Rushes: Elaine May Returns, Scorsese on Marvel Studios, The Film Festival Problem

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.

NEWS

Elaine May by Brigitte Lacombe

• We're thrilled to hear that Elaine May is set to direct her first narrative feature in 30 years. The film, entitled Crackpot, will star Dakota Johnson.
• "We searched high and low for the perfect character to portray the role of Rogan, which has some extreme complex character arcs, and after months of research, we decided on James Dean," says filmmaker Anton Ernst. A filmmaking duo has acquired the rights to use the image of James Dean in a forthcoming war drama.

RECOMMENDED VIEWING

• Paul Thomas Anderson's collaboration with the American pop-rock band HAIM continue with this music video for their latest single "Now I'm In It."

RECOMMENDED READING

Ritwik Ghatak

• As New York's Lincoln Center begins a retrospective on the films of Ritwik Ghatak, critic Shiv Kotecha provides an essential overview of Ghatak's life lived in exile as a refugee, filmmaker, educator, and writer.
• "In the past 20 years, as we all know, the movie business has changed on all fronts. But the most ominous change has happened stealthily and under cover of night: the gradual but steady elimination of risk." Martin Scorsese extrapolates and deepens his recent comment that "Marvel movies aren't cinema" at the New York Times.
• Speaking of Scorsese, with The Irishman premiering online this week, Filmmaker Magazine has kindly republished their profile of the Goodfellas diner and its continuing legacy.

• The New York Times Magazine follows the production of Caveh Zahedi's controversial show The Show, and its abject, metanarrative reenactment of Zahedi's tumultuous marriage.

Jerry Schatzberg, Kitty Win, and Al Pacino on the set of Panic in Needle Park.

• "Jerry defines his practice by his desire to go beyond whatever medium he finds himself working in. His photos want to be films and his films want to be life." The great American filmmaker and photographer Jerry Schatzberg is profiled at the Gagosian Quarterly.
• From Hollywood Reporter comes this cautionary tale and disturbing investigation into film festivals that prey upon struggling emerging filmmakers with promises of career boosts and coverage in exchange for hefty fees.
• Prolific producer Robert Evans passed away recently, and in remembrance Los Angeles Magazine has released a never-before-published 1999 interview with the late Evans, who discusses the process of backing Roman Polanski's Chinatown.
• For The Guardian's "How we made" series, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke delve into the production of the Before Sunrise trilogy, from their collaborative script-writing process to the trilogy's rising emotional stakes over time.

RECENTLY ON THE NOTEBOOK

• Yaron Dahan assesses the values and even dangers of Errol Morris' contentious interview-documentary focused on the alt-right political strategist Steve Bannon.
• A short primer on the films and influence of the grand auteur Ritwik Ghatak, who is honored with a retrospective at Film at Lincoln Center this month.
• In light of the recent death of Colombian auteur Luis Ospina, Ela Bittencourt reflects on his singularly groundbreaking career in cinema. Meanwhile, our retrospective, A Matter of Faith: Three Films by Luis Ospina, is showing November 4 – December 17, 2019.

EXTRAS

• Wong Kar-wai's long gestating project Flowers, gets a gorgeous preliminary poster (via The Film Stage).