Rushes: "Death Stranding," Alien High School, Cannes Wrap Up

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RECOMMENDED VIEWING

• The official trailer for Peter Strickland's In Fabric, which stars Marianne Jean-Baptiste as a woman who purchases a haunted dress from a sinister boutique.

• The long awaited trailer to Hideo Kojima's new boundary-pushing video game Death Stranding, which by way of motion capture stars the likes of Norman Reedus, Léa Seydoux, Mads Mikkelsen, Nicolas Winding Refn, and Guillermo del Toro.
• Alien: The Play, a North Bergen High School production that features handmade costumes made of recycled materials, is now available online in its entirety.

• In the latest edition of the Museum of Modern Art's "How To See" series, curator Dave Kehr discusses how the nitrate prints and negatives of cinema's early days inspired audiences by expanding their perception of the world.

• Miranda July directs the music video for Sleater-Kinney's "Hurry On Home," stringing together a passionate and awkward love story from text messages, Instagram posts, and Youtube videos.

• A new trailer for Ari Aster's Midsommar introduces a couple whose relationship approaches a breaking point, just as they arrive at a surreal summertime festival in the Swedish countryside.

RECOMMENDED READING

Céline Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire

• The 2019 edition of the Cannes Film Festival has come to a close, and responses to the festivities vary. In their dispatches, Manohla Dargis and Blake Williams each report that despite the reported changes, there was very little critical consensus regarding this year's selections. Rebecca Liu from Another Gaze reviews Rebecca Zlotowski’s An Easy Girl, a Cannes-set drama about a Maghrebi girl who pursues an affair with an older man, while wondering what it means to be seen. Eric Hynes interviews Mati Diop, whose "poetic and elliptical" film Atlantics has won the Grand Prix; and Marta Balaga discusses the male gaze with Céline Sciamma, and its function in her film Portrait of a Lady on Fire.
• For the Overlooked series in the New York Times, Melena Ryzik remembers the life of Debra Hill, the prolific producer, screenwriter, and frequent collaborator of John Carpenter.
• Experimental American filmmaker Ken Jacobs discusses "morality and dissent" with Japanese documentarian Kazuo Hara at BOMB.
• Cinematographer Ken Kelsch, who has worked with Abel Ferrara on films like Bad Lieutenant, Dangerous Game, and The Addiction, speaks to Filmmaker Magazine about his upbringing and introduction to a four decade-long career in cinematography.

RECENTLY ON THE NOTEBOOK

• With the Cannes Film Festival now concluded, we have rounded up our coverage (with more to come!) and favorites of this year's fest.
• Accompanying our ongoing Straub-Huillet retrospective, Christopher Small explores the use of images and text in the duo's Eyes Do Not Want to Close at All Times, or, Perhaps One Day Rome Will Allow Herself to Choose in Her Turn.
• Continuing the subject of divinity as captured by cinema from our previous interview with him, French auteur Bruno Dumont discusses Joan of Arc, the sequel to the 2017 musical Jeanette.

EXTRAS

• A gorgeous rendering of Sergio Leone's masterpiece by the great American realist painter Frank McCarthy.

Frank McCarthy painting for Leone's, Once Upon a Time in the West. pic.twitter.com/gtyFzu8LXj

— Dharma Bhagalia (@Kloppholic) May 23, 2019