In the same year Vanessa Renwick made a perfect short film, The Yodeling Lesson (1998), Miranda July made her own perfect short film The Amateurist (1998), with Vanessa as her DP.

In the new issue of Plazm, Vanessa tells Nora Robertson that Miranda improvised all her lines as the mysterious Professional who constantly evaluates the equally mysterious caged Amateur.

I have such respect for this work!

From Australian Centre for the Moving Image:

The Amateurist features two figures, both portrayed by the artist, caught in an off-kilter relationship based on a system whose rules, boundaries and ultimate aim remain fascinatingly opaque.

The ‘Watcher’ views the ‘Amateur’ via a video surveillance system, suggesting numbers to her and interpreting the Amateur’s vague gestures and responses with a mixture of pride, concern and condescension. The Watcher considers herself the ultimate professional – telling us she has been engaged in this activity for four and half years – and yet the emotional intensity she has invested in this eerily empty activity is immediately evident.>

What is going on?

Here’s Miranda’s own description of The Amateurist.

I hereby claim The Amateurist as an Oregon film, on the basis of the location shooting, the Portland DP, and the at-the-time Portland filmmaker, Miranda July.

James Westby spent 20 days shooting Rid Of Me.

Then, into the cutting room.

Two years later he and his leading lady Katie O’Grady took the Tribecca Film Festival by storm with their comedy of a milquetoast who finally unleashes the power of her sexuality. Rid Of Me stars O’Grady, with support from (wonderful) Orianna Herrman, Storm Large, Art Alexakis, and Teresa Russell.

How do you fund an entirely independent romantic comedy? Here’s one of the ways James Westby did it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

James Westby tapped a wealth of producing talent for Rid Of Me — congratulations to all five of them – Kristin Coleman, Katie O’Grady, Robin Schiff-Coste, Raija Talus, and Westby himself – for creating a film which at least one Hollywood insider sees marked for multiple Oscar nominations.

Rid Of Me opens in theaters November 18, 2011.

I hereby claim Rid Of Me as an Oregon film, based on every qualification you can think of.

Yes, that’s Sallie “Force Of Nature” Ford on the soundtrack!

Portland filmmaker Brian Lindstrom is entering the home stretch for Alien Boy. Find out more about the Kickstarter Campaign to raise the post production funds needed to finish the film.

As a documentarian, Brian Lindstrom’s hallmark is his ability to allow his subjects to tell their own stories. In this case, the story is told by a chorus of Portlanders who either witnessed the violent arrest which resulted in James Chasse’s death, or work within the legal system which grappled with finding the exact cause of the death, or speak for the health care system which treated Chasse’s schizophrenia.

Lindstrom’s slow, deliberate approach is a good match for the complexity of this topic, and Alien Boy’s in depth exploration of the intersection of the social, legal and medical forces which brought about the death of James Chasse will be of national interest.

Check out the Kickstarter page — where rewards are listed for those who give $1 as well as $5000 — and align yourself with Portland film history. John Campbell, cinematographer of Mala Noche and My Own Private Idaho, shot Alien Boy. The title comes from a song written about James Chasse by his friend, Greg Sage, of The Wipers.

Click here to view the embedded video.

One option: through Kickstarter you can become a co-executive producer. You’ll get your name on IMDB and bragging rights when Alien Boy is at next year’s Sundance.

Here’s the links to Alien Boy’s Kickstarter top levels. You can also donate smaller amounts. Your call.

Portland turned Karl Lind into a filmmaker, and he has returned the favor by contributing on every conceivable front to Portland’s burgeoning film scene.

Crewing for Portlandia? Check.

Curating for the Odds and Ends series at ATA? Check.

Winning acclaim for his experimental filmmaking? Check.

Co-founding Grand Detour? Check.

Making short, superb videos for Portland non-profits? Check.

In wearing all these hats, Lind is taking after one of his Portland indie filmmaking forebearers – Will Vinton. When Vinton was starting out, he combined working on local commercials and  local industrial films with directing his own, more personal, projects. I asked Will once if he worked on his own projects to keep from being bored with his other, more conventional, gigs. “I was never bored!” he said. “I was learning from everything I did. No matter where the project came from, I would learn something new.”

Read more about Karl Lind  here. Or visit Grand Detour’s website:

“a destination for national and international touring filmmakers and curators. We are planting the seeds towards our larger goal of becoming Portland’s hub for innovative video and media related artworks. Grand Detour is a haven for underground artists, digital methods classes, installations, and community discourse.”

Santa arrives tomorrow, Nov. 27., 12:00 sharp,  at 2124 N. Williams in Portland. He’ll be there to drink cocoa and get pictures taken with your kids. You’ll be there to buy hand made crafts from the artists who work at Port City Development Center.

What is Port City Development Center?

Oregon filmmaker Karl Lind took it upon himself to answer that question in Port City: Then And Now,  a 20 minute proof that there are places where Christmas doesn’t just come once a year.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Peter Wiedensmith followed 6o something Marilyn Sewell around  with a camera for two years, documenting the nitty gritty details of her life alone as a newly retired professional soul searcher. What he wound up with, to his surprise, was a narrative in which Sleeping Beauty is kissed by a prince.

Nancy Haught wrote about Raw Faith, Wiedensmith’s doc, in Sunday’s Oregonian.

Co-produced by Portlander Neil Kopp, with an original song written and performed by Sheryl Crow -Love Will Remain - on the soundtrack, Raw Faith won the PBS Human Spirit Award at the 2010 Nashville Film Festival.

I hereby claim Raw Faith as an Oregon film, based on multiple qualifying criteria.

]]> http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2010/05/raw-faith-hollywood-theater-may-28-700-pm/feed/ 2 http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2010/03/my-own-private-idaho-1991/ http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2010/03/my-own-private-idaho-1991/#comments Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:50:15 +0000 Anne Richardson http://www.talltalestruetales.com/?p=3589 Click here to view the embedded video.

“When Van Sant shows us speeded-up images of clouds rolling past wheat fields, the familiar device transcends cliche, because it’s tied to the way that Mike, in his benumbed isolation, experiences his own life-as a running piece of surrealism. The sheer, expressive beauty of those images haunted me for days.” Owen Gleiberman

Gus Van Sant knew it would be hard to find backing for a love story between two street hustlers, so he was prepared to make My Own Private Idaho with amateur actors, the approach he had used with Mala Noche, and would go on to use with Elephant and Paranoid Park. But Keanu Reeves surprised him by signing on as Scott, the slumming rich kid, and then persuading River Phoenix to take the role of Mike, the narcoleptic street hustler.

However Van Sant’s largest gamble wasn’t throwing two straight Hollywood A list actors in bed together. It  wasn’t  re-writing Falstaff as a chicken hawk and it wasn’t asking Keanu Reeves to do Shakespeare. It was shooting a screenplay he had written himself, and which was not based on source material, as both Mala Noche and Drugstore Cowboy had been. This was a first for him.

“Van Sant’s cleareyed, unsentimental approach to a plot that pivots on betrayal and death is reflected in magnetic performances from Reeves and Phoenix.” Peter Travers

Written and directed by an Oregonian, inspired by real Oregonians, shot by two Oregon DPs in Oregon (and Washington and Idaho), and starring an Oregon actor – River Phoenix was born in Metolius, during his parents’ hippie years – there has never been a film with more impeccable Oregon credentials.

Strange but true: the screenplay was cobbled together from  several screenplays-in-progress Van Sant was writing, none of which he found satisfactory on its own.

Strange but true: the wonderful hotel living room performance which Hans (Udo Kier) gives was not written by Van Sant.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Neither was the famous campfire scene where Mike declares his love for Scott. In both instances, Van Sant allowed the actors to take over the writing, and in the case of the campfire scene, allowed River Phoenix to not only write the scene, but direct the rehearsal of it as well.

Strange but true: in his recent interview with James Ivory, Gus Van Sant described directing actors, which he does so well, as the part of filmmaking he likes the least.

“The performances, especially by the two young stars, are as surprising as they are sure. Mr. Phoenix (Dogfight) and Mr. Reeves (of the two Bill and Ted comedies) are very fine in what may be the two best roles they’ll find in years. Roles of this density, for young actors, do not come by that often”. Vincent Canby

It is my very great honor to claim My Own Private Idaho as an Oregon film.

Good for armchair hippies who like to experience the mud, drugs and naked bodies of rock festivals from the safety of their own homes. I can’t recommend it for anyone else. Vortex 1 is already the subject of a previous hour long doc Vortex 1: A Biodegradable Festival of Life (2005).

Click here to view the embedded video.

I saw Vortex up close and personal in 1970 because I was there.

Note to the confused: This half hour doc about Vortex 1 was produced by Eric Cain for Oregon Public Broadcasting, and will air on February 8, 2010.

I hereby claim Vortex 1 as an Oregon film, based on more qualifying criteria than you could shake a stick at.

Every year the National Film Preservation Board chooses 25 films to protect from decay. This year one of them,  The Incredible Shrinking Man, was an Oregon film.

Oregonian Ellis Carter was the director of photography for The Incredible Shrinking Man.

Twenty four other Oregon films are on the master list of films being preserved. The earliest was The Chechahcohs (1924). The most recent is Animal House (1978).

Napoleon Dynamite (2004)  which qualifies because the star, Jon Heder, is from Salem.

Ratatouille (2007) which qualifies because writer-director-producer Brad Bird is from Corvallis. An Oscar winner.

Knocked Up (2007) which qualifies because cinematographer Eric Edwards is from Portland.