Director Pawel Pawlikowski on his foreign film nominee, "Ida" (pictured); "Cartel Land" director Matthew Heineman on facing danger in Mexico; "High Maintenance" is a web series that's like “Cheers,” but with weed instead of whiskey; what might Hollywood do with the sequel to “To Kill a Mockingbird"?
Web series 'High Maintenance' normalizes marijuana culture without traditional TV
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don’t remember how the idea for "High Maintenance" — a Web series about a weed courier and his customers — came to them. Considering the show’s subject matter, that’s to be expected.
But "High Maintenance" might be the best TV show made exclusively for the internet. Yes, it's won acclaim from High Times, but it's also received rave reviews from the New Yorker and Slate.
Blichfeld, who won an Emmy as a casting director for "30 Rock," had always hoped to find an outlet to showcase the great, underused actors she came across – including her husband and co-conspirator, Sinclair, who plays the show’s nameless marijuana delivery guy. “I feel like on '30 Rock,' unfortunately, so many of the roles I was casting people for were one and two-line parts,” she says. “Over time, I wanted to see them to do more.”
Those actors are given more time to explore their parts in "High Maintenance," which is essentially a series of character studies about users young and old dealing with life, love and loneliness in New York City.
Here's "Stevie," an episode of "High Maintenance" (NSFW):
"High Maintenance" isn’t the first show to tackle drug culture, but it might be the most casual about it; it’s about marijuana as much as "Cheers" is about beer. “Truth be told, the weed story is the last thing to get figured out,” Blichfeld says about writing episodes with Sinclair. Instead, they focus on, “What haven’t we seen before that happens in real life?”
As the show’s sole recurring character, Sinclair is the face of "High Maintenance," and to celebrate the latest batch of episodes, Vimeo has plastered his likeness all over Brooklyn, Manhattan — and the Internet. Thankfully, being a literal poster boy for the normalization of marijuana culture isn’t intimidating to the actor, who first inhaled at the age of 12.
But making a show about weed isn't what's most important to Sinclair. “The most wonderful thing is that I get to do this with Katja,” he says. “I imagine the pride that we feel in this project is tantamount to the pride that one feels for their children. And I don’t know a lot of people whose babies are painted on a 24-foot wall.”
New episodes of "High Maintenance" are now available.
This segment was contributed to "The Frame" by , host-producer of the podcast "Sideshow." Sean Rameswaram is also a "Studio 360" producer. You can find both Sean and on Twitter.
Oscars 2015: 'Ida' filmmaker auditioned 400 actresses before finding his star in a Warsaw cafe
Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski has spent most of his professional life working in the United Kingdom, but he’s always wanted to direct a film set in his home country.
The realization of that lifelong goal is “Ida,” his latest and perhaps most critically-lauded film of his career. The film, which follows an aspiring 18-year-old Polish nun on a journey of self discovery, is up for two Academy Awards, one for best foreign language film and one for cinematography.
In the film, the titular character discovers that she is actually Jewish and that her parents were murdered during World War II. She sets off on a quest with an aunt to find where her parents are buried and to discover the truth about her own identity.
Pawlikowski stopped by The Frame's studio recently and spoke with host John Horn about his unique method of filmmaking, the struggle to get "Ida" made and how he discovered the star of his film.
Interview Highlights:
Most films are well-planned and scripted down to the most minute detail. But you have a different way of working. Can you describe your filmmaking process?
I'd love to work from a 25-page treatment, where I just get the story, write some scenes, the characters, and then try to mix reality with literature in an organic way. So in the case of "Ida," we managed to scrape together 64 pages, which is a bit skimpy, while knowing I'm going to lose half of the scenes in the process and while doing my own kind of thing. The writing never stops — that's the truth of it. I kind of start with a primordial soup of ideas. And with "Ida," it was eight years ago. Then you start the process of actually building the film, finding locations, taking photographs, finding the actors, rehearsing a bit. And then I keep writing, rewriting, and I still do it while I'm shooting the film, sadly.
You said at a lecture at a film school: "The film I wanted to make was less a story and more of a meditation." What does that mean to your mind?
What I enjoy in cinema these days — I enjoy a good story of course, but I love films which create a world which allows you to imagine things, which allows you to fill in the gaps, which suggests rather than tell you stuff. So, I wanted this to be one of those films that I actually personally enjoy watching, a film that we don't feel the buttons being pressed, a narrative device is being planted, where everything just happens magically in front of you for the first time. So the viewer doesn't think, What next? What next? — but they [are] kind of totally inside it and experience it as a present tense all the time.
We would assume wrongly in the States that in Europe and in Poland, the idea of making a movie that's in black-and-white, in Polish, with unknown actors, about the Holocaust is easy. But not so much, correct?
No, it was a bit of a nightmare. There was this public funding in Poland, which was a good starting point. The film wasn't very expensive — it was like $1.8 million. I have a track record with some films that made some money or pay their money back. So, it was a slow process, but in the end we got there. And in fact, we kind of started the film without having the budget in place. We [were] just hoping for the best, that things would fall into place while we're doing it, and that's what happened.
The opening scene is three women in a convent working with a statue of Christ. Can you talk about how that shot came together and whether it was planned or discovered during filming?
That's my process. I always leave certain space for the poetry to occur — to occur to me or to occur in reality. So, the film opens with something rather generic — scenes of life in the convent. And I always knew they were very perfunctory, it's just a way of starting the film, they weren't really brilliant. While preparing the design in the convent, I saw my production designer touching up the face of the statute of Jesus and she got totally rapt in the process of touching up Jesus' face. And she looked so in love and caring that I thought this is a much stronger opening image for the film. So I had Ida do exactly the same. But that's the kind of beauty of working in a slightly loose, intuitive way — creating a certain situation, location, set-up, where you can still scope within what's there. And I always try to give myself the chance to do that.
You are Polish born and yet this is the first narrative feature that you shot in Poland, correct?
I am Polish, not just Polish born. But yes, I've lived most of my life in Britain. It has something to do with the fact that I'm in my 50s. I started to kind of wonder who I am and where I'm from. And I also just wanted to go back, not just to Poland, but in time to the early '60s. And I saw the world was different, more simpler, less crammed and less heavy with information and stuff.
One of your principal collaborators is the actress who plays Ida. Can you talk a little bit about where you found her and why she was the right person to play this part?
Ida is played by Agata Trzebuchowska, who is a student at Warsaw University. I found her after looking for months and months among professional actresses and we auditioned like 400 for the part and I didn't believe in any of them. It was really difficult. I knew I was in trouble. And I knew this character was sketchy on paper, but we found Agata in a cafe just downstairs from where I live in Warsaw, reading a book and minding her own business. And she didn't want to act. She was very surprised.
How do you begin that conversation. You go up and say, "I'm a film director, I've been admiring you." That seems like an awkward conversation to initiate.
She disappeared by the time we wanted to talk to her, so we had to find her [via] the barman. But she had seen my films, so she was curious and I kind of pushed her into an audition situation. She was great. She was also interested in the film and she was very bright about it. She asked all the right questions, she had the right qualities, so the whole thing was another happy accident, another miracle.
Ida is one of the most critically-acclaimed films in the world right now. When you're making a film do you know you're making something that might connect to people?
I knew we were making something special because there was a kind of courage about the whole thing. The crew was really excited about the way I was working, that it wasn't just doing it by numbers. But the reason why I was so free with it — framing, with the acting, with obliqueness — the whole thing was under the assumption that the film has absolutely no commercial hope at all. That it's a Polish film with unknown actors that was fantastically liberating and we can just get away with anything. The idea of Oscars and all that was the last thing on our minds, it felt like the opposite of an Oscar-winning film. I knew it would be a film that I might enjoy, and a lot of my friends [would also]. But that it might actually connect with audiences and people [would] pay to buy tickets — I wasn't sure about that at all. Miracles happen occasionally.
Why the documentary 'Cartel Land' plays like a real life action drama
Filmmaker Matthew Heineman won the documentary directing award at this year's Sundance Film Festival for his riveting film, “Cartel Land.”
The film, which opens July 10th, plays more like a drama than a non-fiction film by focusing on vigilante groups in Mexico and Arizona. The Mexican Autodefensas, led by Dr. Jose Mireles, are fighting a drug cartel called Knights Templar. Meanwhile, on this side of the border, a ragtag paramilitary outfit called Arizona Border Recon, led by Tim "Nailer" Foley, patrols the U.S.-Mexico fence.
“Cartel Land” opens with a scene in the jungles of Michoacán, Mexico, where armed drug gangs are mixing meth. It looks like an outtake from “Breaking Bad,” but this is the real thing. The film tags alongside vigilantes and cartel members, both armed with automatic weapons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoruCCdxJ84
When we spoke with Heineman at Sundance, we asked about the process of making the film and his inspiration:
I originally read a Rolling Stone article that featured the vigilantes in Arizona who were fighting to protect our borders. I spent about four or five months filming down there. My father sent me this article featuring the Autodefensas, citizen vigilantes who were rising up against the Knights Templar cartel in Mexico, and right away this bell went off and I thought, Wow this could be this amazing parallel story. Three weeks later I was down in Mexico filming.
So the idea for the movie is to focus on two, we could call then vigilante groups or paramilitary groups, the Autodefensas in Michoacán, and Arizona Border Recon group. The guy that you focus on in Arizona is a guy named Tim "Nailer" Foley. Foley himself is a former meth user. Is the irony of his situation lost on him? That what is driving the drug trade and making the border insecure are people [in the U.S.] who are using?
I don't think the irony is lost on him. I think he knows firsthand the damage that it did to himself. He knows the damage that it has done to families, individuals and communities all across America, and I think that is actually one of the things that drives him. After years and years of drug and alcohol use, he one day got in this horrific car accident and decided to go cold turkey on everything. I think he has a second life and like many sort of former addicts and former users he wants to "do good."
Tim "Nailer" Foley, leader of the Arizona Border Recon, in Michael Heineman's "Cartel Land." (photo courtesy of The Orchard)
The Southern Poverty Law Center calls [Arizona Border Recon] an "extremist hate group." There is one member that you quote in your film who says, "You can't put two races in the same nation and expect them to get along." What was your impression of the overall mix of people who were attracted to this organization — that patrolled the borders in military camouflage with what looked to be either machine guns or automatic weapons?
It's a complicated question and answer. Nailer himself says during this scene that he needs whoever he can get down there. That actually a quite poignant parallel to what's happening in Mexico with the Autodefensas. They really need men. They need people to form the ranks and to some degree they aren't able to necessarily vet who comes along with them. It's definitely a mixture of different belief sets — some which are obviously disturbing and extreme and others which are less so.
The movie opens with a scene of you accompanying some people in Michoacán who are mixing crystal meth, armed with massive machine guns. It's an unbelievable scene with remarkable access. How many months of work did it take you to get into that situation?
About seven or eight months. It was sort of a gold mine, since day one, to get into a meth lab. Meth is sort of the cash cow of the cartel down there. Ninety percent of meth consumed in the U.S. comes from Mexico, the majority of which comes from Michoacán and from this cartel. It's a really important part of the story. Basically, every time I was down in Mexico, I tried to find people who knew people who cooked meth. After about eight months, we got the right connection and I got a call and they said, "Be in this town square [at] 6 p.m. We're going to take you in."
Who is "we"? How big was your crew?
It was my driver/fixer, translator and me. I was taking sound and shooting it all by myself.
The other thing that's amazing about this movie is the situations in which you found yourself. People who have seen a movie like "American Sniper" will think they're seeing the sequel. You are in the back of cars during gunfights. What was it like filming those scenes? I think people who watch the movie are really fearful for your own safety.
My mom definitely feared for my safety. My mom is a journalist and I couldn't speak to her about this film, which is sort of sad. But she was just so nervous for me. It was frightening. I'm not a war journalist. I'm not an adrenaline junkie. It's not necessarily something I want to do again. After those experiences, I didn't come back to New York and [think], Wow, I want to go back out there and get shot at again! When I was in those moments, I really tried to focus on the craft — on focusing the camera, composing the shot, exposing the shot — and I think that's what allowed me not to freak out.
There were a couple of scenes where you don't really show us exactly what happens. I don't know if you were able to show it or able to film it. One scene involves an alleged member of the Knights Templar who is pulled over on the road by the Autodefensas. The other scene involves what I guess is the Autodefensas' version of Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, where horrible things are happening. You don't see it but you hear the screaming. I want to ask about what you saw in those scenes. Is all of what you saw included in the film?
So when I first went down to Michoacán I really felt like it was this hero-villain story, of good fighting evil, of men in white shirts going in to fight this evil cartel. Then slowly — trip after trip, month after month — I started to sort of see these things [around the vigilantes] that raised questions. Where are these fancy cars coming from? Where are these fancy guns coming from? How are they beating the cartel? Those questions kept driving me to go down there, kept driving me to figure out what is the truth. What are they doing? How is this actually happening? Slowly as I peeled away the onion, I started to see how they were really operating.
That scene, in which they are torturing alleged members of the cartel, is one way in which they're operating. I felt like that was a very important thing to show and a very disturbing thing to show. It was a very disturbing thing to witness and to shoot. I had to sort of covertly shoot that whole thing. Their torture chamber was a huge, long bathroom with many stalls. I would sometimes pretend like I had to go to the bathroom for a long time. Then I'd come out and hide my camera to my side and, when I would feel like I could, I'd bring the camera out and shoot a little bit. That scene is actually a compilation of four days of attempting to get stuff like that.
Dr. Jose Mireles "El Doctor," (center) leader of the Autodefensas in Matthew Heineman's "Cartel Land" (photo courtesy of The Orchard)
Did making this movie change the way you think about the drug war or the border? Did it make you see this problem in a new light?
My goal was to see firsthand the effects of the drug war, the effects of this omnipresent force that is just south of our border. I don't think we really realize what's happening [there]. You have to step back for a second and [realize] the horror and the tragedy of what's happening down there — 80,000 killed since 2007, 20,000 missing.
Obviously, the film goes into an interesting place in Mexico, in Michoacán. But this movement really rose out of a desire to stop this evil, to stop the extortion, to stop the murder, the violence. It was a really heroic thing because, for years, people would just walk around shrouded in fear. You never even speak about the cartel. And then, suddenly the Autodefensas rose up and are getting in gunfights with the cartel.
But when you get to the bottom of what's happening, it also seems to raise as many questions as it does [provide] answers.
I'm an eternal optimist. I wanted this to be a good-versus-evil story and, unfortunately, the story unraveled in a way that I could've never expected. I think the tragedy of Mexico and what we see in the film are the lines between the lives of everyday citizens, between the cartel, between government and police. Those lines are blurred. And the guys with the white hats [who] are fighting the guys with the black hats, are really wearing grey hats.
Exclusive: What Hollywood might do with the 'Mockingbird' sequel
It’s been more than 50 years since Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, “To Kill A Mockingbird,” swept the literary world. Now, the author has announced she has a sequel — actually written before her 1960 bestseller — called "Go Set a Watchman."
Hollywood, naturally, will rush to turn the book into a movie. After all, the 1962 film with Gregory Peck is among the best movies ever made.
We’ve done some digging and have unearthed what appears to be the trailer for the upcoming film adaptation, and it sounds to us like it could be a real blockbuster ... with zombies?
Disclosure: This segment was parody and there is no trailer for a "To Kill A Mockingbird" sequel. Tell us what you think! Friend us on Facebook, tweet at us on or subscribe on Stitcher.