Michael Shannon Directs (and Chats on The Last Thing I Saw)

Shannon directed Eric LaRue, which just premiered at Tribeca

Dear Last Thing I Sawfolk,

This week I interviewed Michael Shannon on the podcast. He’s an actor who brings a unique intensity—which is an overused word, but it certainly applies to him. Here I ask him about a new movie he directed, Eric LaRue, which stars Judy Greer and Alexander Skarsgard and premiered at Tribeca last week. (Pictured above is Shannon in Take Shelter.)

Shannon talks about seeing the original production of Eric LaRue, written by Brett Neveu (who wrote the screenplay for the film too); casting and directing Judy Greer and Alex Skarsgard as the parents of a teenager imprisoned for murder; his favorite playwright; and an upcoming movie he stars in, The End, directed by Joshua Oppenheimer (The Act of Killing).

Also: he shares the last movie he saw! Which brought the chat to an especially delightful conclusion.

Thank you to all my supporters!

Nic

THE PODCAST

Michael Shannon Directs (Eric LaRue) [Ep. 187]

Episodes of The Last Thing I Saw are also available at other podcast places such as Spotify.

For more information on the podcast’s opening and closing music by The Minarets (gratefully used with permission), follow the band on Instagram:

@theminaretsmusic

RECENT WORK

For Sight & Sound, I wrote a little something about the Godard film that premiered at Cannes, but I don’t think it’s available online. So here’s a New York Times feature that I wrote years ago about 3-D where I talked to Fabrice Aragno—Godard’s DP and his close collaborator on the new film—about making Goodbye to Language.

The Tribeca Festival announced the awards for the 2023 edition, and two of the documentaries I wrote about for the Times won prizes: Q, directed by Jude Chehab, and Between the Rains, directed by Andrew H. Brown and Moses Thuranira.

THIS CRITIC’S PICKS

Moonlight (HBO MAX)

Idiocracy (Hulu)

Cameraperson (HBO MAX)

Election 2 (Criterion) the Johnnie To HK crime film

Crimes of the Future (MUBI) the 1970 short

THE END

Here I may end with a song.

ABOUT ME

Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw! I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold.

Besides hosting the podcast, I’m a writer and an editor. My features, interviews, festival reports, and reviews are published in The New York Times, Screen Slate, Sight & Sound, Filmmaker, Air Mail, and W Magazine. (Plus dearly departed publications such as The Village Voice, Stop Smiling, The New York Sun, and The L Magazine.) For notes on past programming, drop me a line.

On the editorial side, I worked as editor-in-chief of Film Comment magazine, where I was in editorial for 15 years in all. There I assigned and edited both web and print, hosted The Film Comment Podcast and Talks, curated and hosted Film Comment Selects screenings, learned from brilliant writers, and wrote a lot, including interviews with Spike Lee, Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, Pedro Costa, and Frederick Wiseman. Film Comment received the Film Heritage Award from the National Society of Film Critics.

Feel free to get in touch re: writing, editing, moderating, programming, podcasting, etc.

nicolas.rapold@gmail.com