Talking Pictures!? Léa Seydoux, Amalia Ulman, Isabelle Huppert, Richard Linklater, and more
And other names. Podcasts! Stuff I wrote! A feast for eyes and ears!
It’s been a busy but delightful few weeks. I interviewed the actress Léa Seydoux (No Time to Die, The French Dispatch, France) for The New York Times, and a long-simmering piece about filmmakers with movie theaters was published on Criterion. Wouldn’t you know it that the two pieces landed on the same day, thus necessitating a long parade followed by a longer nap.
But wait, that’s not all! I’m proud of my two most recent episodes on The Last Thing I Saw podcast. First I talked with filmmaker and gallery/net artist Amalia Ulman about her excellent film El Planeta and the fascinating Last Things she’s seen. And then I posted a chat about Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s new film, Memoria, with Giovanni Marchini Camia. He was the official chronicler on set and offers an inside look at one of our greatest living filmmakers.
Remember to support The Last Thing I Saw by subscribing below! It’s simply the best thing to do on a cloudy day like today. Oddly enough it’s also great on sunny days and during any other conceivable variation on the weather.
Thanks for listening and reading!
Nic
NEW PODCAST NOTES
Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria, with Set Chronicler Giovanni Marchini Camia
Available here on Apple iTunes.
Memoria premiered at the Cannes film festival, recently screened at the New York Film Festival, and will be released in the U.S. Giovanni Marchini Camia is a Berlin-based writer, editor and programmer. He is the co-founder of Fireflies Press, a publishing house specialising in contemporary cinema.
The Memoria book discussed on this podcast is available from Fireflies Press as part of their Decadent Editions series.
Director Amalia Ulman on her film El Planeta, Venice films, Chinese independents, and more
Available here on Apple iTunes.
Amalia Ulman is the director of El Planeta, currently in theaters, and has worked as a visual artist for more than a decade, primarily in video, net art, and installations.
More episodes
Paid subscribers can access the Toronto festival podcasts featuring Terence Davies’ Benediction and Robert Greene’s Procession with Eric Hynes, and Amy Taubin on Céline Sciamma’s Petite Maman and cinema in the age of streaming.
For more information on the podcast’s opening music by The Minarets (gratefully used with permission):
Follow the band on Instagram:
@theminaretsmusic
www.facebook.com/TheMinaretsMusic
twitter.com/MinaretsMusic
MY RECENT WRITING
For The New York Times, I interviewed Léa Seydoux. She stars in the new James Bond film No Time to Die, nails her comic role in the next Wes Anderson film The French Dispatch, and plays the TV news journalist at the center of France, a movie directed by Bruno Dumont that opens in December. It was a terrific and fun conversation covering her work in all of these movies and more.
For The Criterion Collection, I wrote about filmmakers with their own movie theaters. I interviewed Richard Linklater, Isabelle Huppert, Tsai Ming-liang, and, representing the Maysles Documentary Center, programmer Inney Prakash. This piece took a while (and scheduling simply didn’t work out with some additional filmmakers) but it was all worth it and I’m happy that they used the poster art I got from Linklater and Tsai. I’ve wanted to write this piece for a while.
THIS CRITIC’S PICKS
Delectable selections for home viewing.
Never Rarely Sometimes Always (HBO Max)
Pepi, Luci, Bom Y Otras Chicas del Monton [Pedro Almodóvar, 1980] (HBO MAX)
Do the Right Thing (Criterion)
THE END
Here I may end with a song.
ABOUT ME
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, which Sight & Sound put in its Top Ten Film Podcasts.
I’m a writer and an editor. I was the sixth editor-in-chief of Film Comment, where I worked for 15 years. I assigned and edited both the web and print editorial, hosted its podcast and talks and screenings, learned from brilliant writers, curated Film Comment Selects, and wrote a lot, including interviews with Spike Lee, Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, and Frederick Wiseman.
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).
My features, interviews, festival dispatches, and reviews have been published in The New York Times, Sight & Sound, Artforum, W Magazine, Filmmaker, and dearly departed publications such as The Village Voice, Stop Smiling, The New York Sun, and The L Magazine.
As always, feel free to contact me re: writing, editing, moderating, podcasting, etc.
nicolas.rapold@gmail.com