Insights I Have Gleaned About Movies in Talking to Others + A New Interview for Your Enjoyment
See above
This time I bring to you not one, not two, but three podcasts. I also had a terrific chat with Genevieve Yue and Nico Baumbach about important subjects such as the essay film and Tony Longo and The Red Balloon (see below). And you already know about the David Fincher and Donald Graham Burt interview.
But there’s a new interview up now too: Alexander Nanau, director of the acclaimed investigative documentary Collective, who talks about following journalists exposing corruption and about the influence of theater on his filmmaking.
Look out for more delightful movie chats with critics Molly Haskell, Michael Koresky, and Beatrice Loayza, as well as filmmakers to be revealed later with a flourish!
If you like this sort of thing, please support The Last Thing I Saw with a paid subscription. It’s just the sort of devil-may-care thing one should do as springtime brightens our days and quickens our spirits. Subscriptions are available by clicking below, all working out to something like a dollar a week, surely a bargain for high-quality yammering with my movie-lovin’ colleagues.
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NEW PODCAST NOTES
Episode 39: Interview with Alexander Nanau, Director of Collective
Six years ago, a deadly fire at a Romanian nightclub led to protests that eventually toppled the prime minister of the country. In Collective, filmmaker Alexander Nanau follows a team of journalists as they uncover flagrant corruption with the help of whistleblowers. I spoke with Alex about the film, which he directed, produced, edited, and operated camera on.
Episode 38: The Red Balloon, Tony Longo, The Gleaners and I with Genevieve Yue and Nico Baumbach
Titles/topics discussed: Implicit Movies at Metrograph, Mulholland Drive, Los Angeles Plays Itself, The Gleaners and I, Boca de Lixo (Eduardo Coutinho), Uncut Gems, Adam Curtis’s Can’t Get You Out of My Head, the board game Risk, The Black Balloon, and The Red Balloon
Genevieve Yue is an assistant professor of culture and media at the New School and author of Girl Head: Feminism and Film Materiality. She programmed the series Implicit Series at Metrograph. As part of my Bring a Friend podcast initiative, she invited Nico Baumbach, an associate professor of film and media at Columbia University.
Episode 37: Interview with David Fincher and Donald Graham Burt
An interview with Fincher and his longtime production designer (working together from Zodiac through Mank).
For more information on the intro music by The Minarets (gratefully used with permission):
Instagram: @theminaretsmusic
https://www.facebook.com/TheMinaretsMusic
https://soundcloud.com/theminaretsmusic
THIS CRITIC’S PICKS
Exterminate All the Brutes (HBO MAX) – from Raoul Peck, the director of I Am Not Your Negro
THE END
Here I might end with a song.
ABOUT ME
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw newsletter and podcast (one of Sight & Sound’s Top Ten Film Podcasts). This is my way of staying in touch and sharing what I’ve been up to. By way of introduction, I’m a writer and an editor. I’ve worked as the editor-in-chief of Film Comment, where I assigned and edited both web and print, hosted its podcast and talks and screenings, learned from brilliant writers, curated Film Comment Selects, and wrote a lot myself. Film Comment was subsequently awarded the Film Heritage Award by the National Society of Film Critics (an honor historically awarded to the Museum of Modern Art and other institutions).
Besides Film Comment, my features, interviews, and reviews have been published in The New York Times, Artforum, Sight & Sound, and dearly departed publications such as The Village Voice, Stop Smiling, The New York Sun, and The L Magazine.
I miss going out to the movies, especially repertory cinemas, and milling about and chatting, and so the natural response is to inflict a podcast on friends and strangers alike.
As always, feel free to contact me re: writing, editing, moderating, podcasting, etc.
nicolas.rapold@gmail.com