This brand new documentary takes a closer look at the production history, unique style, and lasting appeal of Fat City, as well as Leonard Gardner's novel that inspired it. Included in it are new interviews with actors Stacy Keach and Candy Clark, casting director Fred Roos, and camera assistant Gary Vidor.
This absolutely top-notch documentary by Robert Fischer is a fascinating look back at not just the film in question, but Fassbinder's meteoric career which ended all too soon with his untimely death. Archival footage of Fassbinder is utilized (including several fascinating snippets culled from interviews he did at the disastrous Cannes premiere of Despair), as well as many others involved in the film and its release. Even if you're not a particular fan of Despair, or even in fact of Fassbinder, this is stellar documentary film making and is an intriguing look at one of the most enigmatic masters of the New German Cinema.
A documentary on the 1973 Sam Fuller film Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street.
In this feature-length interview, conducted by Robert Fischer in February 2015, Volker Schlöndorff talks about the making of his film BAAL (1969), based on the first play ever written by Bertolt Brecht. He describes his working relationship with Rainer Werner Fassbinder and his group of actors and how the Brecht family hated the film when it first came out, resulting in BAAL’s inavailability for over 40 years.
An interview with cinematographer Nestor Almendros about his work with French film director François Truffaut. Footage taken from the 1986 German documentary Arbeiten mit François Truffaut
In retracing the making of FEDORA, Robert Fischer’s documentary SWAN SONG: THE STORY OF BILLY WILDERʼS FEDORA adds yet another layer of comment and reflection on the film’s very own subject matter: 35 years after playing the romantic leads in FEDORA, Marthe Keller and Michael York look back at working with Billy Wilder – and their careers. Additional testimonies come from acclaimed cinematographer Gerry Fisher, producer Harold Nebenzal, Paul Diamond (son of Wilder’s writing partner I.A.L. Diamond), and German actor Mario Adorf.
Allison Anders talks about her love for the work of film director Douglas Sirk.
Allen Baron, director of "Blast of Silence" visits locations from the film and recalls the production.
A documentary including archival footage of a 1989 interview with actor Daniel Gélin about his experiences working on Max Ophuls' 1950 film LA RONDE.
In June 2015, forty-five years after OUT 1 was made, the filmmakers went to Paris to interview cast and crew members and to revisit some of the film’s most significant locations. THE MYSTERIES OF PARIS features new contributions from actors Bulle Ogier, Michael Lonsdale and Hermine Karagheuz, cinematographer Pierre-William Glenn, assistant director Jean-François Stévenin and producer Stéphane Tchal Gadjieff, but also rare archival interviews with actors Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Michel Delahaye and, most prominently, illuminating statements by director Jacques Rivette himself from two different archival interviews.
Joseph Wambaugh wrote his first novel 'The New Centurions' while still active as a member of the Los Angeles Police Department, and his fact-based, painfully realistic book became a nation-wide bestseller when it came out in 1971. Replacing heroic cops with struggling, psychologically damaged characters, Wambaugh changed crime literature forever. Richard Fleischer’s filming of Wambaugh’s novel, also called THE NEW CENTURIONS, followed a year later and, in turn, revolutionized crime movies. Featuring newly filmed interviews with writer Joseph Wambaugh, star Stacy Keach, technical advisor Richard E. Kalk (Wambaugh’s real-life LAPD partner) and assistant cameraman Ronald Vidor, COP STORIES: THE MAKING OF RICHARD FLEISCHER’S THE NEW CENTURIONS chronicles the production of that landmark film in all its stages from script to screen.
Welles scholar Joseph McBride discusses the 1952 film adaptation of William Shakespeare's play. (A 32-minute edit of this documentary was presented by the Criterion Collection in their edition of Othello.)
Don Siegel’s classic crime thriller "Charley Varrick," made in 1972 in the wake of the immensely successful "Dirty Harry," stars Walter Matthau in what is probably the actor’s finest dramatic role, airshow pilot turned crop duster turned bank robber turned mob target Charley Varrick. This feature-length documentary takes the viewer back to the time of the shooting of this cult item and features original interviews with Siegel’s son, Kristoffer Tabori, actors Andy Robinson and Jacqueline Scott, stunt driver and actor Craig R. Baxley, composer Lalo Schifrin and Howard A. Rodman, whose father co-wrote the screenplay.
Though he never actually worked in Hollywood, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who died in 1982 at the age of 36, was influenced greatly by Amercian studio films of the 1950s and the convention of melodrama (the link most often mentioned is Douglas Sirk).
Actors Tony Lo Bianco and Marilyn Chris, and editor Stan Warnow, discuss the 1970 film THE HONEYMOON KILLERS.
From footage filmed in 1983, this documentary presents an interview with director Jack Arnold and his reminiscences of the making of the 1957 film THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN.
THE MAKING OF HIGHLANDER is a four-part documentary which covers virtualy every aspect of the behind-the-scenes adventure of filming Russell Mulcahy’s 1986 cult classic.
Budd Boetticher talks about the Ranown Cycle, a collection of low-budget westerns of the late 1950s.
An interview with cinematographer Richard H. Kline talking about his filming experience in Brian De Palma's film The Fury.
