Episode #72 - David Bordwell (Daisy Kenyon)

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"How much can we squeeze out if we treat films very simple? Sometimes going simple, even with complicated filmmakers, yields things that are often taken for granted."

Truffaut remarked there was cinema before Godard and cinema after Godard. The academic discipline of Film Studies could be said to have its own Godard in David Bordwell, the author of some of the most influential books in understanding the history of film style. In this sprawling conversation, David discusses his upbringing that led him to movies and his first steps in helping spearhead the neo-formalist movement of film criticism. He looks back at the formation of poetics, his role in thinking about the conventions that tell us a film story, the role of auteurism as problem-solvers, and how popular film criticism has influenced in his more recent work. They swing through conversations on art history, Jean-Luc Godard, new media, Hong Kong filmmaking, and Robin Wood. Finally, David and Peter discuss Daisy Kenyon, a 1947 Joan Crawford-Dana Andrews-Henry Fonda melodrama from Otto Preminger with so many radical choices in its delivery of narrative one might mistake it for being a subversive text, even if it's all convention.

0:00-2:40 Opening

3:27-10:22  Establishing Shots - Texture and Claire Denis
11:07-1:27:05 Deep Focus - David Bordwell

1:28:10-1:30:37 Mubi Sponsorship
1:32:20-1:52:00 Double Exposure - Daisy Kenyon (Otto Preminger)

1:52:02-1:56:23 Close

Read David Bordwell at Observations on Film Art alongside Kristin Thompson.
David's books include: Film Art: An Introduction, The Classical Hollywood Cinema, Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema, Planet Hong Kong, Figures Traced in Light, On The History of Film Style, Post Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies, Making Meaning: Inference and Rhetoric in the Interpretation of Cinema, Narration in the Fiction Film, Poetics of Cinema, 

Episode #60 - Tim Grierson (Stop Making Sense)

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"This idea that has always stayed with me is that movies are an art form for everyone."

After first watching Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing, Peter went through a phase of going through the albums of Public Enemy. They were loud, rambunctious, and meant something in the same way the films he watched. But what happened to them after the summer of 1989? Tim Grierson's new biography of the group examines that question of perhaps the most important hip hop artists of all time, tracking both their meteoric rise and through their much-more-interesting-than-you've-been-told years that followed. Since Tim also works as a film critic, he sits down to trace his origins as a Midwestern boy coming to Los Angeles, his mindset for writing, and of course his book (along with his struggle with understanding a group so different from his own identity). The two then close out the conversation with another music-movie: Joanthan Demme's concert movie of the Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense, a film of ebullient surprise and joy, while also one of the most meticulously constructed documentaries ever put on screen.

0:00-2:44 Opening

3:02-10:03  Establishing Shots - Results and Pitch Perfect 2
10:48-1:30:04 Deep Focus - Tim Grierson

1:30:55-1:32:55 Mubi Sponsorship
1:33:50-1:58:10 Double Exposure - Stop Making Sense (Jonathan Demme)

1:58:14-1:59:57 Close / Outtake

Read Tim Grierson's Public Enemy: Inside The Terrordome, which available online and at most local retailers.
Read Tim's other writing at Deadspin, Rolling Stone, Paste Magazine, Vulture, and at his blog. Follow him on Twitter.
Stop Making Sense is available on Blu-Ray and multiple streaming platforms.

Episode #50 - Mike D'Angelo (Buffalo '66)

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"I've always been interested in as much in the prose as the actual ideas."

Before film criticism and cinephilia moved from print and theaters to the screen and discussion boards, Mike D'Angelo was already there forming its basis for a serious minded engagement with movies. Mike sits down for this 50th episode of The Cinephiliacs to discuss his original path as a screenwriter and an actor, how he moved from an online phenomenon to a full time film critic, and the way the Internet helped in shaping his uniquely crafted voice. Peter also talks with Mike on his walk out policy, his obsession with puzzlebox movies, and the importance of rhythm in cinema. Finally, they look at one of the strangest American indies of recent memory—Vincent Gallo's Buffalo '66—and how the director-star constantly surprises by both engaging and then breaking with indie conventions.

0:00-2:29 Opening

3:53-8:32 Establishing Shots - Robert Greene's Actress

9:18-1:07:04 Deep Focus - Mike D'Angelo
1:07:54-1:09:36 Mubi Sponsorship - Edvard Munch

1:10:53-1:31:03 Double Exposure - Buffalo '66 (Vincent Gallo)

1:31:08-1:33:28 Close  / Outtakes

Read Mike D'Angelo on his website, The Man Who Viewed Too Much, and on Letterboxd.

Buffalo '66 is available for rental on Amazon and iTunes.

Episode #27 - Craig Simpson (Paris, Texas)

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"There's this mythology that great works of art kind of just come like 'that,' so it's nice to see all the hard work and struggle."

One can spend their entire life just watching the movies and appreciating the work on screen, but often just as fascinating is seeing all the behind the scenes work. Craig Simpson, a blogger and occasional contributor to The House Next Door, has worked and organized the archival collections of some of the most unique film artists of the last century. So the Man From Porlock makes his journey from Bloomington, Indiana all the way to New York to talk about growing up a cinephile in the American Southwest, his skepticism to the cult of auteurism, and the treasures at the Lilly Library at Indiana University. Finally, they dive into the world of Paris, Texas, which Craig describes as a perfect test case of unweildy collaborators keeping each other in place. 

0:00-1:06 Opening 

2:56-6:34 Establishing Shots - Who The Hell is Howard Hawks?

7:19-50:57 Deep Focus - Craig Simpson

52:16-1:12:48 Double Exposure - Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders)

1:12:52-1:14:56 Close / Outtake

Visit Craig's blog and Letterboxd, as well as his posts for The House Next Door. 

Follow Craig on Twitter.

Special Episode - Remembering Roger Ebert

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On Thursday, April 4th, 2013, the film critic Roger Ebert passed away at the age of 70. It was hard to deny the influence of someone who was easily the most recognizable film critic of all time, so Peter felt compelled to dedicate an entire episode to his legacy and work. For this special episode of the podcast, Keith Uhlich, Matt Prigge, Kenji Fujishima, and Godfrey Cheshire all join Petter for a discussion of his life, work, and legacy of its legend. The topics run far and wide, from his honest writing style, to the critics he plucked and championed, to his reflections of life and death, and even his own admittance of occasional failure with certain films and filmmakers. The five dig into the times they encountered Ebert (some in person and some online), and attempt to honor someone who will be with them forever. 

Read Roger Ebert's writing on his website.

Follow Roger Ebert on Twitter.

Episode #15 - Ignatiy Vishnevetsky (The Moderns)

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"If you see something or notice something in an image, you kind of have to go after it. To me, that's the essence of criticism. It's not really for the squeamish or the prudish. If something looks like something, you have to say it, and you have to think it, and you have to think it through."

In 2011, a young cinephile named Ignatiy Vishnevetsky became the poster boy for new cinephilia during the return of Roger Ebert's At the Movies. But there's much more to Mubi's esoteric and erudite critic than his days on public television. Recorded over two snowy Chicago days in January, Peter sits down with Ignaty to discuss how his Russian heritage influenced the way he watches movies, his interactions with the video store, and his very twisted process to writing criticism. They also discuss his obsession with images in 21st century filmmaking and cinephilia, the rise of vulgar auteurism, and the moral guidance than drives his writing. Finally, Ignatiy introduces Peter to the intoxicating world of Alan Rudolph through his impressionist work The Moderns, a film that might long for an image of the past, but asks us to question the context in which we view them.

0:00-4:59 Opening / Establishing Shots - The Essential Narrative

5:00-7:52 Trivia Round / Donations

8:38-1:31:02 Deep Focus - Ignatiy Vishnevetsky

1:31:50-1:59:52 Double Exposure - The Moderns (Alan Rudolph)

1:59:54-2:01:47 Close / Outtakes

Read Ignatiy's work on Mubi, Cine-File, the Chicago Reader, and his blog Sounds, Images. View episodes of Roger Ebert's At the Movies.

Follow Ignatiy on Twitter.

Episode #7 - Ali Arikan (Withnail and I)

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"I supposed it's like a two pronged approach: you had the serious business of film criticism, and at the same time...you had the geeks, the nerdish aspect of it. Still today, there is a huge disconnect, and I find myself firmly in both."

Peter takes cinema very seriously, but sometimes we all need a good laugh, and no one makes Peter howl in laughter than reading the work of Ali Arikan. So laughs are abound when Ali comes in from Turkey to join The Cinephiliacs. Ali discusses his early forays into movies while in his home country (as well the troubles with viewing films there) and the journey he took to becoming an established critic working for English language sites like The House Next Door, Press Play, and as a member of Roger Ebert's Far Flung Correspondents. From there, the two dive into the problem of nostalgia in film, a bonafide love for Steven Spielberg, and a defense of one of the most derided films in the last twenty years. Finally, Peter challenges Ali to make him love Withnail & I, a cult comedy from Bruce Robinson that might be more tragic than even its alcoholic protagonists realize. 

0:00-0:56 Opening

1:43-4:40 Establishing Shots - Pierre Étaix and Le Grand Amour

4:56-1:01:56 Deep Focus - Ali Arikan

1:03:09-1:24:19 Double Exposure - Withnail and I (Bruce Robinson)

1:24:20-1:26:10 Close / Outtake

Read Ali Arikan at Dipnot.TV (Turkish language only), The House Next Door, Press Play, Fandor, and his own blog.

Follow Ali on Twitter.