FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Jon Wengstrom, head of Archival Film Collections of the Swedish Film Institute.

Jon Wengstrom, head of archival film collections at the Swedish Film Institute, tells us about the Swedish Film Institute and its practices of storing films – not only Swedish films but all films that were screened in Sweden. His overview reminds us once again of the difficulties and challenges of film archives. Besides this, Wengstrom also talks about a number of Swedish shorts and features that he presented and introduced at the 2017 edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato, including My Home is Copacabana (1965) by Arne Sucksdorff in honor of the filmmaker’s centenary of his birth (this was his last film), and The Girl from the Marsh Croft (1917) by Victor Sjostrom. The latter feature allows us to initiate a brief discussion on the legacy of Sjostrom and his impact in film history, as well as Ingmar Bergman, who greatly admired him and cast him in his film Wild Strawberries (1957).

For the official website of the festival, click here.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Jay Weissberg, artistic director of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival.

We meet Jay Weissberg, film critic and artistic director of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival (aka Le Giornate del Cinema Muto) at the 2017 Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna. Last year’s edition of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival marked Weissberg’s first as artistic director. We ask him about his take on how it went, But we also take this opportunity to ask him about what this year’s program has in store (the 36th edition of the festival will take place from September 30 to October 7). Highlights include the opening screening of The Crowd (1928) by King Vidor and The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927) by Ernst Lubitsch as well as strands featuring the origins of the Western in Europe, hidden gems from Scandinavian cinema, cinematic documents on the effects of war, and much more. The collegium, Besides talking about the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, Weissberg also shared with us his thoughts on this year’s edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato and some of the titles and strands that most impressed him.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Mark Kidel, director of the film Becoming Cary Grant.

Director Mark Kidel talks about his documentary Becoming Cary Grant, which he presented at the 2017 Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, Italy. The documentary talks about Cary Grant, one of the greatest and most iconic Hollywood actors of all time. But far from being a typical biographical documentary, Becoming Cary Grant not only reveals personal details of Grant’s life but is also quite creative and attempts to get inside Grant’s head. Thus, we find that Cary Grant was born Archie Leach in Britain, and had a personal life that was quite different from the famous Cary Grant persona. Kidel talks to us about working on this film, about why he made the movie and how his awareness of and opinion of Cary Grant evolved while making the movie, about how he was able to gain access to some greta primary source material and expand on it creatively, and more.

Becoming Cary Grant: “everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant”. As Mark Kidel’s biofilm confirms, at least for the Office of Vital Records Archie Leach from Bristol became Cary Grant in 1942, when he gave up his British citizenship and his new passport bore just the name that would earn him the unconditional admiration of the whole world. However, as Kidel argues in his evident psychological take, Grant couldn’t free himself of Archie Leach with just an eraser. So poor Archie with his suffering, the trauma of being abandoned by his mother and his problems with women continued to percolate under the unrivalled elegance, the sartorial suits, the cosmopolitan ease and the smile of the man who “carries the holiday in his eye” (Stanley Cavell) and who made us believe life could be the most exquisite exercise in style; and so to finally come to terms with Archie Leach, Cary Grant underwent therapy with LSD, which he took during weekly sessions for three years under medical supervision and without breaking the law (in the mid-1950s it was an experimental treatment authorized by the government and quite appreciated by the Malibu community). The film focuses on the psychotropic rebirth of a depressed and divided Cary Grant. The issue has been well documented by biographies of the actor, starting with Graham McCann’s classic A Class Apart (1996); Grant himself spoke about it extensively, sharing his enthusiasm for the experiment’s results with “Ladies’ Home Journal” in a long interview-confession in 1963, which later was incorporated in a long but never published autobiography. The first person voiceover draws principally from this source, whereas the images alternate the melted colours of home movies from the 1930s, used as an entryway into Cary’s mental trips (vacations, boats, female bodies and faces), with the shining sharpness of film sequences, with a preference for ones with a darker emotional and photographic tone (from Notorious to the supernatural comedy Topper to the dysphoric None but the Lonely Heart); movies with characters bordering on or consumed by an anxiety which echoes Kidel’s vision and in which Cary Grant is more clearly, to use the words of Franco La Polla, “a comedian who cannot respond to the drama of reality with comedy” (by the way, had the immersions in lysergic acid made us forget it, critic David Thomson reminds us that we’re talking about “the best and most important actor in film history”). Speaking of shininess: judging by the sequences in the documentary, Cary Grant’s filmography looks in excellent shape, but Bringing Up Baby cries out for a new restoration.

For the official website of the festival, click here.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Dave Kehr, curator in the department of film at MoMA.

Dave Kehr, curator in the department of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) of New York City, meets us after the screening of Sherlock Holmes (1932) by William K. Howard. The film is part of one of the strand of the 2017 Il Cinema Ritrovato, which he has programmed, named “William K. Howard: Rediscovering a Master Stylist.” The other strand he has programmed is a continuation, or rather, more precisely, a second part of last year’s strand dedicated to the motion pictures produced by Universal during the years of Carl Laemmle Junior. This year, the strand included highlight films by James Whale and Tod Browning. Kehr explains both the works of Howard and Laemmle Junior as well as a general overview of MoMA’s work with film.

For the official website of the festival, click here.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, documentary filmmakers.

Documentary director and pioneer of the cinema verité style D.A. Pennebaker is celebrated at the 2017 Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna. The annual film festival is hosting a special open-air screening of his 1968 music documentary feature Monterey Pop at the Piazza Maggiore, and Pennebaker will also be interviewed publicly by esteemed film historian Kevin Brownlow, an event titled “Cinema according to D.A. Pennebaker” (translated from Italian). We caught up with him and his wife and filmmaking partner Chris Hegedus. The two have made many movies together, including Town Bloody Hall (1979), The War Room (1993), and most recently Unlocking the Cage (2016), to name but a few. On this, one of our lengthiest interviews to date, we cover many topics; from the impact of the development of new and portable technology in filmmaking to the importance of story in documentary filmmaking; from the filming of music documentaries such as Monterey Pop to a documentary about a musician, Bob Dylan, in Don’t Look Back; from the connection to the actuality films of the Lumiére to their most recent experimentation with VR; and from the importance to capturing moments in history to the importance of the fight for animal rights.

For the official website of the festival, click here.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Bernard Eisenschitz, film historian.

The esteemed film historian Bernard Eisenschitz talks about two very important figures of film history: French cineaste Jean Vigo and Hollywood lead actor Robert Mitchum (the latter also happens to be the poster boy of the 2017 Il Cinema Ritrovato). Both were lead subjects of two strands of this year’s Il Cinema Ritrovato named “Jean Vigo Recovered” and “Two Faces of Robert Mitchum.” Eisenschitz curated the former and co-curated the latter with Philippe Garnier. In this interview, he shares with us his knowledge and admiration for both Vigo and Mitchum, while also sharing with us some insight, such as details of the restoration of the filmography of Vigo and how the origins of an idea of putting together a program that would pay tribute to Mitchum, who is often not given the right credit as a great actor that he deserves.

For the official website of the festival, click here.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Frédéric Maire, director of the Cinémathèque Suisse and president of FIAF.

Frédéric Maire makes his first appearance on FRED Film Radio. No time would be more appropriate for a first-time appearance, as the director of the Cinémateque Suisse has also recently been appointed as the new president of FIAF (the International Federation of Film Archives). Naturally, the interview is structurally divided into two parts; in the first, Maire talks about his Swiss Cinematheque – one of the most respected film archives in the world – and in the second, we discuss FIAF and some of the most pressing issues that were discussed at the 2017 FIAF Congress. In between, Maire also takes the time to talk to us about a number of topics; these include La Roue (1923) by Abel Gance, his interesting film education project, and a comment on this year’s program of Il Cinema Ritrovato.

For the official website of the festival, click here.

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