Episode #69 - Glenn Heath Jr. (Dead Man)

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"A regional film festival forces you to realize that you aren't programming for yourself but to your audience, yet at the same time you want to challenge that audience."

Some film festivals have an easy time when their mission is set on any and all new movies with premieres from around the world. But how do you program for a niche? Glenn Heath Jr. works as the Managing Director for the Pacific Arts Movement, which is returning with another iteration of the San Diego Asian Film Festival. Some of the names will be familiar to cinephiles: Johnnie To, Sion Sono, Apichatpong Weerasethakul. But what about the big blockbusters that never come to American shores, or the Asian American filmmakers waiting to be discovered? Glenn talks about the delights and challenges of working on such a festival, as well as his work in film criticism in writing about lost and forgotten films while never throwing down the gauntlet. Finally, the two wrap up their conversation by turning to Jim Jarmusch's 1995 acid western Dead Man, and explore why the film's poetic tone and awkward humor allow it to transcend beyond a "revisionist western." Plus, excerpts from an interview with acclaimed Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien, who has returned to screens with his contemplative wuxia epic The Assassin.

0:00-3:35 Opening

4:30-12:42  Establishing Shots - Hou Hsiao-Hsien discusses The Assassin
13:27-1:12:03 Deep Focus - Glenn Heath Jr.

1:12:42-1:15:15 Mubi Sponsorship
1:16:20-1:46:09 Double Exposure - Dead Man (Jim Jarmusch)

1:46:13-1:47:51 Close 

Read Glenn Heath Jr. at San Diego City Beat, Slant Magazine, Mubi, Fandor, Little White Lies, Reverse Shot, The Brooklyn Rail, NotComing.Com, and his blog, Match Cuts.
More about the Pacific Arts Movement and this year's San Diego Asian Film Festival.
Follow Glenn on Twitter.

Notes and Links from the Conversation
—Read Peter's full interview with Hou Hsiao-Hsien
—News on how and where to see Jacques Rivette's Out 1: New York, Los Angeles, London, Austin.
—Out 1 on Home Video: Arrow Films
—UC Santa Barbara's Film and Media Studies program
—An infamous critique of the program in the Los Angeles Times
—Constance Penley, and a brief video of her discussing Porn Studies
—D-Kaz, the former blog of Mubi Notebook editor Daniel Kasman
—The Josh Lucas film is Stolen, also starring Jon Hamm!
—San Diego Latino Film Festival
—Cannes's Marché Du Film
—Miss India America
—Female Pervert
—Johnnie To's Office
—On Revisiting Old Movies
—Red, White, and Blue: Juame Collet-Serra
—On Gangs of Wasseypur
—Glenn on The Lone Ranger
—An Ulzanna's Raid poster
—Jonathan Rosenbaum on Dead Man
—Our recent podcast on The Assassination of Jesse James
—The Buffalo Murders of the 1870s

Theme Music: “Forward” by Northbound

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