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Screenplay & Film Consulting By Susan Kouguell

Tag: Noah Baumbach

DE PALMA documentary at the New York Film Festival

A Conversation with Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow 
on Brian De Palma and their New Documentary De Palma 
at the New York Film Festival

By Susan Kouguell

“I lived in a family of egotists” – Brian De Palma in De Palma
Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow 

at the New York Film Festival
Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow 

at the New York Film Festival

In the documentary “De Palma” directed by Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow, iconoclast American director Brian De Palma talks directly to the camera, in an honest recounting of the highlights and low points of his movie-making career. Only De Palma is seen interviewed on camera; no other talking heads, no other voice-over interviews from either Baumbach or Paltrow are seen or heard.

Paltrow: “The film was shot with one camera and one angle on Brian. There are no other people talking about Brian. It was our direct approach to him.”

Intercut with clips from De Palma’s body of work from the 1960s to the present, as well as from other directors, most notably Alfred Hitchcock, the film moves at a rapid pace with honesty and a sense of humor, as it explores how movies get made (and often not the way intended) and how they don’t get made.

Directors Baumbach and Paltrow describe their documentary as an extension of their friendship, having spent time with Brian De Palma over the last ten years.

Paltrow: “We kept it in the same spirit as having coffee with him.”

Noah Baumbach
Noah Baumbach

Baumbach: “Brian was totally open and available. We wanted to talk about filmmaking. We weren’t going to go in areas that were uncomfortable for him. We’d let him guide, knowing that we would let him lead the way.”

Paltrow: “The most surprising for us about Brian was how electric he was on camera; how he told these stories the same as he did with us at dinner. He was so good on camera. So direct. So made for cinema.”

From the success of his films “Carrie,” “Dressed to Kill,” “Blow Out,” and “Carlito’s Way” to the box-office failures, including “The Bonfire of the Vanities” and “Mission to Mars,” De Palma is candid about his successes and failures.

 

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Conversation with Gerwig and Baumbauch – MISTRESS AMERICA

A Conversation with Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbauch at the Film Society of Lincoln Center

By Susan Kouguell | www.su-city-pictures.comAugust 19, 2015 at 1:00PM

Following the screening of their new film “Mistress America,” writer and director Noah Baumbach and writer and producer Gerta Gerwig, shared a lively and insightful discussion.
Gerta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach
Gerta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach

Following the screening of their new film “Mistress America,” writer and director Noah Baumbach and writer and producer Greta Gerwig, shared a lively and insightful discussion about their collaborations, writing, “Frances Ha” (in which Gerwig played the titular character), and her new starring role.

Tracy, a lonely college freshman in New York, is having neither the exciting university experience nor the glamorous metropolitan lifestyle she envisioned. But when she is taken in by her soon-to-be stepsister, Brooke—a resident of Times Square and adventurous gal about town—she is rescued from her disappointment and seduced by Brooke’s alluringly mad schemes.

About Gerwig’s roles as Frances in “Frances Ha” and Brooke in “Mistress America”

Gerwig: Frances and Brooke share a type of madness. Frances literally stumbled at times. She had this running, loping, falling pace to her. Her fits and starts of conversation, and her flashes of confidence and then going back in. And, Brooke, the way we dressed her, was not really of this time — like a misguided businesswoman with little heels, her little boots, and her pants were too short. She stomped around, and would keep stomping. She had no real shame register.

Baumbach: Brooke was someone we recognized. Aspects of Brooke are familiar to us. She felt like someone out of the movies. Brooke is in some ways all performance. Brooke is a movie. The movie is going on for her. That felt intuitively right.

Gerwig: With Brooke’s character introduction “Welcome to the Great White Way,” she starts this gesture that she realizes halfway down the stairs was not big enough to cover the whole stairs and has to keep going. She doesn’t have a moment of “What have I done?” She just keeps going. She’s kind of a hair flipper the way she speaks.

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