My father is covering the Montreal World Film Festival as a journalist for the newspaper of the Russian-speaking community of Montreal. He has been invited to be part of Catherine Deneuve’s press conference.
“Nah,” he said, “that’s boring.”
Instead, he went to interview a Russian film-maker and actor who can’t even begin to dream of Deneuve’s fame but who has managed to make a movie my father happens to appreciate.
I have never heard of Catherine Deneuve – is it worth the google search to find out who she is?
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Is she there because of the premier of Chicken and Plums in North America?
I’ve had a crush on her since I first saw The Hunger as an impressionable young lass. Too bad my Russian is so elementary and I live far from Montreal, or I’d gladly take the job.
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I don’t even know what movie she brought with her this time.
I covered this festival as a journalist 3 years ago and interviewed several really cool Spanish film-makers. The funny thing is that I’m really not into movies, and most of my questions were about how they made their films in terms of finances. 🙂
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bloggerclarissa :
The funny thing is that I’m really not into movies, and most of my questions were about how they made their films in terms of finances.
Years ago I worked with many people in the Hollywood scene. I found most of the actors to be incredibly shallow. How could you not be when you make your money pretending to be someone you aren’t. Although, I did hear an interesting interview with Javier Bardem a few weeks ago and he sounded reasonably intelligent. I found the producers and directors in Hollywood fairly interesting and normal. I love film as an art form and most of what I like these days comes from Spain, Argentina, Germany & the UK. I wish Gutierrez Alea was still alive, I really enjoyed his films.
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javier Bardem is my favorite non-Russian actor ever. Or he used to be before he sold out to Hollywood.
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I saw Catherine Deneuve at a press conference at the Mar del Plata Film Festival in 1997 (I think). Pretty boring stuff. I worked for the Buenos Aires Film Festival once, and it was great. I was an “angel” (literally, that was the name of the job), so I was in charge of a number of guests and had to make sure they were where they were supposed to be at the right time. Everybody wanted to be with the actors and directors, I chose the Film critics, because I knew you put them in a movie theater at 10 am, come to pick them up 8 hours later, and your job is done. It went pretty much like that, although I have to say that the only asshole was the Canadian film critic.
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Well, the Canadian critic had to make himself stand out in some way. 🙂
My Canadian readers will hate me for this but I’m decidedly unimpressed by Canadian film.
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There is ample reason to be unimpressed with Canadian film. Too often, there is an attempt to make an “art” film, rather than an entertaining film.
One of my favourite Canadian films is “One Week” about a man’s motorcycle journey across Canada as he tries to sort out his life after being diagnosed with cancer. The first 2/3 of the film is enjoyable – then descends into an art film for the last 1/3, which seems to never end.
And that’s my favourite Canadian film. 😦
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That’s exactly what I’m saying. I hate pretentiousness, and, for some reason, Canadian movies always end up being pretentious in precisely the way you describe.
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You don’t seem to know very much about Québécois cinema.
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That’s why I was talking about Canadian film. Canadian and Québécois are two completely different things. 🙂 The cultures are extremely different, so is their art.
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Okay, we agree. I told you that because maybe your readers will not make the difference.
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This is why we need to educate people about the difference. Actually, one of my colleagues at my department teaches the culture, the history and the literature of Quebec. She also takes students on trips to Quebec City to show them how different the culture is from the English-speaking culture of this continent. So at least in our area students are getting educated about Quebec. 🙂
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Great! 🙂
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Even if I’m also not impressed by English Canadian cinema. Independent american cinema is way better!
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If you don’t want art film, watch only Hollywood films. Cinema is an art by definition.
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There’s a reason I put art in quotations. It is a moving picture – that implies there ought to be a plot, characters, some sort of resolution. Seventeen minutes of a paper bag floating down the street is just effing boring. And doesn’t provide me any insight into my soul or being.
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“Seventeen minutes of a paper bag floating down the street is just effing boring. And doesn’t provide me any insight into my soul or being.”
-I can’t tell you how much I agree with this! I think that people who say they enjoy this kind of thing and find it enlightening are just faking. That’s why I say it’s all pretentiousness and nothing more.
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It’s seems that’s a fake.
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Or maybe it’s a fake “art” film. I don’t know. Maybe these 17 minutes are very important for the symbolic of the scenario, though.
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Yes, I’ve never been impressed by Atom Egoyan or Denys Arcand
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Arcand (even if he’s an idiot politically) made some (not all) good stuff. The “Déclin de l’empire américain” is interesting.
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Does Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World count as a Canadian film? Because that’s my favourite one of it is.
I tried to watch My Winnipeg once, to appease my in-laws, and it was bloody unwatchable, and not just because I don’t really care for Winnipeg as a city.
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I haven’t seen it. maybe I should.
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The individual who knows best about Québécois cinéma in the blogosphere is MFL. (Even if unfortunately for cinema lovers, she don’t write very much about it because she’s more interested by visual art and poetry than to become a cinema specialist, but she’s great in her Québécois’ cinéma knowledge):
http://regardezlamusique.wordpress.com/
She writes about general cinema here, also.
http://www.dvdenfrancais.com/dvd/fr/blog/?s=marie-france+latreille
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
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