Boundaries of Reality: New Non-Fiction With Agnès Varda, JR, and Theo Anthony

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"An image is just a point to explore reality and memory."

As this podcast has explored, the limits of non-fiction have been continually pushed and pulled by daring filmmakers who refuse to understand the limits of what they can do. This week looks at two new releases from three creators asking questions of space, memory, history, and often themselves. First of all, Peter sits down with legendary French New Wave filmmaker Agnès Varda to discuss her new film, Visage Villages (in English, Faces Places), alongside her co-conspirator, the elusive street artist known as JR. They discuss the ins and outs of collaboration when their work ethics seemingly clash, the personalities they present on screen, and the "work" of their images. Then, Peter meets up with Baltimore filmmaker Theo Anthony to dissect his bold directorial debut, Rat Film. They discuss the alien style of the film and its interest in both the collection of data and the relation of its human subjects, all while asking how a film can provoke emotion and ideas in a diversity of ways without ever posing obvious solutions.

0:00-5:07 Opening
6:05-29:58 Agnès Varda and JR (Visage Villages)
30:43-35:22 Sponsorship Section
36:22-1:00:56 Theo Anthony (Rat Film)

1:01:02-1:02:46 Close / Outtake

Episode #77 - Eric Hynes (Quick Change)

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"Documentaries are where the most exciting stuff in film is happening. Inevitably that's what I'm going to write about and push for."

Eric Hynes may not want to be boxed in for his work on documentaries, but it seems more and more to be where his interests as a writer for Reverse Shot and Film Comment alongside programming duties at the Museum of the Moving Image have taken him. But Eric is so much more, and has become one of the most valued writers of criticism and beyond—someone who shows passion and acute judgement within his sentences without ever condescending nor falling into cliché. In his interview with Peter, Eric traces his way into writing through music criticism and books, his decade-long tenure at one of the most important institutions in online film writing, and a continuing love of Star Wars. Then, the two turn to a truly forgotten gem of 90s cinema: Bill Murray and Howard Franklin's Quick Change, perhaps the last film to show New York City when it was truly the worst, in the best way possible.

0:00-3:37 Opening
4:22-54:46 Deep Focus — Eric Hynes

55:52-1:00:23 Sponsorship Section
1:02:08-1:21:46 Double Exposure — Quick Change (Billy Murray and Howard Franklin)

1:21:51-1:23:30 Close

Read Eric Hynes at Film Comment, Reverse Shot, Rolling Stone, Slate, and Cinema-Scope. Read his 2013 Neither/Noir monograph for True/False, and follow him on Twitter.
Check out Quick Change here.

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.