News

Margarethe von Trotta with Anne-Katrin Titze, on Ingmar Bergman: "He wanted to be the child all the time. Even when he was grown up." Photo: Gary Springer

On Columbus Day, following An Afternoon with Barry Jenkins (director of Oscar-winning Moonlight and the adaptation of James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk), a discussion led by Darryl Pinckney at Alice Tully Hall during the 56th New York Film Festival, Margarethe von Trotta joined me for a conversation on Searching For Ingmar Bergman.

In the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center green room, we discussed the interviews she conducted with Stig Björkman, Mia Hansen-Løve, Ruben Östlund, Olivier Assayas, Jean-Claude Carrière, Daniel Bergman, and Gaby Dohm. She also shared her thoughts on The Seventh Seal, Winter Light, Fanny and Alexander, The Serpent's Egg, From the Life of the Marionettes, the persona of Ingmar Bergman, a Rainer Werner Fassbinder connection, Eta Hoffmann, and the hour of the wolf.

Review Billy Grifter 24 May 2013 - 06:00

Billy sees an improvement in this week's Defiance, which takes in romantic complications and war crimes...

This review contains spoilers.

1.6 Brothers In Arms

Before I get into the actual mechanics of this story, I'd like to say that I think the show is getting better, after a rocky start. Some of the characters are becoming more engaging, and the performances in general are good.

Where Defiance seems to get bogged down is occasionally rough dialogue exchanges that are full of cop show or western clichés. Each time one of these happens it ruins the alternate-world context, and reminds us that the show is written to a deadline and shot on a budget.

The action in Brothers in Arms centres on Pol Madis, a Castithan war criminal that comes to defiance pursued by an old war buddy of Nolan, Eddie Braddock. Of the two Pol...

Review Billy Grifter 16 May 2013 - 10:53

Billy wonders how many names one character can have, in this week's Defiance...

This review contains spoilers.

1.5 The Serpent's Egg

As a reviewer it's worth appreciating that not all shows can hit the road running, and that greater story arcs need to be fed in once the ground rules have been created. That's where Defiance is now, and in that respect The Serpent's Egg is essentially a spur for some story development down the line.

The framework for hatching of these plots was a storyline as old as the hills themselves, best used in Stagecoach (1939). Except in Defiance it's a coach that travels between outposts, and delivers the mail, among other things. Anyone who has watched that classic movie, or the many dozens of reworkings of that concept will know that there are always two threats; the obvious one, and the other not so obvious.

"The Serpent's Egg" continued the trend of excellent Defiance episodes. We got to learn more about Irisa’s background and see more of her and Tommy – a lot more!

Let start this it out with a bang, just like how Irisa and Tommy ended the episode. I know that was a horrible, but someone had to do it, (just like Tommy and Irisa). Zing! (Okay, I’m really done now.)

Honestly, it was really cute to see Tommy and Irisa ravaging each other. Well, it was mostly Irisa doing the ravaging at the beginning. Apparently Irathient women have no problem making the first move. Who knew?

Tommy, I hope you know what you’re getting into. Don’t get me wrong, I adore Irisa, but she is 10 pounds of crazy in a five pound sack and if I have one rule in life its: “never sleep with crazy." It never ends well.

With its great ratings, plus the popularity of its video game tie-in, it was a no-brainer that Syfy would renew "Defiance" for another season; and to celebrate the news, we have a look at the first four minutes of Episode 1.05, "The Serpent's Egg."

Before we get to the clip, here's Syfy's press release on the renewal:

Syfy has renewed its groundbreaking series "Defiance," giving a 13-episode second season order to the critically acclaimed hit that has catapulted Syfy to the top cable drama spot in the time period among adults 18-49, adults 25-54, and total viewers for three consecutive Mondays. Season Two of "Defiance," produced by Universal Cable Productions, will begin production in Toronto in August for a 2014 premiere, returning as the anchor of Syfy’s Powerful Monday’s block of primetime original series.

Redefining the transmedia experience, "Defiance" has distinguished itself with an unprecedented partnership between Syfy and...

Sneak Peek new footage, images and synopsis from the latest science fiction TV series "Defiance" and the episode titled "The Serpent's Egg", airing May 13, 2013:

"Defiance" stars Grant Bowler as 'Joshua Nolan', the local lawman in a border town known as 'Defiance', as well as Julie Benz, who plays the newly appointed mayor of Defiance, 'Amanda Rosewater'. Cast alsi includes Stephanie Leonidas, Jaime Murray, Tony Curran and Graham Greene:

"...in a near future where Earth is almost alien, a human drifter and his adopted 'Irathient' alien daughter put down roots in 'Defiance', a community where humans and 'Votans' coexist in the ruins of St. Louis.

"'Amanda' and 'Nolan' take a transport across the 'Badlands'.

"When a stranger arrives in 'Defiance', 'Irisa' must confront her past..."

Click the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek "Defiance: The Serpent's Egg"...

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Ingmar Bergman, Liv Ullmann Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman are the subjects of former architect Dheeraj Akolkar's documentary Liv & Ingmar, produced by the Norwegian company NordicStories and to be distributed by Sweden's Svensk Filmindustri. After meeting in 1965, Ullmann and Bergman made ten (narrative) films together; they were also off-screen companions for five years. In Liv & Ingmar, Ullmann, 73, is shown spending a few days in Bergman's house on the Swedish island of Fårø. While there, she reminisces about their personal and professional relationships. That sounds fascinating enough. But what makes Liv & Ingmar even more intriguing is that Ullmann's recollections are interspersed with scenes from her Bergman films, which is supposed to show how their personal lives directly affected their professional collaboration. In that regard, Liv & Ingmar makes Ullmann and Bergman seem like Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, who went from The Purple of Rose of Cairo and Hannah and Her Sisters...

The Renaissance Theater in Berlin has announced that actor Heinz Bennent, best known in Europe for his work on the stage, died this morning at the age of 90. His career spanned over 150 roles in more than 20 theaters and, beginning in the late 60s, on screen. He performed for Ingmar Bergman in The Serpent's Egg (1978) and From the Life of the Marionettes (1980), for François Truffaut in The Last Metro (1980; he was nominated for the César Award for Best Supporting Actor), for Volker Schlöndorff in The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1975) and The Tin Drum (1979; his son David played Oskar) and for Andrzej Żuławski in Possession (1981). He appeared in several European television productions as well, but as the German Press Agency emphasizes, he first love always remained the theater.

Update, 10/15: For the New Yorker's Richard Brody, "his final screen performance, in Benoît Jacquot's Princess Marie, from 2003, is an extraordinary one,...

Veteran German actor Heinz Bennent died on October 12. He was 90. The Aachen-born (July 18, 1921) Bennent never became an international name despite several important roles in international films. Among those were Ingmar Bergman's Anglo-German drama The Serpent's Egg (1978), opposite Liv Ullmann and David Carradine; François Truffaut's The Last Metro (1980), which earned Bennent a Best Supporting Actor Cesar nomination; and Andrzej Zulawski's Franco-German psychological thriller Possession (1981), with Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill. Bennent's German films include Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta's The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1975); Schlöndorff's Academy Award winning drama The Tin Drum (1979); and Ute Wieland's Im Jahr der Schildkröte (1988), which earned Bennent a Best Actor German Film Award. Heinz Bennent's children, Anne Bennent and David Bennent, are both actors. David had the lead in the World War II-set The Tin Drum, playing the boy/midget who never grows neither up nor old while...

When I was a kid, I devoured the kitschy fun of producer Dino De Laurentiis' films such as the 1976 "King Kong" remake. His name got branded in my feeble mind. When you see his "Dino De Laurentiis Presents" before a trailer, you know that film would be fun!

So the death of the Oscar-winning Italian film producer saddened me. The Italian media was reporting that Laurentiis, who gave the world nearly 500 films including "La Strada," "Serpico," and "Three Days of the Condor" died in Los Angeles. He was 91.

Here's a lengthy but absolutely wonderful snap shot of Laurentiis' life written by John Gallagher from film reference:

One of the most colorful, prolific, and successful producers in the contemporary motion picture business, Dino De Laurentiis has proven his entrepreneurial skills time and again, growing from an independent Italian producer into an international conglomerate. His product, from low-budget neorealist works to multimillion dollar spectacles,...

Famed producer Dino de Laurentiis has died in Los Angeles at the age of 91. Producer of over one hundred films, the list of talent de Lauretiis worked with over his career is staggering. He helped bring the work of an array of legendary filmmakers to the big screen including Federico Fellini ("La Strada," "Nights Of Cabiria"), Milos Forman ("Ragtime"), Ingmar Bergman ("The Serpent's Egg"), Sidney Lumet ("Serpico"), Sydney Pollack ("Three Days Of The Condor"), William Friedkin ("The Brink's Job"), Ridley Scott ("Hannibal"), David Cronenberg ("The Dead Zone"), Michael Mann ("Manhunter") and even Sam Raimi ("Army Of Darkness") among many…...

The prolific Italian movie producer whose name was synonymous with grandiose spectacle, if questionable taste, has died aged 91

The age of the producer extraordinaire, whose name on the opening credits was a guarantee of operatic emotions and grandiose spectacle, looked one step closer to the end today, with the announcement that Dino De Laurentiis has died aged 91.

A man whose diminutive stature (he was 5ft 4in) was no obstacle to his enormous ambition or prodigious output (more than 500 films), De Laurentiis started his career selling his family's pasta. After serving in the Italian army in the second world war, he established himself as a film producer, and swiftly became famous for the 1949 classic Bitter Rice, directed by Giuseppe De Santis, and then a handful of neo-realist hits made in collaboration with Carlo Ponti, including Federico Fellini's La Strada in 1954 and Nights of Cabiria in 1957.

De Laurentiis went solo, and...

David Carradine has passed away. When I heard the news, and how it might have possibly happened, I was incredibly, almost weirdly sad. Carradine could be a handful (and his recent appearance at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica after a Bound for Glory screening proves as much). But he could also be a superior actor -- in Martin Scorsese's Boxcar Bertha (co-starring one of his famous partners, Barbara Hershey whom he had a child with, named Free), and then that bloody, drunken cameo in Scorsese's Mean Streets (shot by brother Robert), Walter Hill's The Long Riders (alongside brother's Keith and Robert), Kung Fu, Paul Bartel's Death Race 2000 (I love that movie), Ingmar Bergman's The Serpent's Egg (a great, intense performance), Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill (his speech about Superman was especially memorable and more heartfelt and soulful, moreso than was probably written) and Hal Ashby's wonderful,...

• Thanks to the golden opportunity of working with maestro Quentin Tarantino, after Travolta and Grier, he was unofficially the third person to benefit from a career re-boot. Known to a generation of new fans as "Bill" and most recently, as the elder Poon Dong, leader of the Chinese Triad in Crank: High Voltage, it was announced that Kung Fu legend David Carradine of the Carradine clan took away his life. He was 72. He'll have left us with us with tons of memorable midnight watch type of stuff with his roles as Kwai Chang Caine in the 1970s television series Kung Fu, but Carradine was also seen in Martin Scorsese's Boxcar Bertha (1972), Bound for Glory (1976) and in Ingmar Bergman's The Serpent's Egg (1977). Here is a more complete bio from the NYTimes...:        Carradine made his directorial debut on a handful of episodes of Kung Fu. Upon leaving the series,

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It was doubly sad for me to learn of the death of actor David Carradine in an apparent suicide Thursday in Bangkok, as I was a witness to one of the more crushing failures in his artistic life.

In 1981, when he came to the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes with his handmade film "Americana," Carradine was at the top of his game. He was the star of a smash TV series in "Kung Fu" and such fine films as "Bound for Glory" and "The Long Riders."

But Carradine wanted to be a filmmaker. Tenaciously, he put together a clutch of film projects for himself to direct and planned to use his acting pay to finance his films, just as John Cassavetes was doing.

He hoped to launch this career with "Americana." The film was a poetic fable about an ex-Green Beret, played by Carradine, who drifts...

The Thai newspaper The Nation reports that David Carradine was found dead in his hotel room in Bangkok by a maid. While initial reports indicated an apparent suicide, friends and family members stepped forward to say they doubted that was the case. A U.S. Embassy spokesman said he died either this morning or yesterday evening but would not comment further.

The 72-year-old actor starred in a wide range of movie and TV roles over a nearly 50-year career. Arguably his two most famous were as Shaolin priest Kwai Chang Caine on the hit 1970s TV show Kung Fu and as folk singer Woody Guthrie in the 1976 biopic Bound for Glory. He also starred in the 1972 Martin Scorsese movie Boxcar Bertha and the 1977 Ingmar Bergman movie The Serpent's Egg.

Carradine experienced a resurgence in 2003 when Quentin Tarantino chose him to play the title role in his two Kill Bill movies.

James Whitmore, who played such American icons as Harry Truman, Will Rogers and Theodore Roosevelt, died Friday of lung cancer at his home in Malibu. He was 87.

Whitmore was twice nominated for Academy Awards -- as best actor in 1976 for "Give 'em Hell, Harry!," in which he played Truman, and as best supporting actor in 1950 for the war movie "Battleground."

He also won an Emmy Award in 2000 for a guest-starring role on "The Practice," as well as a Tony Award for "Command Decision."

Whitmore was diagnosed with cancer a week before Thanksgiving. "My father believed that family came before everything, that work was just a vehicle in which to provide for your family," his son Steve Whitmore, who works as spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, told the Associated Press. "At the end, and in the last two and a half months of his life, he was surrounded by his family.