#nonprofessional actors

[kristenswig]

#250. War Pony - Gina Gammell & Riley Keough

3.5/5

[mrs-stans]

The Actor Roundtable: Daniel Craig, Paul Mescal and Colman Domingo on Impostor Syndrome and the Dark Roles Women Love

Adrien Brody, Sebastian Stan and Peter Sarsgaard bond over the pressures of delivering a standout performance: "I had a panic attack every night."

BY SCOTT FEINBERG

Former James Bond Daniel Craig, The Pianist Oscar winner Adrien Brody, Euphoria Emmy winner Colman Domingo, Marvel superhero turned Emmy nominee Sebastian Stan, consummate character actor Peter Sarsgaard and Oscar-nominated heartthrob Paul Mescal range in age from 28 (Mescal) to 56 (Craig); hail from around the world (America, England, Ireland and Romania); and forged very different paths to stardom. But they all share one thing in common: Each gave a standout performance in a 2024 film — or, in Stan’s case, two — that led to them congregating in mid-November at Soho House West Hollywood for THR‘s annual Actor Roundtable.

Their characters are unforgettable: a Jewish architect who survives the Holocaust and comes to America (Brody in The Brutalist); a gay American addict in 1950s Mexico (Craig in Queer); an incarceree who finds purpose in art (Domingo in Sing Sing); an angry young man set on destroying the city that betrayed him (Mescal in Gladiator II); a TV exec who oversees live coverage of a terrorist attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics (Sarsgaard in September 5); a disfigured actor who undergoes facial reconstructive surgery (Stan in A Different Man); and a striving young Donald Trump (Stan in The Apprentice). So, too, was their conversation.

Let’s talk about how these projects came to you. Daniel, after your Bond chapter — five films over 15 years — how did you wind up hearing from Luca Guadagnino, whom you’d met before any of that?

DANIEL CRAIG I had no plan whatsoever. I was like, “Maybe I’ll never work again.” But there’s a movie I did quite a few years ago called Love Is the Devil, which Luca is a big fan of. I play the reverse role in that movie [the younger man in a gay relationship rather than the older one, as in Queer]. But everybody gets old! Luca wanted to adapt Queer for many years. The rights finally came free not that long ago, and he approached me. I’d have swept the floor for the guy because I think all his movies are exceptional and individual.

Colman, how did you wind up working on a film with a cast comprising mostly nonprofessional actors, 85 percent of whom had been incarcerated at one time at Sing Sing prison and had been through the program that you guys depict in the film?

COLMAN DOMINGO My director, Greg Kwedar, and his co-writer, Clint Bentley, have been volunteer teachers at Sing Sing for years. They kept saying, “If we can capture what we’ve learned from this Rehabilitation Through the Arts program, wouldn’t it be great to do a film about that?” Greg said he put the idea in his drawer and then pulled it out a couple of years later and wrote a quick treatment, and at the end, luckily enough, he wrote down, “Colman Domingo.”

“For years, sometimes I’d bow and get a cab across town and take my bartending shift,” says Domingo.

Paul, nearly a quarter century after Ridley Scott made Gladiator …

CRAIG You weren’t even born, were you?

PAUL MESCAL I was 4. (Laughs.)

… Ridley begins planning to move forward with a sequel and sees you in Normal People?

MESCAL My dad showed me Gladiator when I was 13 — I was obsessed with the battle sequences. But Aftersun and things like that [indie movies], that’s my bread and butter in terms of what I’m drawn to as an actor. But if I was going to make a big film? And Sir Ridley Scott comes asking? Ridley organized a Zoom, which lasted half an hour — he spoke with me for 10 minutes about the arc of the story, 10 minutes about his dog and 10 minutes about Gaelic football, and then it was offered to me. (Laughs.) I was like, “I could go and look at the first film and see what Russell did so excellently.” But that felt like a mistake because that’s not my lane. If Ridley’s entry point to me was something like Normal People and Aftersun and All of Us Strangers, I was keen to, where possible, draw a performance style from those films and try to bring it to something bigger.

Peter, you were working on the television series Presumed Innocent when you first heard about September 5. The director, Tim Fehlbaum, had made two prior, lower-profile films. What convinced you to ask for time off from Presumed Innocent to go and do this, 21 years after acting in Shattered Glass, another great film about journalism?

PETER SARSGAARD Believe it or not, it started at a concert. Sean Penn, who was in the first movie I ever did, Dead Man Walking, was there, and we hung out for most of the evening. At the end he said, “There’s something coming your way, by the way.” I went, “Oh, great.” He produced this movie. So when I met Tim, to be fair, I was already like, “Sean likes this guy.” Then Tim started talking about all this real footage, and I saw Jim McKay, this sports announcer who delivered the terrible news [on Sept. 5, 1972] without making it about himself, and I thought, “That type of person and sincerity has really been lost.” I started thinking it was a really interesting idea to go back to the first time that a live camera ever covered a crisis situation. Then Tim showed me pictures of all the real [original newsroom] equipment that he had, and a lot of the shit worked — it wasn’t greenscreen on the monitors behind us; we were watching actual images from the Olympics and cutting to the real Jim McKay. I’d say the lead is almost Jim McKay. We’re supporting him.

“That type of person and sincerity has really been lost,” Sarsgaard says of Jim McKay, the anchor who covered the events of September 5.

Adrien, your director, Brady Corbet, is 36. His two previous features are nothing on the scale of this one, even if the budget on this one was less than $10 million. What made you want to be a part of it, 22 years after playing another man traumatized by his experience during World War II in The Pianist?

ADRIEN BRODY There’s a real richness to the storytelling, and it speaks to many things historically that are quite relevant today but also very personal to me. My mother is a Hungarian-born photographer and artist, Sylvia Plachy, and has been a beacon for me in all my artistic pursuits. And her hardships and her parents’ — my grandparents’ — hardships of fleeing Budapest in 1956 during the revolution, losing their home and leaving everything behind and escaping under a bed of corn on the back of a truck and eventually immigrating to the United States? They’re obviously not related to my character and his personal struggles, but I felt very fortunate to be able to represent that immigrant experience. We’re all on a quest to find something of meaning that leaves behind something of meaning, and that’s also the quest of my character, as an architect. Brady is also very much like László. I often just look at my directors and try to channel them. That’s my trick. (Laughs.)

Brody, the youngest actor to win a best actor Oscar, says that experience is the ultimate teacher: “You do not listen until you fail or until it really hurts.”

Sebastian, Donald Trump is probably the most famous — and most imitated — person in the world, so I imagine it might have been a little intimidating to be asked to join the long line of people who have portrayed him.

SEBASTIAN STAN So much of what Adrien just said resonated for me in terms of wanting to be part of something that stands the test of time. I had a personal thing with the American dream because I came to this country from Romania when I was 12, and my father helped people escape illegally. I had heard all about the American dream and have been trying to this day to figure out what this dream is and what it gives us and what it takes away. That overrode any sort of fear about doing it because it was him. I played this little game with myself where I crossed out the names [of the characters], and there was still a Michael Corleone sort of story. And here was this filmmaker [Ali Abbasi] who was European, who’d fled Iran, who’s fearless and whose last film was all about his previous country, coming into this with a fresh perspective, not wanting to play for any team, just removing all judgment. I thought, “Can we just try to find out who the hell this person [Trump] is? What’s beneath this character?” And when you peel back the layers, you get to the core of a powerless child who has been enacting a sort of vendetta of revenge that we’ve all been subjected to, to no end. I think that we as artists, as actors, have to keep reflecting the times that we’re in as best as we can, no matter how ugly they are.

For Sebastian, there were two big-swing projects this year, the other being A Different Man.

BRODY Double feature. That’s so impressive.

STAN It’ll never happen again. It was thanks to the strike.

Stan stars in two Oscar contenders, The Apprentice and A Different Man. “It’ll never happen again,” he says. “It was thanks to the strike.”

Sebastian, your character in that film has neurofibromatosis, a form of facial disfigurement, and you were only willing to play him because your director and co-star wanted you to, right?

STAN With this one, I definitely feel like I took a little bit of what Adrien said about playing your director because [director Aaron Schimberg] also wrote it, and it’s so much about his experience of being a disfigured man. Sometimes I was like, “I’ll just copy.” But he’s been trying to figure out how he can get us to see a movie that represents this disability, and he was finding it very difficult. In his previous film, he hired Adam [Pearson, an actor who has neurofibromatosis] to be in it, and he got backlash because people were saying he was exploiting Adam, so the movie didn’t get seen. But if he was casting an able-bodied actor to play a disabled person, then he’s not really representing, and nothing happens. So he found a way with this movie of doing both.

These performances were ballsy. At what point did you feel most in danger of failing?

CRAIG Every day I was thinking, “This is all failing. Where is this going?” From the moment I got there in the morning until the moment I’d leave at the end of the day, it was like, “What the fuck?”

DOMINGO I was working with men who had the lived experience of being incarcerated, and every day I was like, “I don’t want to be a fraud.”

SARSGAARD If you play a real person — Nixon or somebody like that — it requires a different level of acting. When you play a Roone Arledge, nobody cares [because he’s not instantly recognizable]. You can just take whatever you want from the person. (To Stan) To succeed at what you did [playing Trump] is a whole other level.

STAN I was having panic attacks every night. There was not enough time to gain weight, and the prosthetics test failed badly, so I was fucked. And not only that, but the director, two weeks out, goes, “Originally, I was going to cast a woman to play Trump.”

BRODY That’s reassuring.

STAN “Why are you fucking telling me this two weeks before?! I’m going to die.”

Sebastian Stan in The Apprentice and A Different Man.

Most of you have played recognizable people at some point. What makes the difference between an impersonation and a performance?

DOMINGO You’ve got to find their soul. You’ve got to go deeper. When I played Bayard Rustin [in 2023’s Rustin], I had teeth knocked out and an accent and a wig, but I was like, “I can’t let that be the performance.” You’re required to find their soul.

MESCAL Sometimes those things help though, right?

DOMINGO Yeah. The physical helps.

BRODY You have a responsibility to represent the physicality and something that’s familiar.

STAN I always think of that Apollo 13 scene when they dump all the stuff on the table and they take a triangle and a circle and they’re like, “You’ve got to take this and make it fit into that.” With real people, you have targets — you know where you’re aiming.

SARSGAARD Well, you guys [Stan and Jeremy Strong, who played Roy Cohn in The Apprentice] anchored each other. You fed back to the other person, “This is who we are.”

DOMINGO (To Stan) When I watched what you did, I thought, “Oh, he’s taken away any judgment [of Trump].” I thought that was exceptional because everyone has an opinion about him, but you’re like, “No, I’m going to do the soul work.”

STAN Thank you. I always think of the great [acting coach] Larry Moss. The Intent to Live was a big book for me, about “everyone has a big emotional need.” Is it to be loved? Is it to be heard? Is it for approval? I mean, everything for Trump, from my perspective, is about power. It’s, “I want to be the most powerful person in the world.”

Mescal was 4 years old when Gladiator was released: “This is a mad experience for me, just to clarify. I’m 28 years of age.”

You’ve all worked in the theater — in fact, Paul, you’re soon doing A Streetcar Named Desire off-Broadway. Is there something about being onstage that makes you a better screen actor?

MESCAL Yeah, I think so. Somebody said to me that film is a director’s medium — they have the canvas and you’re the paint — but stage is very much a writer’s and an actor’s medium. Once previews are over, that’s your stage, that’s where you go and play. More broadly, something like Streetcar obviously has a very famous performance history, as does something like Gladiator II. Once I’d been cast in Streetcar, I was like, “I can never go back and look at the film until the dust has settled on it all.” And being onstage, you’re acting in a wide shot the whole time — there’s no hiding, there’s no going again. On a Ridley set, a lot of it feels theatrical because it’s not wide shot then tight coverage then medium shot; it’s all happening in one go.

He has a zillion cameras going at once?

MESCAL It depends. In the scenes in the cell, he would get as many cameras in there as possible — maybe he’d get to five, trying to cram a sixth in the door. Whereas when you’re shooting the battle scenes, it’s 12.

SARSGAARD Twelve?! (Laughs.)

MESCAL Twelve cameras, easy. Camera operators dressed up in costume like Roman soldiers.

DOMINGO Really?! That’s fantastic. (Laughs.)

MESCAL So you save time with the amount of takes that you’re going to do because the coverage is there. But you also gain a sense of freedom because continuity goes out the window.

Daniel, you’ve often returned to the stage in New York. For some of the more theatrical characters that you’ve played onscreen, like Benoit Blanc, I imagine that’s helpful?

CRAIG The first movie job I ever did, I went on the set and the director kept saying to me [complimenting him], “God, you’re so still!” I was like [to myself], “Because I’m terrified!” On the stage, because I’d been doing that for so long, there was just the freedom to be. I didn’t go into film knowing how to do that. That I had to learn — and I’m still learning to this day how to be as free on film as I can be on the stage.

“Oh, it doesn’t go away,” says the Bond actor on imposter syndrome. “But I think as soon as you think you can do it, you can’t.”

A lot of actors are surely thinking about you all, “They are exactly where I want to be.” But that hasn’t always been the case. Colman, your story of the past 10 years is so inspiring. You were almost ready to hang it up, right?

DOMINGO Not almost. Full-out.

You acted in the musical The Scottsboro Boys on Broadway and got a Tony nomination, then you acted in it again on the West End and got an Olivier nomination, and then you came back to the U.S. and …

DOMINGO I was a journeyman actor for years. Sometimes in the same night, I’d bow and then get a cab across town and take my bartending shift — I couldn’t give it up because I was getting $400 a week. That had been going on for many years — I’ve been working for about 34 years now. I came back to New York and was really disheartened because I was still going in for under-fives [auditioning for parts of less than five minutes of screen time], and I just thought, “My talent is not being used. And I don’t want to be bitter about it.” Because you start to feel a little bitterness. After feeling disrespected in an audition, I’d take the sides and put them in the trash before I walked out. Then there was a series of auditions and no’s — like eight no’s in one week — and one just broke me. It seemed perfect for me. The casting director and everyone said it was perfect. I went and met with the director and the producers. And then there was the most insane reason why I didn’t get it. [Domingo has previously said that the audition was for Boardwalk Empire and he was told that the part required a Black actor with lighter skin than his.] I pretty much collapsed in the gym [upon being told that]. I was crying and thought, “This is going to kill me. I have to leave before it kills me.” And right when I said, “That’s enough,” a friend said, “Hey, my managers have been wanting to meet with you.” I said, “No, I’m good. I just dropped my manager, and I’m about to drop my agent and do something else.” He said, “Just meet with them.” I did. Honestly, I felt like it was the worst meeting I’d ever had because I went in there with my arms folded and said, “I know myself. I don’t fit in certain boxes. I know what you see is different, but I do all these different things. But I don’t think that there’s a place for me in this business.” They said, “Give us six months and we’ll make some changes together.” My first two auditions after that were for a Baz Luhrmann series and for Fear the Walking Dead on AMC. I thought, “Fear the Walking Dead? I don’t do things like that.” But then they sent me this monologue that felt like I was doing Richard III, and I thought, “This is beautiful.” Television was starting to change, and I felt like there was a place for me. I booked both jobs — which was odd to me because I hadn’t been booking anything, and those were off of self-tapes — and that gave me a new footing in the industry. I want to be useful in this practice of being an artist. I think what we do at our best is we’re in service. This is a service job. And I want to be in service to this work. (Chokes up with emotion.) I’m glad I stuck around.

We’re sitting here talking during the weird circus that is known as awards season. Some of you have been through this before. Adrien, 22 years ago you went through it with The Pianist, and at 29 you became — and to this day remain — the youngest person ever to win the best actor Oscar. What do you know now that you wish you knew then?

BRODY Oh, that’s a lovely question. No one’s ever asked that. I don’t “wish I knew” because you can’t. You only learn things through experience. CRAIG You wouldn’t listen. My younger self just wouldn’t listen. He’d be like, “Whatever. Blah, blah, blah.”

BRODY It’s absolutely true. You do not listen until you fail or until it really hurts. For a shift to occur, there has to be enlightenment. Enlightenment comes oftentimes through suffering or hardships. I’ve had a very blessed life and career, but it’s never been easy. The thing to know is there are many chapters. To be at this table, both physically and metaphorically, is a triumph, honestly. And there are wonderful, positive career bonuses from accolades. But I think at the end of the day, everybody at this table will tell you that it’s the work — the experience of getting it and making it and enduring it and feeling great about the accomplishment of leaving it — that is the beauty, the joy. I’d been acting professionally for 17 years before that [Oscar]. To a lot of people, I was an overnight success, but I’d been kicking around, paying dues. And it was a remarkable thing, but it was kind of jarring.

MESCAL This is a mad experience for me, just to clarify. I’m 28 years of age. CRAIG Yeah. Why are you here? (Laughs.)

MESCAL When I was in drama school, I became hyperfixated on watching actors that I really admired talk about the work that they do. So I’m sitting here and I’m like, “What the fuck is going on?” For me, anyway, there’s this latent imposter syndrome.

CRAIG Oh, it doesn’t go away. I walk on the set thinking someone’s going to go, “Bluff.” It’s always there, that self-doubt. But I think as soon as you think you can do it, you can’t.

Peter, you once said that after playing a rapist and murderer in Boys Don’t Cry, you were disturbed to find that out in the real world, you got more female attention than ever before.

SARSGAARD Why did I say that? Oh my God. Yeah, that was true.

That’s obviously an unexpected response to your work. What have you all noticed about the way people interact with you in the aftermath of seeing these performances?

MESCAL People think I’m a tough guy. We had a premiere in Dublin, and we were walking past the pub, and there were these Irish lads, and for the first time ever, they were like, “Go on, the Glad [as in Gladiator]! Just walk!”

BRODY No one has seen this movie yet. But it’s funny, people will say, “My mom really likes you.”

DOMINGO Oh my God. Isn’t that the wildest thing? “So you don’t, right?”

What would you be doing today if you had not become an actor?

SARSGAARD I really like being around young people, and I’ve had some experiences with teaching, so I can imagine that route.

STAN Yeah, maybe something with young people because that’s always going to humble you.

CRAIG Serving cocktails on the QE2. DOMINGO I wanted to be a chef. I still cook as an amateur — I love food. MESCAL Something that would enable me to play Gaelic football. BRODY I used to paint and draw before I was acting, and I loved that. I rediscovered it later when I put down acting for some time.

Which living actor with whom you’ve not worked before would you most like to work with?

SARSGAARD It’s going to sound schmaltzy, but I’ve never acted with my wife [Maggie Gyllenhaal] in a movie. We did a film together — when we first met, I got her a part in this movie that I was doing, and she did one scene where we made love. But then the whole film was actually out of focus — we shot it for nine weeks — and the whole film was gone. MESCAL No way. DOMINGO What?! BRODY Oh my God, that’s horrible. MESCAL Michelle Williams. BRODY Robert De Niro. STAN Cate Blanchett. CRAIG All you guys. DOMINGO Adrien Brody. BRODY Brother, that can happen!

[janeya]

What are the things you dislike on Jane doe designs? And what do you not like seeing in performance’s of TBOJD?

ive already answered the first but theres a few answers for the second!!!! 1 obviously i dont like when the song is very clearly out of comfort range for the singer and they dont opt down. there is nothing wrong with opting down! i think a lot more people believe they can "sing high" than are actually technically developed enough to do it healthily and you can tell in performance. people tend to think they are much stronger than they are and it hurts to hear as a classical singer because i can only think about their poor damaged vocal chords...... this is especially a problem with younger actors and it is NO shame on them because it happens to the best of us. there is so much emphasis in theatre currently on having to sing as high as possible instead of prioritizing the vocal health of the performers.

secondly i (usually) dont really like when theatres try to do lifts to replace the flight sequence, cause it is really really hard to technically perfect lifts, especially with nonprofessional actors/dancers, and it ends up just looking messy and breaking the immersion. obviously there are exceptions but it just usually doesnt look very good.

3 is when the lighting design is the same as the rest of the show! its supposed to be a creepy song, but if the lights are bright and look the same as standard stage lights it kind of takes that away.

[falling-angelss]

DMV Struggle

E1 ,, Chapter 2

Chapter 1 can be found here!

All chapters can be found on pinned. :)

Summary: Wesley is finally taking his driving test so he doesn’t have to be a passenger princess anymore ❤️ very short chapter sorry im still thinking of chapter ideas before i get to the main plot chapters 😞

I've never been good at talking to people. At least, in a nonprofessional environment. I’ve always been good at talking to people when it’s a strictly professional approach, but when it comes to just being friendly and developing real connections, it’s like I’ve never spoken to anyone a day in my life. I feel almost like an alien at times. As if I was never meant to belong.

I’ve always felt like an actor in my own life, meant to play a specific role. Almost as if I know who I really am when the curtains close, but I’m told by everyone else a completely different role I have to play. And on top of that, apparently the director forgot to give me a script. I always say the wrong things and make the wrong decisions. I always make a complete fool of myself.

Which is why I often make an effort to distance myself from most. I want to be allowed to make my own script and play my own role sometimes, without anyone else reading my lines to me. I find it easier to live my day to day life alone.

I don’t need a big group of friends to go partying with every night, I don’t need coworkers to gossip with, I don’t need family members to ask me invasive questions every time I see them.

And I especially don’t need a musky blonde-haired skater boy pestering me just about any time I’m in town, but, guess what the director added to this season of “Wesley Just Trying To Live a Normal Life”.

I’m not even sure how he always seems to find me, it’s like he knows my every move. It’s a bit unnerving. Ever since I bumped into him before my job interview a few weeks ago, he’s been swarming me like a vulture and it’s roadkill.

His name is Aurelius Stevens, or “Ari”, as most people call him. He’s actually quite popular around here. We live in a small town where just about everyone knows everyone, and I quickly learned that Aurelius is quite well liked around here. Surprisingly…

However, that especially is what puzzles me. I don’t understand why someone with so many friends, so many people who actually like him, who actually want to hang out with him, would even attempt to spend time with me, an anxiety-ridden ninny who wants nothing more than to mind my own business. Out of anyone else, me?

It’s almost baffling. I wish I understood his motives.

I rush out of my apartment, tying my hair in a ponytail, since I don’t have time to properly style it and I don’t want to be late. I have a scheduled test at the DMV to try to get my driver's license. All of the legal stuff I’ve had to do after moving to America has been exhausting, especially without help from my parents, like I had back home. But… I know I’ll be alright. It’s better to get this all done sooner rather than later.

I start walking down the street, actively rummaging through my bag to make sure I have all the paperwork I may need. I can already feel an ache deep in my stomach… my anxiety always acts up when I’m headed to things like this. And the summer heat isn’t making it any better… I’m so used to the cooler temperatures back home near the sea, I forget how hot it can get here. This isn’t exactly the best time to have a wardrobe made up of almost entirely sweaters, now is it?

The DMV is just a few miles from my apartment, so not a bad walk, but apparently I’m more out of shape than I thought… after only about maybe 15 minutes of jogging, I feel so light-headed I could faint.

I check my watch, hoping that I’m not…

…

…Yeah. I’m running late. Of course I am, I’m always late.

I sit down on the low concrete wall that surrounds a local park, taking a short break from walking. I’m fighting with myself to decide what I should do next, hoping I can still make it to the DMV in time.

I always underestimate the complexity of doing even the most mundane tasks. If I had just woken up maybe an hour earlier, everything would’ve been fine. I don’t know how I have such poor time management.

Should I call the DMV? Let them know I’ll be late? Or maybe I should see if they can reschedule? Ugh. Or maybe I should pick up the pace a bit, I can still make it, but I think I may be sick if I run any longer. I really have to start working out soon. My legs are already aching, even from only jogging a short distance.

Maybe I should just cancel and do this another day. I’m already having the absolute worst of luck. My hair is a mess, both of my shirts are wrinkled, I was completely out of coffee (and food) this morning, and now that I’m sitting here, I see a toothpaste stain on the collar of my shirt.

Jeez, I really am a mess. I think Dad was right.

I can feel the anxiety and shame welling up inside my chest, like a geyser about to erupt straight out of me.

I can’t let anyone see me like this. What am I thinking? I should just-

Oh gosh. Is that his car?

“Hey!!! Dude!!! Do you need a ride!?”

He pulls up in front of me. I know that beat-up yellow car anywhere, you can spot it from a mile away. Ugh. Why on earth does he always have to show up at the worst times possible? Even worse though, Aurelius isn’t even the one driving. Instead, it’s one of his hooligan buddies who’s behind the wheel.

Gosh, this is embarrassing. My brain is crying out to me, sending signals to the rest of my body, causing me to feel as if I’m about to be mauled by a bear. It’s funny, how our anxiety manifests itself in such a Pavlovian way, as if we’ve been taught to feel such fear since our very first breath.

I realize I’ve gone a few moments too long without responding.

“Oh! Um…”

Do I really want to have these two drive me to the DMV? Would I want these two to drive me anywhere, for that matter? That poor car looks like it could break down at any minute, and with those two driving?

Well. When the opportunity presents itself, I suppose.

“Yeah, actually. Could you drop me off at the DMV? I have an appointment and,”

I look at my watch. Yikes. “I’m already quite late…”

Aurelius and his friend exchange glances, I see Aurelius say something, but I can’t make it out.

He gestures, indicating me to the back of the car.

Alright. I guess I’m doing this. It’s fine.

I open the back door and hop in, moving some things around so I even have room to sit down. Goodness, I haven’t seen a car this dirty in ages. I think I would pay him to let me clean this thing.

“You’ve met Francis, right?” Aurelius asks me, nudging the man in the driver’s seat to try and get him to introduce himself. He’s a fairly hefty man with long hair and tan skin, he’s probably somewhere around 6’2. In other words, amongst Aurelius’ other friends, this guy sticks out like a sore thumb. I’ve seen him before, but we’ve never formally met.

“Oh, I’m Wesley. Nice to meet you.” I reach out my hand to offer him a handshake. Francis looks me in the eyes and simply says,

“Yeah, I know who you are.”

He doesn’t shake my hand. I’m left looking like a complete imbecile. Maybe I have met him before?

This is so awkward. I take my hand back, placing both my hands in my lap. I’m already regretting this, but at least it’s a short drive.

I’ve finally finished my driving test, and now I’m headed out, about to make my way home. It’s barely evening, and I’m already exhausted and ready to head to bed.

Before I can even begin to start walking, I see Aurelius sitting in his car in the parking lot, playing on a handheld game system. I didn’t ask him to stay and drive me home, so I am a bit surprised at his appearance here.

I walk up to the car and knock on the window, causing Aurelius to jump. He was very focused on that game, I guess.

He rolls down the window to talk to me.

“Hey!!! I, uh, Francis went home but… I thought you might want a ride home?”

“Aurelius, you didn’t have to come get me. How long have you been sitting out here? I was in there for almost two hours.”

“I- Yeah, I know you didn’t ask me to come get you, I just… I thought it would be polite of me to drive you home so you don’t have to walk all that way.”

“I can walk home just fine, you didn’t have to wait for me here. The walk is only a few miles.”

“Dude. I saw how out of breath you were, y’know. Just let me do something nice for you.”

Oh. Well, that’s a little embarrassing.

I fall silent and get into the passenger seat. He and I both know I really do not want to walk home.

We drive for a little while in awkward silence, until Aurelius finally speaks up, cutting the tension.

“So… why are you wearing that sweater in almost 90-degree weather anyways?” He asks me with a smirk, just trying to tease me.

“My entire closet is sweaters like these, what else am I supposed to wear?”

“Seriously? What about like, when you’re just hanging out at home, or with a couple of friends? You don’t have anything besides those fancy-ass sweaters?”

“When I’m at home I just wear my pajamas. Anywhere else I try to dress presentable.”

Aurelius huffs out a silent laugh and pauses for a few moments.

“Well… you do look nice. I like your style. So, I guess it must pay off, right?”

His sudden change of tone… surprises me at first.

“Um… thanks. Yeah, I- I guess so.”

I’m not good at receiving compliments… I can feel myself flushing red. As I go silent, the tension rises once more.

Thankfully, we’re finally at the apartment building. I’m practically ready to jump out of my seat to go up to my apartment and decompress.

Aurelius parks the car.

“Hey, so… uh… I’ll see you around yeah? We should grab dinner or something one day, maybe, or… I dunno, but… we should hang out soon?” there’s an odd sense of nervousness in his words, which is quite unlike him.

“Uh… yeah, I’ll check my calendar. I’m pretty busy this month.” I’m making excuses. I’m not exactly looking to go “hang out” with anyone anytime soon.

“Alright, that’s cool. Uh… yeah. I’ll see you around.”

I exit the car and wave, heading inside. I can feel my face and ears burning red. This whole day was a huge mess of embarrassment after embarrassment.

At least I won’t have to have Aurelius drive me places for too long…

I look down at the papers I’m carrying.

I failed my driving test.

Even if I had passed, it’s not like I even have a car yet, though.

I guess I may have to deal with him at least a little longer, in case I ever need a ride.

(notes; sorry if this chapter is a little all over the place.. again im kinda just writing some world building filler chapters so u get to know the characters before the actual fun part of the plot 😞 cries)

[whileiamdying]

How Gena Rowlands Redefined the Art of Movie Acting

Gena Rowlands in “Opening Night.” Photographs courtesy Everett

The actress, who died last week, at the age of ninety-four, changed the history of cinema in her collaborations with the actor and director John Cassavetes.

By Richard Brody August 19, 2024

Gena Rowlands, who died last Wednesday, at the age of ninety-four, is, of all the actresses I’ve ever seen onscreen, the greatest artist. She’s the one whose performances offer the most surprises, the most shocks, the most moment-to-moment inventiveness, and, above all, the most almost-unbearable force of emotional expression, combining extremes of strength and vulnerability, of overt display and inner life. Her mighty talent is also a peculiar one, the strangeness of which is exemplary of the art of movies: it might never have come so fully to light were it not for her marriage to John Cassavetes and for the movies that they made together—especially the personal six that extend from “Faces” (filmed in 1965, released in 1968) to “Love Streams” (1984).

That’s not at all to diminish Rowlands’s art or its basis in her innate talent and hard work, but to locate its essence in the nature of cinema: it’s an art of collaboration, in which more or less every major artistic advance has resulted from two or more people making common cause. It doesn’t have to be romantic, of course, but it should come as no surprise that this couple, married for thirty-four years, until Cassavetes’s death, in 1989, should be responsible for the most profound movies about love that exist. They met in 1951 at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where they both studied, and married in 1954, when she was twenty-three and he was twenty-four. To do so, Rowlands broke her own vow not to marry in order to focus on her career.

Rowlands quickly got a career, on live TV dramas, on Broadway, and in Hollywood movies. Cassavetes had a similar acting career, although his Broadway experience was mainly behind the scenes, and he also made a pioneering independent film, “Shadows,” between 1957 and 1959 (she had only a bit part, uncredited). They started a family (eventually having three children, all of whom went on to work in film) and moved to Hollywood, where, in the early sixties, Cassavetes directed studio pictures, an experience he hated. They both continued their acting careers, and then, in 1965, they put their own money into “Faces,” much of which was shot in their own house. It took three years to complete, not least because the first cut ran eight hours; Cassavetes ultimately got it down to just over two. The movie, about the fraying of a marriage, is a drama of romantic frustration, longing, and pursuit—the story of a businessman, Richard, who runs away from his wife to spend a night with Jeannie, a sex worker, at her well-appointed home, while his wife has an affair with someone she meets in a night club. Rowlands, in her first real independent-film role—as the sex worker—achieved hitherto-unimaginable heights in movie performance.

A still from “Faces.”

Contrary to myths about Cassavetes’s films, they’re not improvised. The script for “Faces” was two hundred and fifteen pages long, and Cassavetes wrote the dialogue. What’s not written out is the actors’ physical behavior. They’re free to live out the action uninhibitedly, with Cassavetes’s camera following them in their lurches and dances, their tussles and their embraces. The entire cast, featuring veteran actors (such as John Marley, as the husband) and nonprofessionals (including Lynn Carlin, as the wife), performs with unreserved energy and passion, but it’s Rowlands who, in just a few scenes, expands the boundaries of movie acting. The role is one that has the notion of performance built into it—Jeannie is performing love and desire for her client—but the story involves an emotional reality that bursts through this convention-bound relationship.

The sex worker with a heart of gold is a well-worn type, of course, something that the movie confronts head on, yet there’s nothing hackneyed or even familiar about the way that Cassavetes films this character—or about how Rowlands brings her to life. Jeannie’s tragedy is that she is unable to fit into the conventional contours of her transactional role and instead brings her whole self, all her torrential, impulsive emotionalism, to her work. Her intensity provokes Richard into a wrenching-away of façades and engenders a contact of souls far more galvanic than the contact of bodies—until the transactional and the conditional snap back. Rowlands pours herself completely into Jeannie’s ratcheted-up gaiety and forceful control of tough situations, her rapturous tenderness and devastated disappointment. Cassavetes’s filming matches her beat for beat, throb for throb, leading to a closeup of such melodramatic starkness and catastrophic self-awareness that, to my mind, it’s the closeup of closeups, the one that could stand for the entire historical repertory of cinematic intimacy, of the art of the face.

In Cassavetes’s films, Rowlands was able to give of herself comprehensively, to be herself and to allow the wildest extremes of feeling to overwhelm her on camera. This isn’t solely because of the couple’s personal bond. It’s also because Cassavetes, behind the camera, is giving of himself completely, too, in his responsiveness to the people he’s filming and the situations that they create. She and he seem almost to be meeting at the surface of the image, yielding a sense of shared risk, shared vulnerability, and equality.

Rowlands’s performance in “Faces” set the definitive tone for Cassavetes and his films, as well as for herself. In Cassavetes’s 1963 studio movie “A Child Is Waiting,” Rowlands, who co-stars, is skillful and focussed, with a strong presence but an unexceptional manner. In “Faces,” more than a star is born—she reveals an entire new dimension of acting. She wasn’t in his next film, “Husbands,” from 1970 (in which he co-stars with Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara), but his performance confirms her influence. He was already highly original, but “Faces,” in which he doesn’t appear, produced a watershed in his own performances, and in the acting of his movies in general—a form of acting that the entire future of cinema would be forced to reckon with.

By the time Rowlands and Cassavetes made their next movie together, “Minnie and Moskowitz” (1971), they had turned forty, and, in that post-sixties moment, with its slogan of never trusting anyone over thirty, the suburban world of “Faces” was already old-fashioned. Yet, as if to overcome the facile determinism of a generational dividing line, it was this cinematic couple that was singularly rejuvenating the art of movies, dispelling pretenses of comfort and tranquillity to give full and florid expression to the stifled emotions that it concealed. The couple’s films don’t talk politics, but the way that they defied movie conventions to depict experiences with unprecedented intensity gives them a manifest social and metapolitical power.

Seymour Cassel and Rowlands in “Minnie and Moskowitz.”

In their 1974 drama “A Woman Under the Influence,” Rowlands, playing the wife of a construction foreman (Peter Falk), confronts the raw and repressive power of working-class masculinity, in a performance that, for all its fury and reckless playfulness, has a finely composed dramatic arc and a manifest virtuosity. Despite this sense of more careful composition, its scenes from a marriage and its vision of family life are nearly unbearably painful to watch; they were agonizing for Rowlands to portray. In 1976, Rowlands was in the room when Cassavetes was interviewed about the film by a journalist from Le Monde, who asked her if she’d thought of directing Cassavetes in a movie. She first jokingly pretended to strangle her husband, then earnestly said that she didn’t want to direct, then added, “No, sometimes, after difficult scenes, I’d like to turn the camera on John, especially to get revenge . . . ”

Having taken naturalistic drama to unprecedented extremes, the couple next explored the very nature of performance, in “Opening Night” (1977), surely the most powerful and imaginative movie about actors—and about an actress—that exists. Rowlands plays Myrtle Gordon, an actress cast in the lead role of a play by an elderly playwright (Joan Blondell), the subject of which is the character’s transition from youth to maturity. The role terrifies Myrtle, emotionally and professionally: she feels that it will mark the end of her career as she knows it, and it also forces her to confront her own age (which is unspecified, but Rowlands was in her mid-forties). It’s also the story of Myrtle’s terror and horror at one particular moment of stage business—when a co-starring actor named Maurice (Cassavetes) is supposed to slap her.

What Myrtle does, in the face of her resistance to the play’s text and to its direction, is to explode the play in real time, forcing Maurice and the rest of the cast to improvise along with her, to the horror of the playwright but to the delight of the audience in the theatre where the play is opening. Those improvisations (most of which were indeed written) range from the dangerously passionate to the uproariously capricious—and Myrtle delivers them as if directly addressing the audiences attending the play and breaking the fourth wall, and forces Maurice to do the same. It’s as if the actors are tipping their hands at movie viewers as well, suggesting the vast personal realities that fuel great screen performances. Most actors and most filmmakers, bound by industry norms or crowd-pleasing conventions, don’t even hint at such realities, but Cassavetes and Rowlands broke open the screen to let them flood into the world at large. The essential art of Rowlands, the art that she and Cassavetes shared in public and in private, was the art of life, the art of love. ♦

[onewomancitadel]

Do you guys remember when they spent probably millions on all of those celebrity voice actors in genlock. And then actual literal (ex-)nonprofessionals in RWBY voice acted better than them. I remember

[thewarmestplacetohide]

Dread by the Decade: Vampyr – Der Traum des Allan Gray

👻 You can support me on Ko-fi ❤️

★★★

Plot: A man must save two young women from a vampire’s curse.

Review: Vampyr boasts striking visuals, a noteworthy experimental style, and interesting lore, but falls short in terms of plot and characters.

English Title: Vampyr: The Dream of Allan Gray Source Material: In a Glass Darkly by Sheridan Le Fanu Year: 1932 Genre: Vampires, Gothic Country: Germany Language: German Runtime: 1 hour 15 minutes

Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer Writers: Christen Jul, Carl Theodor Dreyer Cinematographer: Rudolph Maté Editors: Tonka Taldy, Carl Theodor Dreyer Composer: Wolfgang Zeller Cast: Nicolas de Gunzburg, Sybille Schmitz, Jan Hieronimko, Henriette Gérard, Maurice Schutz

-----

Story: 2.5/5 - Bare-bones, it works best when viewed as a dream. Too much time is dedicated to making the audience read lore written on screen and not enough on the monster.

Performances: 3.5/5 - Schmitz creates one of the most unsettling shots of the film without a word, and the rest of the cast is surprisingly strong for nonprofessional actors.

Cinematography: 4.5/5 - Fantastic camerawork, framing, and use of shadow.

Editing: 3/5 - Purposefully disjointed with varying degrees of success.

Music: 3/5

Effects: 4/5 - Really creative shadow effects and use of multiple exposure.

Sets: 4.5/5 - Varied and rich. The film was entirely shot on location to its benefit.

Costumes & Make-Up: 4/5

Trigger Warnings:

Very mild violence

[littledeerradio]

All professional child acting is traumatizing. Half the nonprofessional is too if they take it too seriously and try to force them to perform well rather than just learning and having fun. It doesn't have to be a large thing. I was a professional child actor for local theater and the amount of pressure of that gave me nightmares. I can't imagine how horrible it is for people who have to go on TV. Not to mention grooming was already going on to me at the smaller level and I know its worse the bigger you go. Horirble

[lboogie1906]

Clarence Muse (October 14, 1889 – October 13, 1979) was an actor, screenwriter, director, composer, and lawyer. He was the first African American to “star” in a film. He acted for fifty years and appeared in more than 150 movies. He was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1973.

He was acting in New York during the Harlem Renaissance with two Harlem theatres, Lincoln Players and Lafayette Players. While with the Lafayette Players, he worked under the management of producer Robert Levy on productions that helped African American actors gain prominence and respect. In regards to the Lafayette Theatre’s staging of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he said the play was relevant to African American actors and audiences “because, in a way, it was every Black man’s story. Black men to have been split creatures inhabiting one body.”

He moved to Chicago for a while and then moved to Hollywood. He performed in Hearts in Dixie, the first all-Black movie. He worked regularly in minor and major roles. He appeared as an opera singer, minstrel show performer, vaudeville, and Broadway actor; he also wrote songs, plays, and sketches. He became the first African-American Broadway director with Run Little Chillun.

He was the co-writer of several notable songs. He wrote “When It’s Sleepy Time Down South”, known as “Sleepy Time Down South”. The song was sung by Nina Mae McKinney in Safe in Hell (1931). It became a signature song of Louis Armstrong.

He was the major star in Broken Earth (1936), which related the story of an African American sharecropper whose son miraculously recovers from fever through the father’s fervent prayer. Shot on a farm in the South with nonprofessional actors, the film’s early scenes focused realistically on the physical labor of plowing scenes with African American farmers. He co-starred with boxer Joe Louis in Spirit of Youth, the fictional story of a champion boxer, which featured an all-Black cast. He and Langston Hughes wrote the script for Way Down South. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #phibetasigma

[ethanfernandez]

Week 5: Reality TV

Reality television is one of the most fascinating and controversial genres on the great spread of television. From the earliest seasons of "Survivor" and "Big Brother" to the glamorous drama of "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" and the sexual antics on "The Bachelor," reality television has become deeply ingrained in the minds of all of us. However, what is it about this genre that appeals to millions of people, and what outcomes result from our shared fixation?

The main attraction of reality TV is the unscripted, real-life drama it promises to deliver. The authenticity, however curated, of witnessing actual people deal with problems, form bonds with one another, and go about their daily lives draws in viewers. A cast of different people whose interactions were real and unscripted provided viewers with a sharp contrast to the polished perfection of scripted dramas and sitcoms. Shows like "The Real World" pioneered this approach.

People who are on Teen Mom OG don't act like the camera isn't there. The camera is front and centre, challenging both the norms that control how meaning is made and visual culture, as well as the traditional idea of what is public and private, especially when it comes to the consumer (Salibian, 2020).

In addition, reality TV is a spectacle of the current era. Television programmes such as "America's Got Talent" and "The Voice" provide viewers with a glimpse into the outstanding abilities of regular individuals, turning them into superstars overnight. The competitive aspect heightens the suspense and makes the audience obsess about the results.

Moreover, it's a mixed type of television programming that is based on factual entertainment through the experiences and performances of nonprofessional actors has gradually become more and more popular over the past 20 years, raising concerns among the public about basic moral values like, respect for human dignity and integrity, honesty, and truth (Mast 2016).

In conclusion, reality TV is still very popular and has a complex role in both reflecting and moulding society ideals, even in the face of controversy. It provides a glimpse into human nature, presenting the positive and negative aspects of humanity. It's important for us as viewers to observe reality TV critically, enjoying its entertainment value but also considering the larger repercussions for both ourselves and the people on television.

Reality TV is ultimately just a mirror, reflecting back to us as much about our interests and aspirations as it does about the people we watch with such fervour.

References:

Salibian, T 2020, “Reading Reality Television: Publicizing, Promoting, and Commodifying the Self ,” scholarship.claremont.edu, accessed May 14, 2024, <https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1283&context=cgu_etd>.

Papacharissi, Z & Mendelson, A 2007, “An Exploratory Study of Reality Appeal: Uses and Gratifications of Reality TV Shows,” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, pp. 355–370, accessed <https://zizi.people.uic.edu/Site/Research_files/JobemRealityTV.pdf>.

Mast, J 2016, “The Dark Side of Reality TV: Professional Ethics and the Treatment of Reality Show Participants,” International Journal of Communication 10, pp. 2179–2200, accessed <https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/viewFile/2444/1646>.

[f0xd13-blog]

Vampires party hard

[argentumcor]

The Violence quest is really interesting, if very, very simple. It connects so much to V's problem and what probably happened to Johnny- my theory is Arasaka used his engram first to investigate the bombing, then used his useless-to-them engram as a guinea pig for memory modification, modifying the events of the bombing that they had replayed over and over again and so knew very well, which is why it doesn't match up to the TTRPG version. The changes are in line with Johnny's character at the time, which tells me engram modifications have limits- while the stuff we see being done to the Peralezes doesn't seem to, though the result is not subtle because of that.

Violence is a little hindered towards the tail end by Lizzy's, hm, not consistent voice acting. It's hard to tell if her 'haughty dismissive voice' is deliberately parodic or just...nonprofessional voice actor. I have seen this before in Mass Effect 3 though that was much worse. That reporter also had a nightmare of a model, like the artist deeply resented the entire concept, while Lizzy's model is at least good.

I couldn't pick Grimes out of a lineup; Lizzy Wizzy reads to me as Cyberpunk Taylor Swift given her implied level of popstar-ness.

[qu-film-history-to-1968]

Post-War Hollywood Realism and its Effect on Modern Cinema (FINAL)

Grace Doyle

Post-War Hollywood Realism and its Effect on Modern Cinema

Post World-War II cinema marked a turning point in Hollywood. In the years following the end of the war, studios sold their theater chains, effectively destroying the then-popular tiered production style. Further, America’s shifting residential, social, and economic conditions compelled filmmakers to turn to more grounded and realistic forms of storytelling. This dramatic transition from the extravagant pre-war studio films has greatly influenced modern filmmaking.

Influences

Post-War Hollywood Realism was greatly influenced by the Italian neorealism movement which was happening simultaneously. Italian neorealism, like the new era of Hollywood, was constructed through the debris of war. Neorealist filmmakers like Vittorio De Sica used a camera to capture and reflect the society they lived in. Hollywood realism adopted many traits of the genre, including location shooting: the act of using real-world settings rather than studio backlots or produced sets. Portraying the natural world as it occurred allowed audiences to be transported to recognizable locations and landscapes, thus making the film feel more authentic and close to home. Another aspect which is unique to Italian neorealism filmmaking is using nonprofessional actors. Bicycle Thieves (1948) used non-actors in its lead roles to accurately depict common citizens living in post-war Italy. The performances delivered by said actors elevated the film’s sense of depravity and loss, reflective of the atmosphere of their lived-in society.

These techniques drive forward the social and political themes of Italian neorealist films. As mentioned in the reading, “Partly, this is what the neo in neorealism refers to: while defying conventions, neorealist film and fiction elaborate on the moral and social components of traditional realism…thereby extending and reformulating its borders. Far from being unique to Italian post-war culture, this dialectic between old and new is what permits realism to constantly take on new forms,” (Haaland, 34-35). The Italian neorealist style of filmmaking aided Hollywood in telling more effective stories, as well as developing its own style of realistic filmmaking. A modern American film which uses neorealist filmmaking techniques is Boyhood (2014). Directed by Richard Linklater, Boyhood follows a boy through adolescence, growing up in real time. The techniques used in this film are reminiscent of Italian neorealist filmmaking, as the grounded performances and script (which relied heavily on improvisation) result in an accurate portrayal of growing up in lower-middle-class America.

Authentic Characters

One of the main characteristics of Hollywood Realism is the development of authentic character, which would reflect audience members of the decade. Due to the arrival of troops back from war, as well as the increase in marriages and birth-rate, there was a demand for housing in America: thus, the suburb was founded. Homes were built rapidly and homogeneously, with architectural designs being repeated throughout multiple constructions in one area. The suburban landscape, which is still prevalent in modern society, highlighted both financial and generational gaps following World War II. The construction of suburbs drove out lower-income citizens through single-use zoning, and the middle-class citizens which suburbia did appeal to were deeply challenged in their interpersonal relationships. Specifically, teenagers and young adults felt disconnected from their parents, and despite their well-off upbringing, there was turmoil in their homes.

A technique which reflects these changing attitudes in post-war Hollywood is the use of melodrama. One of the most popular films from this time period which used melodrama is Rebel Without a Cause (1955). The story follows Jim Stark, a troubled teenager who relocates after many run-ins with the law. He meets other people his age, each struggling in their parental relationships. Though the melodrama has been heavily quoted and often ragged on (“You’re tearing me apart!”), it reflected the brooding emotions of adolescent audience goers. Focusing on multidimensional, realistic characters was an incredible feat in capturing the realities of the changing world. 

A film which uses both authentic characters and melodrama is The Holdovers (2023). Though produced as an homage to 70s filmmaking, The Holdovers uses aspects of post-war realism by developing realistic characters and creating scenes which highlight the generational gap between them. The film pays attention to the intricacy of human behavior, highlighted by melodramatic performances and clearly expressed realism.

Post-War Social Realism

Many films of the era focused on the aftermath of the recent global conflict in different spheres. Even in films which did not have direct ties to themes of war, its lingering presence is still felt. Sabrina (1954) is a romantic comedy which offers fascinating commentary on postwar international relations. The film, which follows the generic “Cinderella” storyline, is actually a commentary on foreign relationships between the United States and Europe, specifically France. The sophisticated Sabrina represents France, and her goal is to wed a wealthy and strong man, representative of American capitalism and its values. Sabrina, “...[casts] the period's gendered, dominant foreign policy discourses in the terms of the Hollywood Cinderella romance: orphan Europe can be seduced by American assistance," (Smith). 

Conclusion

Post-World War II Hollywood Cinema offered an authentic portrayal of the complexities of American society in the 1950s. The significance of realistic characters, grounded stories, and authentic locations paved the way for the “New Hollywood” movement of the 1960s/70s and modern films to come.

  Works Cited

Smith, D. M. (2002). Global Cinderella: Sabrina (1954), Hollywood, and Postwar Internationalism. Cinema Journal, 41(4). https://www.public.asu.edu/~srbeatty/464/Smith_re_Sabrina.pdf 

Bondanella, Peter. “Three Neorealist Classics by Vittorio De Sica.” Cinéaste, vol. 23, no. 1, 1997, pp. 52–53. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41688998. Accessed 25 Nov. 2023.

Browner, Seth, "The Post-World War II Suburb in the United States". The First-Year Papers (2010 - present)

Farber, Stephen. “THE FILMS OF BILLY WILDER.” Film Comment, vol. 7, no. 4, 1971, pp. 8–22. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43752857. Accessed 28 Nov. 2023.

Haaland, Torunn. “REALISM AND NEOREALISM.” Italian Neorealist Cinema, Edinburgh University Press, 2012, pp. 33–61. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctt3fgsn5.6. Accessed 15 Dec. 2023.

Hornaday, Ann. “Please Don’t Call Alexander Payne’s ‘the Holdovers’ a Return to Form.” The Washington Post, 27 Oct. 2023, www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/movies/2023/10/27/holdovers-alexander-payne/. Accessed 15 Dec. 2023. 

Dargis, Manohla. “From Baby Fat to Stubble: Growing up in Real Time.” The New York Times, 10 July 2014, www.nytimes.com/2014/07/11/movies/movie-review-linklaters-boyhood-is-a-model-of-cinematic-realism.html. 

[antonio-velardo]

Antonio Velardo shares: ‘The Unknown Country’ Review: A Granddaughter’s Road Trip by Lisa Kennedy

By Lisa Kennedy Lily Gladstone’s achingly measured performance braided with the actual stories from nonprofessional actors makes Morrisa Maltz’s film a memorable road trip. Published: July 27, 2023 at 01:58PM from NYT Movies https://ift.tt/Ibvy2fj via IFTTT

[allweknewisdead]

Deprisa deprisa (1981) - Carlos Saura

[screenshottery]

Daniel Blanchard in Low Tide (2012, Roberto Minervini, dir.)