More: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/bunn_austin14.html
Here's an interview with Bunn, who teaches screenwriting at Cornell, in the Cornell Daily Sun:
The Sun: Tell me a little bit about your movie.
Prof. Austin Bunn: So, Kill Your Darlings is the
story of the origins of the beat generation, so it’s about Allen
Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and Bill Boroughs when they were young men, long
before they became the people that you know them to be. So if most
biopics are about like great men at the peak of their lives, this is
about them at point zero of their lives when they’re just kids and
they’re still figuring out who they are and trying to become artists.
One critics who reviewed the movie called it Beat Generation: First
Class — these are these major American literary figures when they’re
just punks, bad students, you know, dorm roommates, when they’re kids.
More in The Sun: http://cornellsun.com/blog/2013/02/01/sex-drugs-and-beats-an-interview-with-prof-austin-bunn/
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Austin Bunn, Screenwriter of Kill Your Darlings, Friday
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Francesca Marciano in Lina Wertmuller's "Seven Beauties"
Friday's guest Francesca Marciano starred in a number of Italian films prior to achieving success as a fiction writer and screenwriter.
Her credits include the virgin Carolina [pictured here, billed as "Francesca Marciani"] in Lina Wertmüller's outrageous 1975 film Seven Beauties, which was nominated for four Oscars.
Other film roles include the second-billed "Francesca" in Pupi Avati's The House of the Laughing Windows (1976) and Tutti defunti... tranne i morti (1977); and the Italian TV miniseries, La riva di Charleston (1978).
More about Marciano: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/marciano_francesca14.html
Read More......
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
John Sayles on "The Black Stallion"
He credits the novel, which he read at the age of 10, with making him aware of how to structure plot.
Sayles visited the Writers Institute on February 27, 2012. Read More......
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Wally and Andre Return
Wallace Shawn, who visited the Writers Institute in 2007, and Andre Gregory, have announced their third collaboration, a film directed by Jonathan Demme of Shawn's adaptation of Ibsen's "The Master Builder." Their two previous collaborations include 1981's My Dinner with Andre, and 1994's Vanya on 42nd St.
From the New York Times:
When your two previous film collaborations have been a 110-minute dialogue on the nature of theater, art and life; and an informal, street-clothes performance of Chekhov’s "Uncle Vanya" what do you do for an encore?
After a cinematic hiatus of nearly 18 years, Wallace Shawn and André Gregory, the creators of the influential art-house films "My Dinner with Andre" and "Vanya on 42nd St." are ready to answer that question. More.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
John Sayles: Good Guys Shouldn't Always Win
John Sayles, the "grandfather of indie cinema" who visits UAlbany on Monday 2/27, talks to the New Jersey Star-Ledger:
“The studios realize that most people don’t go to movies for complexity,” he says. “Most people want escapism, and white hats, and bad guys who are so bad you can cheer at the end when they get torn to pieces by wild dogs. Movies that are complex are rarer and they confuse audiences at first. Honestly, we figure it’s going to take the average moviegoer who doesn’t necessarily go to this sort of thing 10 or 15 minutes to decide if they’re going to stay or walk out. And maybe they’ll stay and say, well, that was interesting, that was cool. Or they say, what the hell was that? The good guys didn’t win.”
Friday, February 17, 2012
An Old-Fashioned Narrative on Film
"Although John Sayles’s new film Amigo is set in what seems to be a remote time and place — a hamlet called San Isidro, in the Philippines, around 1900 — it bridges the gap in a hurry. This is not the kind of movie, and Mr. Sayles is not the type of director, to linger in the picturesque past, savoring antique details and restaging bygone conflicts."
Read A. O. Scott's New York Times review of Amigo by John Sayles, who visits Albany on Monday, 2/27. Amigo will be screened 2/24 at the Performing Arts Center uptown.
Honeydripper, another Sayles film will be screened tonight, PAC uptown, 7:30PM.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
A Character Walks Out of a Short Story
[Elston Gunn]: HONEYDRIPPER is based on your short story "Keeping Time," correct?
[John Sayles]: I consider HONEYDRIPPER to be an original screenplay, though it is inspired by a character who appears in "Keeping Time," just as MATEWAN was inspired by a character who appears (in about four pages) of my novel UNION DUES. The only time I've adapted a short story I've written into a movie was CASA DE LOS BABYS.
Elston Gunn of Ain't It Cool News interviews director/screenwriter John Sayles about the sources of inspiration for HONEYDRIPPER, his film about the birth of rock and roll in the American South.
HONEYDRIPPER will be screened this Friday, Feb. 17 at the Performing Arts Center uptown. John Sayles himself will visit on Feb. 27.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Thinking in Pictures
John Sayles, who visits 2/27, wrote one of the bibles of independent filmmaking in 1987-- Thinking in Pictures after making the movie Matewan. Here's an excerpt:
"It's like there's this house you want to build and you know certain specifications you want, sometimes very specific, like the kitchen counter should be 45 inches high, and others more vague, like the living room should be comfortable and--you know--have a lot of light or something. You raise a certain amount of money to build this house and maybe you draw a picture of it or tell somebody who can draw what to put down, and then you hire people who know about plumbing and wiring and roofing and windows and all that. You know you want the tub here and the sink here and maybe the plumber tells you it would work much better here and here, and maybe you do it his way or maybe yours. When the house is finished you hope it feels like the one you imagined way back when, but of course the oak was too expensive and you had to go with yellow pine and they don't make kitchen counters that height and customizing was out of the question, but then the woman who put in the windows had this great idea--you never would have thought of it in a million years. The closet on the second floor is always going to be a problem and you try not to think about it when you think about the house. After a bit the house takes on its own character, and though you had a lot to do with how it is, it exists as this thing and it's hard to imagine it any other way." More.
Picture: A scene from Matewan.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
The Dawn of Rock and Roll
Check out the trailer for Honeydripper, starring Danny Glover and directed by John Sayles, to be screened 2/17 at the Performing Arts Center on the Uptown Campus.
John Sayles will visit the Writers Institute on 2/27.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Slavery By Another Name on PBS Feb. 13th
Narrated by Laurence Fishburne, Slavery By Another Name will be broadcast nationally on PBS on February 13th.
It will also premiere locally tomorrow, Friday, Feb. 3rd at UAlbany, with a Q&A by book author Doug Blackmon and screenwriter Sheila Curran Bernard.
"For most Americans this is entirely new history. Slavery by Another Name gives voice to the largely forgotten victims and perpetrators of forced labor and features their descendants living today." Visit the film's PBS website here.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
A War No One Brags About
"Saturday marks the anniversary of a war America won — but doesn't care to crow about. When the memory only produces shame and regret, you can understand why."
"Such is the fate of the Philippine-American War, otherwise known as the Philippine Insurrection, which began on Feb. 4, 1899. It's a reminder of a time when America's dreams of imperial greatness got in the way of its democratic values."
Emil Guillermo writes about the war, and about John Sayles's film Amigo in a commentary piece in Tuesday's Times Union.
Sayles visits Monday, Feb. 27th. Amigo will be screened prior to his visit, Friday, Feb. 24 in the Performing Arts Center uptown.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Writing for Documentary Film
The UAlbany website has an interview with Sheila Curran Bernard about writing for documentary films, and on being one of a handful of filmmakers among thousands selected for the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.
"There are a lot of misconceptions about documentary writing. One is that documentaries aren’t written, because people tend to think of film writing in Hollywood terms, where a fictional screenplay is completed before the cameras start to roll. How do you script real life or real interviews? So there’s a notion that documentary filmmaking is about showing up and shooting, or perhaps finding visuals to go with information. If there’s a writing credit, people think it refers only to traditional narration."
More.
She speaks with Pulitzer winner Doug Blackmon about Slavery by Another Name, their new film, on Friday, 2/3.