FILMOGRAPHY

Kevin Lee has asked me to write a monthly column at Fandor and I’ve obliged him. I’m honored to be writing for such a conscientious but visionary editor — I’m not surprised to find more than a few writers I’ve long admired in the Fandor stable. Here’s an excerpt from my first post, which concerns the behavior (or not) of Terrence Malick and Lars von Trier at (or not) Cannes:

That press conference is not only something [von Trier] controlled but something he gave birth to, a quasi-corporeal being unleashed to stalk and terrorize the Croisette. But this isn’t remarkable. No significant artist is contained by the bounds of his medium or by some 9-to-5 schedule during which he makes his art. He is always dynamically engaged, always making. The press conference video is just another exuberantly inventive experiment by Lars von Trier, not so different in spirit from The Five Obstructions. Really, it should have been eligible for the Palme.

From Noisemaker: Malick, Von Trier and the Right Kind of Wrong Publicity