Skip to main content

Hal Hartley, Beat filmmakers, Alex Cox - 3 new film books from Soft Skull Press



Got a pleasant surprise in the mail today - 3 recently published books about film from Soft Skull Press - looks like I've got my winter film related reading . Here are the links to the work, flipped through all of them & can't wait to read each fully:

True Fiction Pictures & Possible Films - Hal Hartley in conversation with Kenneth Kaleta, by Hal Hartley

From Soft Skull's site: "Hal Hartley's comedies of unlikely love, trust, and social questioning have been provocative must-sees for the past two decades with critics and audiences alike. In this book of interviews with Kenneth Kaleta, Hartley reflects on the evolution of his filmmaking, elaborating on the forces he believes helped shape it and the ways in which his aspirations develop as time goes on, revealing a good deal of what it is like to be an independent creative artist in a commercially driven culture. This is an important resource for anyone interested in Hartley's filmmaking in particular, and in motion pictures generally." More at the site.

::

Naked Lense - Beat Cinema, by Jack Sargeant

From the Soft Skull page for the book: "Celebrating the celluloid expression of the Beat spirit—arguably the most sustained legacy in US counter-culture—Naked Lens is a comprehensive study of the most significant interfaces between the Beat writers, Beat culture and cinema. Featuring the key Beat players and their collaborators including: William S Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski, Brion Gysin, Anthony Balch, Ron Rice, John Cassavetes, Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan, Klaus Maeck, and Gus van Sant.

As well as examining clearly Beat-inspired films like "Pull My Daisy", "Chappaqua", and "The Flower Thief", Sargeant also examines verite and performance films ("Shadows", and "Wholly Communion"), B-movies ("The Subterraneans" and Roger Corman's "Bucket of Blood"), and Hollywood adaptations ("Heart Beat" and "Barfly").

The second half of the book is devoted to an extensive analysis of the films relating to William Burroughs, from Antony Balch's "Towers Open Fire" to David Cronenberg's "Naked Lunch". This book also contains the last ever interview with writer Allen Ginsberg recorded three months before his death in April 1997."


::

X Films, by Alex Cox

From Soft Skull's page for the book: "Alex Cox is the genuine article: a radical, international, independent filmmaker who is also a good writer, an insightful commentator on contemporary cinema, and an expert critic of the power of Hollywood.

X-Films has as its center the filmmaking autobiography of a fine director, the journey through all his major films and how they were made, including his new film, now in production. Cox takes us to varied locations, including the US, Mexico, and Nicaragua, where he made Walker with the cooperation of the Sandinista government. His book is full of fresh ideas and rare insights into many films of different genres and the people he has worked with, including such greats as Dennis Potter and Harry Dean Stanton.

X-Films not only contains the confessions of a radical filmmaker, it is also the most readable working manual yet for the independent filmmaker. Enfant terrible he may be, but Alex Cox is also ahead of the game and is a pioneer and promoter of new forms of filmmaking for the cultural revolutionaries of the 21st century. He advocates work that is visual, visceral but interactive, with multiple narrative possibilities."


These books look great, specially for people interested in the past & the future of indie film in America, get 'em, read 'em, tell us all about them here in Comments or in your own blog or site.

- Sujewa

Full Movie - SNEAK PREVIEW - Cosmic Disco Detective Rene And The Mystery Of Immortal Time Travelers

NEW - COSMIC DISCO DETECTIVE RENE (2023) - TRAILER!

The Secret Society For Slow Romance (2022) - available to rent as a new release starting January 1

Werewolf Ninja Philosopher at Vimeo VOD

Popular Posts

Godard's GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE - watch and commentary live - off of Metrograph At Home copy of film

Let's take a closer look at Mike Tully's negative review of IFBRT & see if we can clarify some things

Mike Tully (presently inactive filmmaker who is not a fan of shooting on DV, who is now running things - as far as I know - at the review site Hammer to Nail, who also blogs at indieWIRE, & who wrote a brief & positive review of Date Number One in '06, & a fellow Marylander who generally seems like a cool dude) attended the World Premiere of Indie Film Blogger Road Trip and wrote a review of the doc . There are several items in that review that I'd like to comment on. So here we go: "At its best, Sujewa Ekanayake’s Indie Film Blogger Road Trip is certain to go down as one of the more bizarre time capsules of life on early-21st Century Earth." Cool - life on Earth in early 21st century - right now - is pretty bizarre, so a film dealing with a new, early-21st Century thing like film blogging/a film blogging community, should reflect that reality. The doc, however, is very simple & conventional in its form & content (shots of people talking). It is i

This is no way to write a movie review

Cynthia Rockwell's "review" of Hannah Takes The Stairs is depressing not because she didn't like the movie but because after reading the entire thing, 6 small to medium sized paragraphs, I can't figure out the following: the plot of the movie or the situation or roughly what happens for 70 - 90 minutes, the main characters & any significant minor characters, who plays the characters, ideas that may have been expressed in the movie, similar ideas and situations that may have been explored in other movies or other art/entertainment and how those compare with the film being reviewed, the reviewer's opinion of the technical craftsmanship of the movie, how real life compares to the world being depicted in the movie. At the very least I would like to learn a few of those things about a movie from a review. (and yes, Rockwell does consider her post re: Hannah a review, as noted here , not just a blog entry reflecting on the lack of female participation in indie

Reading Material

Indie Film Blogger Road Trip