Episode #25 - Sheila O'Malley (Opening Night)

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"You listen to great actors talk...and they always talk about the story. 'My role here is to do this part so this story can be told,' which is a wonderful attitude."

If you want to tell a story on film, you most likely are going to require actors, and hopefully great ones. But how does one talk about how actors do? Sheila O'Malley has more than enough experience in acting, and has become one of the most prolific bloggers of how to discuss the craft, so Peter invites her own to share her experiences and ideas about the profession. Sheila talks about her first acting love (James Dean) and her experience in The Actors Studio, before deciding to take the conversations of her friends and turn them into blog posts. The two also discuss many great iconic performances - Cary Grant in Notorious, Sissy Spacek in Badlands, Alain Delon in Le Samourai - and the way the different actors can approach different roles. Finally, the two work through a truly towering film, John Cassavetes's Opening Night, and examine how it both celebrates the world of acting as well as captures its most terrifying anxieties. 

0:00-1:01 Opening 

2:08-8:21 Establishing Shots - Short Term 12 / Trivia Round

9:06-1:03:33 Deep Focus - Sheila O'Malley

1:05:32-1:29:57 Double Exposure - Opening Night (John Cassavetes)

1:30:00-1:31:41 Close

Visit Sheila's blog, as well as her work on RogerEbert.Com, Capital New York, The House Next Door and Fandor.

Follow Sheila on Twitter.

Episode #24 - Robert Greene (Edvard Munch)

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"We want to make movies that are just as surprising and weird and unwieldy as the movies we love...they just happen to start from a non-fiction point of view."

Robert Greene jokes that he badgered Peter into finally watching his two documentaries, Kati With An I and Fake It So Real. But he certainly didn't badger Peter's opinion of recognizing a true non-fiction talent, someone who is taking the form in new directions through both theory and practice. Robert joins Peter on the show to talk about how he went from a lover of 2001 and Star Wars to a man obsessed with non-fiction cinema, and discusses how he thinks filmmakers can approach their subjects with both approaches to form and content that can compete with the best fiction films. Peter then engages Robert to talk about his own practice to making films, and why limiting his options ultimately freed him in the form. Finally, Robert brings in Peter Watkins's Edvard Munch, a bafflingly brilliant film that the two find plenty to discuss in terms of making a non-fiction approach to a film to encompasses the shift from the 19th century to the 20th at both the cosmic and the micro level. 

0:00-1:02 Opening 

2:40-8:2o Establishing Shots - Frankenheimer's Seconds / Trivia Round / Donations

9:05-46:20 Deep Focus - Robert Greene
47:47-1:20:31 Kati With An I and Fake It So Real

1:21:28-1:44:04 Double Exposure - Edvard Munch (Peter Watkins)

1:44:06-1:46:01 Close / Outtake

Visit Robert's website, with links to his writing and films.

Follow Robert on Twitter.