Episode #110 - Daniel Goldhaber (Showgirls)

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"For me, it's about finding ideas that are exciting and translating them in a bigger way."

The fine line between art and pornography is as old as visual culture itself, but only recently have those within the industry crafted their narratives for large scale audiences by avoiding the old hat critiques often placed on the profession. Cam, a new horror thriller financed by Blumhouse and made by the creative duo of Isa Mazzei and Daniel Goldhaber, does exactly that by following a cam girl as she fights to reclaim her identity. Dan sits down in this long ranging interview to discuss his creative apprenticeships on documentaries and the lessons he learned from Harvard, the work he and Isa did crafting pornography that thought seriously about aesthetics, and the creative workarounds necessary to make a good film about screen life. Finally, the two talk about Showgirls, a tricky film that nonetheless influenced Cam—Peter and Dan examine how and where the film takes these burlesque dancers seriously, and how the film straddles its campy existence. Plus, Carman Tse joins the show to talk about a few restorations that played the recent AFI Film Festival.

0:00-3:10  Opening
4:13-27:48 Establishing Shots — Repertory Talk at AFI Fest with Carman Tsse
28:33-1:36:45 Deep Focus — Daniel Goldhaber
1:38:00-1:42:00  Sponsorship Section
1:43:08-1:58:40 Double Exposure — Showgirls (Paul Vehoven)

1:58:48-2:00:37 Close / Outtake

Episode #97 - K. Austin Collins (Margaret)

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"I try to move from the text to the outer world...but I always start with the text."

Since debuting in the fairgrounds during the Fin de siècle of the late 19th century, movies have never been inseparable from our culture around them. So how does one write about them in a way that gives both the text and the world a fair shake? Over at The Ringer, K. Austin Collins has been using his writing to explore how films operate as cultural artifacts, even as the machine of Hollywood has attempted to vacuum itself from any discussion. Kam dives into his interest in writing as a practice and how he moved from the academic sphere into the weekly reviewing gig, and how he finds ways to bring his training to even writing about blockbusters. The two have a long discussion in particular about movie stars and the particular pleasures of watching them and seeing them create identities. Finally, Kam brings on Kenneth Lonergan's almost lost to litigation masterpiece Margaret with Anna Paquin, which leads to a discussion of what exactly is melodrama and how and why do movies affect us.

0:00-3:22 Opening
4:07-1:11:48 Deep Focus — K. Austin Collins
1:12:48-1:16:33 Sponsorship Section
1:17:56-1:45:33 Double Exposure — Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan)

1:46:37-1:48:36 Close 

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.