Episode #33 - Kent Jones (Spawn of the North)

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"There's a general problem with film culture of actually confronting a movie head-on."

Kent Jones is truly one of the most essential voices for Peter. His writings are reflective, intelligent, and complex in a way few writers come close to, and his other work—A Letter To Elia, the World Cinema Project, and the New York Film Festival—are key to Peter's continuing exposure to cinema. So Kent sits down with Peter to discuss his first exposure to cinema, his mentorship under Manny Farber and Martin Scorsese, his complicated process of writing, working on making films and using images, and the auteurs that continue to inspire him. The two then end with a conversation on the rarely seen Spawn of the North, a Henry Hathaway film with Henry Fonda that finds something very physical  in its Alaskan set border town.

0:00-1:20 Opening 

2:47-8:47 Establishing Shots - John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln / Donations

9:32-1:16:20 Deep Focus - Kent Jones

1:17:28-1:36:48 Double Exposure - Spawn of the North (Henry Hathaway)

1:36:52-1:38:31 Close

Kent Jones's books include Physical Evidence: Selected Film Writings, L'Argent, and Olivier Assayas. His films include Val Lewton: The Man in Shadows and A Letter To Elia. You can often read him in Film Comment.

Episode #32 - Richard Peña (Memories of Underdevelopment)

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"What I do is use my position as a programmer is to try and educate in terms of those areas of film history that either need review or need discovery."

Without the help of Richard Peña, Peter would probably have never become interested in directors like István Szabó, Kim Ki-Young, or Souleymane Cisse, among countless others. As a professor at Columbia and the former programmer of the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the New York Film Festival, Richard used his years to expand the conversation of film history: as NYFF brought in directors from the cinemas of Iran, China, and Brazil, his yearly programming and classes expanded to search out those histories as well. Now a year out from his time at Lincoln Center, Richard sits down to recount his first curiosities toward cinema, his programming philosophies, and to lament the director he can never convince his students to love as much as he does. Finally, the two discuss Memories of Underdevelopment, a landmark film in Cuban film history, which provides a complex portrait of identity.

0:00-1:42 Opening 

2:48-6:50 Establishing Shots - Alain Guiraudie

8:42-51:03 Deep Focus - Richard Peña

51:58-1:08:09 Double Exposure - Memories of Underdevelopment (Tomás Gutiérrez Alea)

1:08:14-1:09:53 Close

Richard Pena's home page at Columbia, and an interview with him by Kent Jones on the New York Film Festival.