/3/2017
- by Paul Dallas
- Indiewire
Andrew Lauren Productions has partnered with Alcatraz Films, Pandora Film Produktion, The Apocalypse Films and Madants to produce and finance High Life, the English-language debut of acclaimed French filmmaker Claire Denis.
The film, written by Denis, acclaimed novelist Zadie Smith and Nick Laird and set to star Robert Pattinson, Patricia Arquette and Mia Goth, is a sci-fi thriller about convicts who trade in their jail time by agreeing to crew a dangerous mission to a black hole. British musician Stuart Staples of the band Tindersticks and frequent Denis collaborator also has come on board to pen the score.
Andrew Lauren and ...
The film, written by Denis, acclaimed novelist Zadie Smith and Nick Laird and set to star Robert Pattinson, Patricia Arquette and Mia Goth, is a sci-fi thriller about convicts who trade in their jail time by agreeing to crew a dangerous mission to a black hole. British musician Stuart Staples of the band Tindersticks and frequent Denis collaborator also has come on board to pen the score.
Andrew Lauren and ...
- 11/5/2016
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
From acrobatic flies to suckling bees, Smith’s stop-motion nature films astonished viewers a century ago. Now Tindersticks’ Stuart Staples has set them to music in a dark and dreamy movie
Mould spreads like a firework. A bee suckles at a sweet pea bloom like a baby on a breast. Runner bean shoots sway and twirl as gracefully as dancers. It is difficult to put into words the alien strangeness of the microscopic worlds depicted by the pioneering film-maker F Percy Smith. Self-taught and working before and after the first world war, Smith mastered early microscopic, time-lapse and underwater photography with contraptions he fashioned from Meccano, candle wicks and gramophone needles.
Related: Secrets of nature
Continue reading...
Mould spreads like a firework. A bee suckles at a sweet pea bloom like a baby on a breast. Runner bean shoots sway and twirl as gracefully as dancers. It is difficult to put into words the alien strangeness of the microscopic worlds depicted by the pioneering film-maker F Percy Smith. Self-taught and working before and after the first world war, Smith mastered early microscopic, time-lapse and underwater photography with contraptions he fashioned from Meccano, candle wicks and gramophone needles.
Related: Secrets of nature
Continue reading...
- 10/26/2016
- by Patrick Barkham
- The Guardian - Film News
Stuart A. Staples has been making music as part of Tindersticks for 25 years. The band, in a couple different incarnations, has created not only its own records, but six scores for films by Claire Denis, with a seventh to be written for the director later this year for her upcoming “High Life.” The latest proper Tindersticks LP, "The Waiting Room", acts in a way as a bridge between the band’s music and the world of cinema. The record is accompanied by a set of 11 short films, one for each song, from filmmakers including Denis, Christoph Girardet, Pierre Vinour, Rosie Pedlow and Joe King, Gregorio Graziosi, Richard Dumas and Gabriel Sanna. Read More: New Plot Details Emerge For Claire Denis' Sci-Fi 'High Life' With Robert Pattinson As Staples explained by phone as he works with the band to prepare a spring European tour, the short films accompanying...
- 2/16/2016
- by Russ Fischer
- The Playlist
Exclusive: Company also reveals more details about Claire Denis’s High Life and will show fresh footage of Emir Kusturica’s On The Milky Road.
Wild Bunch will kick-off sales on an authorised, no-holds-barred documentary about legendary Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi at the upcoming Efm.
Simply entitled Rocco, the documentary features a candid interview with the star in which he speaks about his true life, touching on his early career, fame and life with his wife of 20 years, Rosa Caracciolo, who he co-starred with in Tarzan X: Shame Of Jane- before they married and went on to have two children together.
Sometimes referred to as the “Italian stallion”, Siffredi has appeared in more than 1,500 films over his 30-year career and also dabbled briefly in the French arthouse cinema world, appearing in Catherine Breillat’s Romance and Anatomy Of Hell.
The film also follows Siffredi’s recent decision to quit the porn business for good, shortly after appearing...
Wild Bunch will kick-off sales on an authorised, no-holds-barred documentary about legendary Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi at the upcoming Efm.
Simply entitled Rocco, the documentary features a candid interview with the star in which he speaks about his true life, touching on his early career, fame and life with his wife of 20 years, Rosa Caracciolo, who he co-starred with in Tarzan X: Shame Of Jane- before they married and went on to have two children together.
Sometimes referred to as the “Italian stallion”, Siffredi has appeared in more than 1,500 films over his 30-year career and also dabbled briefly in the French arthouse cinema world, appearing in Catherine Breillat’s Romance and Anatomy Of Hell.
The film also follows Siffredi’s recent decision to quit the porn business for good, shortly after appearing...
- 2/8/2016
- ScreenDaily
If you’ve listened to a lot of Tindersticks — or seen almost any Claire Denis movie — you might agree that few contemporary bands so deserve a visual album. Marked by enigmatic lyrics, opulent production, and weighty arrangements, their songs create vivid images of longing, pain, and atmosphere — like a series of unrequited romances playing out inside the most densely populated and well-lit French café. Needless to say, their new album, The Waiting Room, caught my attention for taking just that approach.
Ahead of an official release on January 22, Tindersticks have debuted their album and full, 51-minute video project on NPR. Several international artists (including Denis and frontman Stuart A. Staples) have directing credits, each operating under the rule that their works “should attempt not to describe the music, but to create a visual counter-point, a space for the music to inhabit.” What emerges — contrary to the way I often envision...
Ahead of an official release on January 22, Tindersticks have debuted their album and full, 51-minute video project on NPR. Several international artists (including Denis and frontman Stuart A. Staples) have directing credits, each operating under the rule that their works “should attempt not to describe the music, but to create a visual counter-point, a space for the music to inhabit.” What emerges — contrary to the way I often envision...
- 1/15/2016
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
The arrival of a new Claire Denis film is enough itself to incur anticipation, but when it seems to be an unexpected, outside-the-box project, we’re even more intrigued. Such is the case for her follow-up to Bastards, a science-fiction drama now revealed to be titled High Life. Written by Zadie Smith and Nick Laird, Robert Pattinson is set to lead as an astronaut, and now we have our first substantial plot details and additional cast members.
ScreenDaily reports Patricia Arquette, who won an Oscar last year for Boyhood, and Mia Goth (Nymphomaniac) have joined the cast. Denis’s English-language debut follows “a group of skilled criminals who, in a bid to escape their long sentences or capital punishment, accept a likely-fatal government space mission to find alternative energy sources.” It sounds like a fascinating change-up for the director and we can’t wait to see the results.
Additional collaborators...
ScreenDaily reports Patricia Arquette, who won an Oscar last year for Boyhood, and Mia Goth (Nymphomaniac) have joined the cast. Denis’s English-language debut follows “a group of skilled criminals who, in a bid to escape their long sentences or capital punishment, accept a likely-fatal government space mission to find alternative energy sources.” It sounds like a fascinating change-up for the director and we can’t wait to see the results.
Additional collaborators...
- 10/26/2015
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Exclusive: Oscar-winner joins sci-fi alongside Robert Pattinson, Mia Goth.
Oscar-winner Patricia Arquette (Boyhood) has joined Robert Pattinson (Twilight) and Mia Goth (The Survivalist) in the cast of Claire Denis’ anticipated untitled sci-fi, written by UK novelist Zadie Smith (White Teeth) and Smith’s writer husband Nick Laird.
Denis’ English-language debut, due to shoot next year, is understood to follow a group of skilled criminals who, in a bid to escape their long sentences or capital punishment, accept a likely-fatal government space mission to find alternative energy sources.
The project, which ScreenDaily first reported in June, marks an intriguing change of direction for the White Material and Beau Travail writer-director.
The story is based on an original idea by Denis and her regular writing partner Jean-Pol Fargeau, and is due to go into production early next year.
Producers are Oliver Dungey (Miss Julie), Laurence Clerc and Olivier Thery Lapiney from Paris-based Alcatraz Films, and [link=nm...
Oscar-winner Patricia Arquette (Boyhood) has joined Robert Pattinson (Twilight) and Mia Goth (The Survivalist) in the cast of Claire Denis’ anticipated untitled sci-fi, written by UK novelist Zadie Smith (White Teeth) and Smith’s writer husband Nick Laird.
Denis’ English-language debut, due to shoot next year, is understood to follow a group of skilled criminals who, in a bid to escape their long sentences or capital punishment, accept a likely-fatal government space mission to find alternative energy sources.
The project, which ScreenDaily first reported in June, marks an intriguing change of direction for the White Material and Beau Travail writer-director.
The story is based on an original idea by Denis and her regular writing partner Jean-Pol Fargeau, and is due to go into production early next year.
Producers are Oliver Dungey (Miss Julie), Laurence Clerc and Olivier Thery Lapiney from Paris-based Alcatraz Films, and [link=nm...
- 10/26/2015
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
Robert Pattinson: Actor to play E.T. astronaut. Robert Pattinson to star for Claire Denis If all goes as planned, Robert Pattinson will get to star in French screenwriter-director Claire Denis' recently announced – and as yet untitled – English-language sci-fier, penned by Denis and White Teeth author Zadie Smith and her novelist husband Nick Laird, from an original idea by Denis and writing partner Jean-Pol Fargeau. Among Claire Denis' credits are the interracial love story Chocolat (1988), the sociopolitical drama White Material (2009), and the generally well-regarded Billy Budd reboot Beau Travail (1999), winner of the César Award for Best Cinematography (Agnès Godard). Robert Pattinson, for his part, is best known for playing the veggie vampire in the wildly popular Twilight movies costarring Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner. Robert Pattinson, astronaut In Claire Denis' film, Robert Pattinson is slated to play an E.T. astronaut. But what happens to said astronaut? Does...
- 8/27/2015
- by Zac Gille
- Alt Film Guide
In June, word arrived that Beau Travail director Claire Denis was planning an ambitious film to mark her English-language debut: an untitled science fiction project. She’s now locked in a star, with Robert Pattinson confirmed for a lead role.The script comes from White Teeth author Zadie Smith and her husband Nick Laird, though the specifics of the idea (conceived by Denis and regular writing partner Jean-Pol Fargeau) are being held back for now. We do know, however, that it will take place beyond the solar system in a future time that nevertheless feels like the present. Pattinson is attached to play the lead, an astronaut. There is an eclectic group collaborating on the design and development of the new film including artist Olafur Eliasson, astrophysicist Aurélien Barrau, a specialist in black holes and cosmology, and musician Stuart Staples, who wrote tracks for White Material and another Denis project,...
- 8/26/2015
- EmpireOnline
Robert Pattinson is attached to play the lead role in Claire Denis’ upcoming English-language sci-fi film, written with British writer Zadie Smith.
Pattinson is set to play the astronaut lead role in the as-yet-untitled film, which Screen first reported on in June.
Plot details are being kept under wraps but it is known to take place beyond the solar system in a ‘future that seems like the present’.
Denis is writing the script with acclaimed novelist Smith (White Teeth) and Smith’s writer husband Nick Laird.
The project, which marks an intriguing change of direction for the White Material and Beau Travail writer-director, is based on an original idea by Denis and her regular writing partner Jean-Pol Fargeau, and is due to go into production early next year.
Producers are Oliver Dungey (Miss Julie), Laurence Clerc and Olivier Thery Lapiney from Paris-based Alcatraz Films, and Claudia Steffen and Christoph Friedel of Pandora Filmproduktion in Cologne.
Paris-based producers...
Pattinson is set to play the astronaut lead role in the as-yet-untitled film, which Screen first reported on in June.
Plot details are being kept under wraps but it is known to take place beyond the solar system in a ‘future that seems like the present’.
Denis is writing the script with acclaimed novelist Smith (White Teeth) and Smith’s writer husband Nick Laird.
The project, which marks an intriguing change of direction for the White Material and Beau Travail writer-director, is based on an original idea by Denis and her regular writing partner Jean-Pol Fargeau, and is due to go into production early next year.
Producers are Oliver Dungey (Miss Julie), Laurence Clerc and Olivier Thery Lapiney from Paris-based Alcatraz Films, and Claudia Steffen and Christoph Friedel of Pandora Filmproduktion in Cologne.
Paris-based producers...
- 8/26/2015
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
Transgressive French director Claire Denis (Trouble Everyday, White Material) is making her English language debut with a space drama that is said to "take place beyond the solar system in a future time that nevertheless feels like the present."
Denise has teamed up with English novelist Zadie Smith and her husband Nick Laird who will write the screenplay for the project that comes from an original idea conceived by Denis and her writing partner Jean-Pol Fargeau.
Hard science fiction nerds will be happy hear that this female power-team has also brought in an interesting group to help on the project including astrophysicist Aurélien Barrau, a specialist in black holes and cosmology, artist Olafur Eliasson and musician Stuart Staples, who wrote tracks for White Ma [Continued ...]...
Denise has teamed up with English novelist Zadie Smith and her husband Nick Laird who will write the screenplay for the project that comes from an original idea conceived by Denis and her writing partner Jean-Pol Fargeau.
Hard science fiction nerds will be happy hear that this female power-team has also brought in an interesting group to help on the project including astrophysicist Aurélien Barrau, a specialist in black holes and cosmology, artist Olafur Eliasson and musician Stuart Staples, who wrote tracks for White Ma [Continued ...]...
- 6/29/2015
- QuietEarth.us
Novelist Zadie Smith will be writing her first screenplay with the acclaimed French director Claire Denis. They'll be co-writing the script with Smith's husband, the poet Nick Laird. According to Screen Daily, the as-yet-untitled film will be Denis's first English-language film, and will be a sci-fi adventure set in another solar system beyond ours in a "future that seems like the present." Besides the famous writing couple, Denis has enlisted other creative geniuses in the project, including the installation artist Olafur Eliasson, astrophysicist Aurélien Barrau, and Stuart Staples of the British rock band Tindersticks, who did some music for Denis’s 2004 drama The Intruder. We expect to see a lot of beautiful mixed-race space aliens dancing in kaleidoscopic rooms.
- 6/29/2015
- by E. Alex Jung
- Vulture
It’s not every director who choses to make their English-language debt by venturing into the wilds of science fiction. But that’s exactly the plan for Beau Travail/ White Material filmmaker Claire Denis, who is developing an untitled drama set in space. Denis is keeping most of the plot details sealed behind an airlock for now, but Screen International has been able to discover that it will take place beyond the solar system in a future time that nevertheless feels like the present.She’s working on the project with writer Zadie Smith and her husband Nick Laird, working from an original idea conceived by Denis and regular writing partner Jean-Pol Fargeau. And there is an eclectic group also collaborating on the design and development of the new film including artist Olafur Eliasson, astrophysicist Aurélien Barrau, a specialist in black holes and cosmology, and musician Stuart Staples, who wrote...
- 6/29/2015
- EmpireOnline
Whether you're an arthouse fan or literature lover, this news is going to be a pretty exciting. And if you have a foot in each camp, then today is truly one that edges toward being mindblowing, because no one could have guessed this kind of collaboration was coming. Screen Daily reports that French auteur Claire Denis will make her English language debut with a sci-fi film set in space, co-penned by the filmmaker with acclaimed author Zadie Smith ("White Teeth," "On Beauty") and Nick Laird. Plot details aren't being shared just yet, except that the story will be set "beyond the solar system in a ‘future that seems like the present.’ " So yes, we're already totally on board. And the list of collaborators is even more fascinating with Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, and astrophysicist Aurélien Barrau lending their skills, with Stuart Staples of Tindersticks one again reteaming with Denis to score the movie.
- 6/29/2015
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
"Claire Denis is teaming with British writer Zadie Smith on her first English-language film, which is set in space," reports Screen's Andreas Wiseman. She'll also be working with Olafur Eliasson, astrophysicist Aurélien Barrau and, once again, with Stuart Staples of Tindersticks. Also in the works: Todd Solondz's Wiener-Dog, a sort-of sequel to Welcome to the Dollhouse, with Greta Gerwig, Julie Delpy, Kieran Culkin, Danny DeVito, Brie Larson, Ellen Burstyn, Zosia Mamet and Tracy Letts. William Friedkin will direct and executive produce a TV adaptation of his 1985 film To Live and Die in L.A. Miroslav Slaboshpitsky's followup to The Tribe, Luxembourg, gets funding. And more. » - David Hudson...
- 6/29/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
"Claire Denis is teaming with British writer Zadie Smith on her first English-language film, which is set in space," reports Screen's Andreas Wiseman. She'll also be working with Olafur Eliasson, astrophysicist Aurélien Barrau and, once again, with Stuart Staples of Tindersticks. Also in the works: Todd Solondz's Wiener-Dog, a sort-of sequel to Welcome to the Dollhouse, with Greta Gerwig, Julie Delpy, Kieran Culkin, Danny DeVito, Brie Larson, Ellen Burstyn, Zosia Mamet and Tracy Letts. William Friedkin will direct and executive produce a TV adaptation of his 1985 film To Live and Die in L.A. Miroslav Slaboshpitsky's followup to The Tribe, Luxembourg, gets funding. And more. » - David Hudson...
- 6/29/2015
- Keyframe
Exclusive: French director’s first English-language film is set in space; artist Olafur Eliasson among collaborators.
French director Claire Denis is teaming with British writer Zadie Smith on her first English-language film, which is set in space.
Plot details are being kept under wraps on the as-yet untitled adventure-sci-fi but it is known to take place beyond the solar system in a ‘future that seems like the present’.
Denis is writing the script with acclaimed novelist Smith (White Teeth) and Smith’s writer husband Nick Laird.
The project, which marks an intriguing change of direction for the White Material and Beau Travail writer-director, is based on an original idea by Denis and her regular writing partner Jean-Pol Fargeau.
Producers are Oliver Dungey (Miss Julie), Laurence Clerc and Olivier Thery Lapiney from Paris-based Alcatraz Films, and Claudia Steffen and Christoph Friedel of Pandora Filmproduktion in Cologne.
Alcatraz and Pandora produced Denis’ most recent feature Bastards, which debuted...
French director Claire Denis is teaming with British writer Zadie Smith on her first English-language film, which is set in space.
Plot details are being kept under wraps on the as-yet untitled adventure-sci-fi but it is known to take place beyond the solar system in a ‘future that seems like the present’.
Denis is writing the script with acclaimed novelist Smith (White Teeth) and Smith’s writer husband Nick Laird.
The project, which marks an intriguing change of direction for the White Material and Beau Travail writer-director, is based on an original idea by Denis and her regular writing partner Jean-Pol Fargeau.
Producers are Oliver Dungey (Miss Julie), Laurence Clerc and Olivier Thery Lapiney from Paris-based Alcatraz Films, and Claudia Steffen and Christoph Friedel of Pandora Filmproduktion in Cologne.
Alcatraz and Pandora produced Denis’ most recent feature Bastards, which debuted...
- 6/29/2015
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
Photo © 2013 Wild Bunch - Alcatraz Movies - Arte France Cinema - Pandora Film Produktion.
Bastards [Les salauds] begins, like Garrel's Un été brûlant, at night, with a suicide. An explanation for the gesture will never come, although, through the film's near imperceptible ellipses, it comes close. A film of profoundly somber gloam, of loneliness and anger and even stifled madness, of complicity and solitude, its sadness is almost absolute.
A torrid string connects a cast predominantly made up from Claire Denis' family of actors: Vincent Lindon, Michel Subor, Alex Descas, Grégoire Colin. There are so many of them that they stand out as coming from somewhere before, some shared place, and their figures seem at once human and also something more so, grander, archetypal. (Lola Créton creates a similar effect in a small role with such a brief but so recognizable presence that it both reaches outside the story, as well as expanding something within.
Bastards [Les salauds] begins, like Garrel's Un été brûlant, at night, with a suicide. An explanation for the gesture will never come, although, through the film's near imperceptible ellipses, it comes close. A film of profoundly somber gloam, of loneliness and anger and even stifled madness, of complicity and solitude, its sadness is almost absolute.
A torrid string connects a cast predominantly made up from Claire Denis' family of actors: Vincent Lindon, Michel Subor, Alex Descas, Grégoire Colin. There are so many of them that they stand out as coming from somewhere before, some shared place, and their figures seem at once human and also something more so, grander, archetypal. (Lola Créton creates a similar effect in a small role with such a brief but so recognizable presence that it both reaches outside the story, as well as expanding something within.
- 10/11/2013
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
Updated through 4/30.
The San Francisco International Film Festival (Sfiff), the longest one running in the Americas, opens tonight with Mike Mills's Beginners and closes on May 5 with Mathieu Amalric's On Tour. Among the 150 films screening in between, give or take, will be the centerpiece, Azazel Jacobs's Terri.
"In terms of artistic achievement, it's safe to say no producer has contributed to independent American cinema over the last two decades like Christine Vachon," writes Dennis Harvey, introducing his interview. Vachon will be delivering the State of Cinema address on Sunday evening (it's a busy time for her; she's also on Tribeca's Documentary and Student Short Film Competitions jury). Also at SF360, Michael Fox has cinema studies professor Bill Nichols give him a preview of the discussion he'll be leading on the Social Justice Documentary and talks with Bay Area filmmakers who have work in the lineup.
Max Goldberg...
The San Francisco International Film Festival (Sfiff), the longest one running in the Americas, opens tonight with Mike Mills's Beginners and closes on May 5 with Mathieu Amalric's On Tour. Among the 150 films screening in between, give or take, will be the centerpiece, Azazel Jacobs's Terri.
"In terms of artistic achievement, it's safe to say no producer has contributed to independent American cinema over the last two decades like Christine Vachon," writes Dennis Harvey, introducing his interview. Vachon will be delivering the State of Cinema address on Sunday evening (it's a busy time for her; she's also on Tribeca's Documentary and Student Short Film Competitions jury). Also at SF360, Michael Fox has cinema studies professor Bill Nichols give him a preview of the discussion he'll be leading on the Social Justice Documentary and talks with Bay Area filmmakers who have work in the lineup.
Max Goldberg...
- 4/30/2011
- MUBI
Chicago – Africa has routinely played a major role in the work of Claire Denis, a French writer/director deservedly hailed as one of the greatest living filmmakers. Her upbringing in colonial Africa certainly proved to be an influence on her 1988 directorial debut, “Chocolat,” as well as 1999’s equally evocative “Beau travail.” Both films centered on protagonists re-connecting with their deep-seated memories of life on the continent.
“White Material” could easily be seen as the completion of a thematic trilogy, though it also stands on its own as a singularly haunting and disturbing work of art. The death of European colonialism is reluctantly witnessed through the eyes of Maria (Isabelle Huppert), a white plantation owner in Africa whose love of the land and devotion to her coffee crop causes her to deny the civil war gradually consuming her country. Even with a gun pointed at her head, Maria’s determination remains unflinching.
“White Material” could easily be seen as the completion of a thematic trilogy, though it also stands on its own as a singularly haunting and disturbing work of art. The death of European colonialism is reluctantly witnessed through the eyes of Maria (Isabelle Huppert), a white plantation owner in Africa whose love of the land and devotion to her coffee crop causes her to deny the civil war gradually consuming her country. Even with a gun pointed at her head, Maria’s determination remains unflinching.
- 4/26/2011
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Since her 1988 debut Chocolat, Claire Denis has established herself as one of France's most respected film directors, with a wide-ranging body of work and a taste for danger. Her latest film, White Material, which stars Isabelle Huppert, draws again upon her colonial African childhood, and its violence has sparked
controversy in the French press. Not that she cares…
One of the lingering charms of the Left Bank of Paris in the 21st century is that, although much of the area has long since surrendered to chain stores and fast-food joints, the streets between Boulevard Saint-Michel and rue Mouffetard are still dotted with fleapit cinemas with names such as L'Accattone, Studio Galande and Le Champo. On any given afternoon – to take a random sample from the programmes on offer in these places last week – you can take in Battleship Potemkin, a Buñuel retrospective, a lesser-known Fellini, or Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar...
controversy in the French press. Not that she cares…
One of the lingering charms of the Left Bank of Paris in the 21st century is that, although much of the area has long since surrendered to chain stores and fast-food joints, the streets between Boulevard Saint-Michel and rue Mouffetard are still dotted with fleapit cinemas with names such as L'Accattone, Studio Galande and Le Champo. On any given afternoon – to take a random sample from the programmes on offer in these places last week – you can take in Battleship Potemkin, a Buñuel retrospective, a lesser-known Fellini, or Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar...
- 7/3/2010
- by Andrew Hussey
- The Guardian - Film News
Tindersticks frontman Stuart Staples has a heady baritone that vibrates on a frequency not too far removed from an amplified guitar with superior sustain. On the band’s early albums, Staples’ voice was often the main attraction; while the other Tindersticks plucked idly, sawed softly, blew gently, and tapped lightly, Staples took center stage, moaning about people tortured by their own impulses. Then the band began to experiment with R&B, and Staples took on a different role, more akin to a human translator for the desires expressed by the slinky instrumentation. Now, on Falling Down A Mountain, Staples’ vocals ...
- 2/16/2010
- avclub.com
Lev Lewis signing off from the Toronto International Film Festival
For ten days a year my little big city is overtaken by the masses of the film industry. Celebrities of all kinds are spotted walking casually through Yonge St.; semi-recognizable journalists with their green laniards hurry from screening to screening. A little piece of Hollywood just one streetcar ride away from me. So, it's odd to see how a city can overnight seem the centre of the world and then, just like that, retreat back to its former, seemingly dull self.
Not that I'm complaining. As exciting as the last ten days have been, a respite from line-ups and writing and, yes, even films, will be most welcome. 18 films in ten days isn't an exorbitant amount but it's more than enough for me. I'll leave you with a write-up on the best films I saw at the festival.
Now for the movies!
For ten days a year my little big city is overtaken by the masses of the film industry. Celebrities of all kinds are spotted walking casually through Yonge St.; semi-recognizable journalists with their green laniards hurry from screening to screening. A little piece of Hollywood just one streetcar ride away from me. So, it's odd to see how a city can overnight seem the centre of the world and then, just like that, retreat back to its former, seemingly dull self.
Not that I'm complaining. As exciting as the last ten days have been, a respite from line-ups and writing and, yes, even films, will be most welcome. 18 films in ten days isn't an exorbitant amount but it's more than enough for me. I'll leave you with a write-up on the best films I saw at the festival.
Now for the movies!
- 9/20/2009
- by Lev Lewis
- FilmExperience
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