LFM in the News – Page 8 – LFM: Libertas Film Magazine

LFM’s Govindini Murty at The Huffington Post: Supermodels and True Beauty: A Conversation with Timothy Greenfield-Sanders of HBO’s About Face

AE25TVFACE — The supermodel sorority from "About Face."

[Editor’s Note: the post below appears today on the front page of The Huffington Post.]

By Govindini Murty. They’re among the most iconic faces of the second half of the twentieth century. Isabella Rossellini, Beverly Johnson, Paulina Porizkova, and their supermodel sorority helped to shape public perceptions of beauty and womanhood at a time of rapid expansion in the mass media. Their faces graced thousands of magazine covers and they were role models to millions of young women.

But was the rise of the supermodel a sign of female empowerment, or of female objectification?

About Face: Supermodels Then and Now, an insightful new documentary by director and photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders available on HBO on-demand through September 3 and HBO Go through 2013, interviews sixteen of these supermodels about the true nature of beauty in an age of consumerism and mass media.

As alluded to in About Face, the irony that underlies the modeling profession is that it should lead to both the empowerment and objectification of women. On the one hand, the mass distribution of images of female models through fashion magazines, ads, and other media in the past century has led to women becoming quite literally more visible in today’s world – with that visibility being an affirmation of their femininity and right to exist as women in the public sphere. In contrast to this, from the Puritans to the Taliban, misogynistic societies through history have restricted sensual or beautiful images of women as a prelude to denying their basic right to participate in public life, citing women’s beauty as a “corrupting” influence on social morality. The predominance of beautiful images of women in Western culture has thus affirmed the broader right of women to exist in public as feminine and not as neutered beings.

On the other hand, modeling has also had the effect of objectifying women by focusing on external surfaces, and at times unnatural standards of beauty. In About Face, Isabella Rossellini asks of the pressure for women to undergo plastic surgery: “Is this the new foot-binding? It’s misogyny to say that older women are unattractive.” Objectification can also lead to racism by dehumanizing people and imposing narrow standards of ‘beauty’ or ‘normalcy.’ Model and agent Bethann Hardison describes in About Face trying to book African-American models for runway shows in the ’70s and ’80s, only to be told by the casting agents that such models weren’t their “aesthetic.” As Hardison explains “‘Aesthetic’ is borderline for racist.”

I spoke with director Timothy Greenfield-Sanders about some of these issues at the LA Film Festival’s screening of About Face. The interview has been edited for length.

GM: What drew you to these ladies? I know you met them initially at a party in New York, but what did you find so magical about them?

TGS: I think when I met them at that party … I immediately got a sense of how smart they were. You know, the cliché is that you either have brains or beauty, but you don’t have both. Well, they seemed to have both. It really makes it an interesting film. And I thought that people weren’t aware of that. I have two young daughters who knew who they were. But many young people today who are so interested in fashion, they don’t know the history of it and of these iconic women.

GM: What has changed about modeling? You mentioned in the screening that these models were so unique, whereas today the models and their careers seem more transient. Why is there this disparity today versus back then?

TGS: I think that it was a smaller world then. I think there was a warmer relationship between the models and the designers and even the businesspeople involved. It was not so cut-throat and not so corporate. And I think today it’s just big business and big money, and I don’t think the human relationship is there as much. I think it’s very changed.

GM: Do you think a big part of that is the issue of covers – that the actresses are taking over magazine covers?

TGS: Yes.

GM: It’s such a striking change. What has that done to the morale of the models? Does it make a big difference behind the scenes?

TGS: I’m not sure I can answer that because it’s not my world, exactly. But I know certainly it was huge in those days to have covers, because covers were the definition of success. And the cover of Vogue was the ultimate success. So when Beverly Johnson got on the cover of Vogue – the first black woman to do so [in August, 1974], that was a big deal. And today – that doesn’t happen for models.

2012-08-31-PaulinaPorizkovapaulinaporizkova13818261454559.jpg — Model Paulina Porizkova.

GM: I thought it was very interesting what Dayle Haddon said that it wasn’t just that she thought she was the prettiest – in fact she didn’t quite fit into the physical type that was popular at the time, but that she brought something else to the picture.

TGS: She brought something else. And Dayle Haddon had to struggle because she wasn’t the look of the moment. She was a very smart woman and she figured out a way to add something more to the picture.

GM: Do you think the reason that those models from that era were so powerful – we’re talking the ’70s and ’80s, was because they were often muses for the designers they were working with?

TGS: Yes, exactly.

GM: I think of Yves St. Laurent and models like Khadija Adams, or even Catherine Deneuve in the ’60s who was dressed by St. Laurent for Belle de Jour. I think of Calvin Klein and Brooke Shields, they were so intimately tied together. Continue reading LFM’s Govindini Murty at The Huffington Post: Supermodels and True Beauty: A Conversation with Timothy Greenfield-Sanders of HBO’s About Face

LFM’s Govindini Murty at The Atlantic: Robots Caring for the Elderly? A Sci-Fi Film Idea That’s Not So Far-Fetched

[Editor’s Note: the full version of the article below appears today at The Atlantic.]

By Govindini Murty. Jake Schreier’s debut feature Robot & Frank is a smart and funny look at serious issues: the ethics of caring for the elderly with robots, the dichotomy between nature and technology, and even the dangers of eliminating physical books in favor of digital media. Opening nationwide on August 24th, the indie sci-fi drama written by Christopher Ford is set in the near future and depicts a wily, aging con man (Frank Langella) who is given a domestic robot by his son (James Marsden) as a caregiver, only to use the robot to plan heists. The film also stars Susan Sarandon, Liv Tyler, and Peter Sarsgaard as the voice of the robot.

Robot and Frank and cat — Robot and cat.

At Sundance earlier this year, Robot & Frank charmed audiences and was honored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for “raising profound questions about the role of technology in our collective future.” I spoke with director Jake Schreier at the LA Film Festival this summer about some of those questions. The interview has been edited for length.

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What appealed to you about the subject matter of a relationship between a human and a robot?

On the surface level, it was the image of this old man in a rural environment with this very clean, white piece of technology. There’s a certain visual interest that this starts from that is pretty fascinating. Chris Ford, who wrote it, [got] the idea from this real technology that is being developed to deal with the Baby Boom generation that’s aging in Japan, and they’re looking to robots to take care of their elderly. That was the genesis of it, and Ford took it from there and really fleshed it out into the script.

And you mentioned that this was based on a short that you had produced back in film school with Ford.

[Laughs.] I used that term “produce” loosely because we shot it in my uncle’s cabin. Ford made the movie and I helped him out. We were friends in film school. We put [the short] away, and Ford and I had kept working together along with some other friends. Then about four years ago we were looking for something to develop into a feature and I just thought if there was any way he could write it into something longer it would be a great thing to work with.

Frank Langella did a fantastic job and he’s obviously the heart of the film. How did he work with the robot?

Frank doesn’t need anything. He’s such a pro. Not only does he have an amazing amount of talent, but he has the ability to shape that talent and modulate it. It was amazing to watch on set. And Rachael Ma—the girl who’s in the robot suit—went through hell to do that thing, and was there for all of it, but there were times when she didn’t need to be so he’d just be acting with the torso of the robot or an apple box in the foreground. It really didn’t matter. He was locked in, one way or the other. He said to me that he just had a thing that he’d pictured in his mind and he didn’t really want to say what it was but it was all that he needed to trigger the performance. So, I was very lucky to have that.

Robot and Frank 2 — From "Robot and Frank."

>>>TO READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE, PLEASE VISIT THE ATLANTIC.

Posted on August 24th, 2012 at 10:38am.

LFM’s Jason Apuzzo & Govindini Murty at The Huffington Post and AOL-Moviefone: Basketball Diplomacy: An American Point Guard Becomes a Symbol of Freedom in The Iran Job

[Editor’s Note: the post below appears today at The Huffington Post and at AOL-Moviefone.]

By Jason Apuzzo & Govindini Murty. NBA fans know that two-time MVP point guard Steve Nash recently joined the Los Angeles Lakers. Fans are buzzing, because the addition of Nash could soon result in a return to championship glory for the league’s most glamorous franchise. As big as Nash’s impact on the Lakers might be, however, it can’t possibly match the impact that flashy point guard Kevin Sheppard — the former Jacksonville University star and Virgin Islands native — had in 2008 on A.S. Shiraz, a professional basketball team in Iran’s Super League.

The reasons for this go beyond sports, however, because over the course of one gripping and emotional season — a season documented by director Till Schauder and producer Sara Nodjoumi in their extraordinary new documentary, The Iran Job — Sheppard becomes one of Iran’s most popular athletes, and brings a ray of hope into an increasingly repressive and isolated society.

The Iran Job screened last week in Washington, D.C., and had its world premiere recently at the Los Angeles Film Festival, where we had the chance to talk to the film’s creators.

As depicted in the film, Kevin Sheppard’s Iranian odyssey begins in the fall of 2008, when he’s offered a spot on A.S. Shiraz’s roster. Having already played professional basketball in South America, Europe, China and Israel, the voluble Sheppard is unfazed by the prospect of playing overseas — but is understandably nervous as an American traveling to Iran. Coming in the midst of a 2008 election in which Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain all had sharp words for Iran and its nuclear program, Sheppard nonetheless decides to take the plunge out of a spirit of professionalism.

It was a decision that would change his life, as well as the lives of everyday Iranians — and in particular, those of three young Iranian women.

One of the most compelling aspects of The Iran Job is the way it captures the casual details of life in today’s Iran — a closed society that clearly harbors some unusual stereotypes about the outside world. So for example, the moment Sheppard arrives in Iran and meets up with his Serbian roommate (the team’s 7-foot center, and the only other non-Iranian allowed on the squad), Sheppard learns that his cable TV has been custom-provided with hundreds of pornographic channels — the assumption being that because he is an American, he must be sex-obsessed. The irony that such programming is even available in a “strict” Islamic society, of course, is not lost on Sheppard — who can’t help but laugh at Iranian officialdom’s awkward notions of diplomatic courtesy.

Such ticklish moments aside, however, Sheppard immediately begins bonding with average Iranians. A natural show-off with a wicked sense of humor, Sheppard dazzles everyone around him — even when they barely speak English, and are only able to respond to his warm smile and playfulness. The camera follows him early on as he goes out to grab dinner, and we see regular Iranians high-fiving him and snapping pictures with him before he’s even picked up a basketball. His enthusiasm and dynamic personality ignite smiles everywhere.

We asked Sheppard about the rock-star treatment he received from average Iranians:

“The funny thing about it is, once I got over there — people really love America. The government would say, ‘Down with America.’ They have all kinds of signs — ‘America is the Devil,’ ‘Down with the U.S.A.’ — but once you get to the people, they love American culture, they know everything about America, they love all the American sports. So it was a little bit ironic and crazy for me at first. I was like, how can you have all these signs around? But yet, when you speak to the people it’s totally different. So I know it [hostility toward America] was not coming from the mass of the people in general. This was all pushed upon them by the government.”

As The Iran Job proceeds, however, Sheppard’s innate enthusiasm is challenged by his lackluster basketball team, A.S. Shiraz a new and untested squad in Iran’s Super League, and a team sorely lacking in the kind of talent or winning attitude to which Sheppard is accustomed. Viewers basically get the sense that Sheppard has just joined The Bad News Bears of Iranian basketball, and his first task will be to shake up the underwhelming squad.

It’s worth noting here that The Iran Job follows the usual parameters of sports documentaries in depicting how one inspirational player can turn the fortunes of a franchise around by getting his teammates to believe they can win. That’s precisely what Sheppard does, due in part to his on-court heroics (we watch him win several games with buzzer-beating shots), but mostly due to his cocky swagger and high standards. The intense, demanding point guard simply hates to lose — and refuses to let his teammates ever be comfortable accepting defeat. Continue reading LFM’s Jason Apuzzo & Govindini Murty at The Huffington Post and AOL-Moviefone: Basketball Diplomacy: An American Point Guard Becomes a Symbol of Freedom in The Iran Job

LFM’s Govindini Murty at The Atlantic: Decoding the Cultural Influences in ‘Prometheus,’ From Lovecraft to ‘Halo’

[Editor’s Note: the article below and its accompanying slideshow appear today in their entirety on the front page of The Atlantic.]

A guide to the literary, artistic, and political tropes alluded to in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi blockbuster

By Govindini Murty. Ridley Scott’s long-anticipated Prometheus took in $50 million at the weekend box office, and with its heady mixture of sci-fi spectacle and metaphysical speculation is already generating passionate debate.

Set in the year 2093, the film depicts the crewmembers of the spaceship Prometheus as they journey to a distant moon to search for the origins of humanity. The team is led by scientist Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace), a Christian believer who has discovered a series of ancient pictograms convincing her that the moon is home to mysterious “Engineers” who created the human species. Shaw is accompanied on her vision quest by a robot with ambiguous intentions played by Michael Fassbender, an icy corporate executive played by Charlize Theron, and a crew of scientists and technicians. Once they arrive on the moon, they find a mysterious dome-shaped structure that contains horrifying forces with the potential to destroy humanity.

The striking images Ridley Scott devises for Prometheus reference everything from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 to Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man and Mario Bava’s Planet of the Vampires. Scott also expands on the original Alien universe by creating a distinctly English mythology informed by Milton’s Paradise Lost and the symbolic drawings of William Blake.

The following guide unveils the cultural mysteries of Prometheus. (Warning: these slides contain plot spoilers.)

1) The Greek legend of Prometheus

As the spaceship Prometheus approaches the moon LV-223, Peter Weyland, the wealthy businessman funding the venture, addresses the crew in a video. He explains the myth of Prometheus, and says to them mysteriously, “the time has now come for his return.”

In ancient Greek myth Prometheus was a Titan who helped Zeus defeat his father Kronos. Yet after he was cheated by Zeus of his reward, Prometheus defied the gods by stealing fire from Olympus and giving it to humanity. For this crime, Zeus condemned Prometheus to be chained to a rock for all eternity, with an eagle daily tearing out his liver. Aeschylus’ play Prometheus Bound depicts Prometheus as a mad rebel against divine authority. Prometheus barks to the god Hermes: “In a single word, I am the enemy / of all the Gods that gave me ill for good” (975-976), to which Hermes replies: “Your words declare you mad, and mad indeed” (977). This is later inverted in the Romantic poet Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound, which portrays Prometheus as a sympathetic figure and champion of humanity.

There are multiple Prometheus figures in the movie, from the mysterious race of Engineers who appear to have been struck down after using a lethal biotechnology, to Elizabeth Shaw who defies the limits of science to acquire potentially dangerous information about human origins, to Peter Weyland who wishes to gain forbidden knowledge of immortality to make himself equivalent to the gods. Finally, a scene in which Shaw and her fellow scientists attempt to animate the head of one of the Engineers with electricity appears drawn from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein—subtitled, “The Modern Prometheus.”

>>>TO READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE AND SEE THE ACCOMPANYING SLIDESHOW, PLEASE VISIT THE ATLANTIC.

Posted on June 11th, 2012 at 3:19pm.

LFM’s Govindini Murty at The Huffington Post and AOL-Moviefone: “We’ve All Been Brainwashed”: China’s Dissident Bloggers Speak Out in High Tech, Low Life

[Editor’s Note: the post below appears today on the front page of The Huffington Post and AOL-Moviefone.]

By Govindini Murty. Even as Chinese dissidents like Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo and artist Ai Weiwei suffer physical imprisonment, hundreds of millions of their fellow Chinese citizens are suffering a form of mental imprisonment thanks to their nation’s system of internet censorship. For example, the Chinese government recently blocked on-line searches for words relating to the 23rd anniversary of the June 4th, 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, censoring the terms “Tiananmen square,” “June 4th,” the number twenty-three, the words “never forget,” and even images of candles. The award-winning documentary High Tech, Low Life, currently screening at film festivals in the U.S., UK, and Australia, profiles two dissident Chinese bloggers who are working to challenge this Orwellian system.

Directed by Stephen Maing, High Tech, Low Life was in part funded by a Kickstarter campaign publicized on The Huffington Post and was an official selection of the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival. High Tech, Low Life documents the work of 57-year old blogger Zhang Shihe (known as “Tiger Temple”) and 27-year old Zhou Shuguang (known as “Zola”), two of China’s best-known “citizen reporters.” Even as the Chinese government uses internet technology to stifle dissent, these brave bloggers find creative ways to circumvent “The Great Firewall of China” and publish the truth about human rights abuses to the world. Along the way, Tiger and Zola suffer official harassment, familial disapproval, eviction, and arrest.

Blogger Zola describes in the film the vast apparatus of internet censorship that exists in China:

“There are 440 million netizens in China, 40,000 internal police monitor them, and 500,000 websites are blocked in China.” [Despite this,] “if an incident happens anywhere, netizens and citizen journalists will flock to the scene from all over the country. The censors might stop some of us, but they can’t stop all of us.”

Tiger Temple expands on the morally corrosive effect of the government’s censorship: “We’ve all been brainwashed. We’ve been listening to lies for too many years.” Although material prosperity may have improved in China, Tiger argues that life today is as bad as it was under Mao’s dictatorship. As Tiger puts it, the Chinese people are “complacent because they feel powerless.”

Tiger Temple and Zola could not be more different in style. The older, more experienced Tiger is a writer and former publisher living in Beijing who becomes closely involved in his subjects’ lives, bringing them food, money, and legal help. Tiger’s father was a high official in the Communist Party, but the family was persecuted by Mao during the Cultural Revolution in the ’60s. Tiger recalls how he and his family were beaten, evicted from their home, and exiled to the countryside. It was then, as a 13-year old, that Tiger says he started “roaming the country.”

Tiger’s entry into blogging was almost accidental. Returning home one day from viewing an exhibition of Monet paintings in Beijing, he saw a woman being stabbed to death on the street by a man as bystanders watched. Horrified but unable to prevent the murder, Tiger grabbed his camera and documented its aftermath instead. He notes that when the police showed up, they were angrier at him for taking the photos than at the murderer himself, because such scenes would normally be censored from the press. Tiger went on to publish the photos online and caused a sensation, becoming known as China’s first “citizen journalist.” Tiger adds that he calls himself a “citizen” and not a “citizen journalist” because that way the government can’t ban him.

Years later, Tiger makes lengthy journeys on bike through the countryside to report on the lives of the rural poor who have suffered in the rush to urbanization. He is even on occasion tailed by agents of the government. In one trip documented in the film, Tiger bicycles 4000 miles to Er Loa, a village devastated by the illegal flooding of toxic waste by the local government. The floods of waste have caused the farmers’ homes to collapse and have made farming impossible. Villagers tell Tiger that local officials have warned them that if they complain too much they will be arrested. Not only does Tiger take photos and video of the environmental devastation, he also brings the villagers flour and noodles to feed them and tells them he has forwarded their information to a university in Beijing where law students are working to file a legal complaint with the authorities. Tiger interests an NGO in their case, and the farmers are ultimately brought to Beijing to speak at the Civil Society Watch’s Environmental Protection Conference.

highlow2 — The blogger Zola at the Great Wall of China.

LFM’s Jason Apuzzo & Govindini Murty in The Atlantic: ‘Black Lagoon’: The First, Great Pretty-Girl-Attacked-By-Aquatic-Beast Film?

[Editor’s Note: the article below appears today on the front page of The Atlantic.]

Chatting with Julie Adams, the star who helped set the formula followed by the new Piranha 3DD.

By Jason Apuzzo & Govindini Murty. From piranhas and sharks to brain-eating crabs and giant leeches, Hollywood has provided some frightening and improbable reasons over the years for why pretty girls in bikinis should stay out of the water. Long before this week’s Piranha 3DD or even classics like Jaws, however, it was the lustful Gill Man from 1954’s Creature From the Black Lagoon who first made young women think twice about going swimming.

A beauty-and-the-beast tale of an aquatic humanoid who falls for a female scientist during a research expedition to the Amazon, Creature helped inspire the 3D science fiction craze of the 1950s. It also made its young star, Julie Adams, sci-fi’s first pin-up girl—and launched her distinguished career in film, TV, and on stage.

Still vibrant and active at age 85, Adams remains a popular draw at sci-fi and classic film conventions, where she’s currently promoting her lively new autobiography, The Lucky Southern Star: Reflections From the Black Lagoon, which she cowrote with her son, Emmy Award winning editor Mitch Danton.

CreaturePiranha — From "Creature" to "Piranha": why pretty women should stay out of the water.

Over her lengthy and colorful career, Ms. Adams has seduced Elvis Presley and Dennis Hopper on screen, played John Wayne’s wife, tussled in a burning basement with Barbara Stanwyck, and played the love interest to James Stewart, Rock Hudson, and Charlton Heston. She’s been directed by Anthony Mann and Raoul Walsh—and more recently has appeared in projects like Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center and TV shows like CSI and Lost.

Yet Adams still remains best known for her role as Kay Lawrence, the sultry brunette in a plunging one-piece pined over by the Gill Man in Creature.

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What was your initial reaction upon getting offered Creature?

[Laughs.] Well, I wasn’t thrilled, you know, and I thought I could turn it down, but then I would go on suspension [from Universal Pictures] and wouldn’t get paid … and so I thought, well, the studio wants me to do it, what the hey, it might be fun. And it was!

What was director Jack Arnold like, and how did you two get along?

I got along great with Jack Arnold, and he was a wonderful director. He was very low key, he seemed almost casual—but it was very easy to work with him. Any suggestion he made always made sense.

Did you interact much with William Alland, the producer?

Not that much, because he was not on the set that much—but I liked him. He was always very nice to all of us.

Actress Julie Adams.

Alland played the reporter in Citizen Kane, and he apparently attended a dinner party hosted by Orson Welles while they were shooting Kane. Welles’s lover Dolores Del Rio was also there, and she brought along Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa. Figueroa had heard a legend as a child about an Amazon water creature, half-man and half-lizard. And the story went that there was an Amazon village that would bring a virgin to the creature once a year in order for the creature not to terrorize the village.

Poor virgin!

Right. So Alland went home later and wrote Figueroa’s story down. And then about 12 years later the whole 3D craze started, and at that point he pulled out the story and started to make a movie of it.

That’s a very interesting story—it fits in, in a wonderful, cuckoo way.

>>>FOR THE REMAINDER OF THIS ARTICLE, PLEASE VISIT The Atlantic.

Special Note to LFM Readers:

Julie Adams’ autobiography The Lucky Southern Star: Reflections From the Black Lagoon is available exclusively at her website . Featuring 300 photos of the gorgeous Adams and her famous co-stars, the book provides a charming look at Adams’ experiences working with movie greats like James Stewart, Tyrone Power, Ida Lupino, and many others. While supplies last, the book also comes with a bonus CD of the iconic score for Creature From the Black Lagoon, re-recorded by Monstrous Movie Music and featuring music by Henry Mancini, among others.

Posted on May 29th, 2012 at 10:13am.