Previewing the most anticipated features and documentaries at the Sundance Film Festival (pictured); Bill Robles has drawn the trials of everyone from Charles Manson to Lindsay Lohan; 'Mommy' is the fifth feature from 25-year-old Xavier Dolan.
Sundance 2015: The most anticipated films at the festival
Sundance has become the festival for breakout indie films to premiere. Last year it was “Boyhood” — which is now a front-runner for Best Picture at the Academy Awards — and a couple years before that was "Beasts of the Southern Wild," which got four Oscar nominations, including Best Director and Best Picture.
Before heading for Park City, The Frame's host, John Horn, spoke with Kyle Buchanan of our partner Vulture.com about the most anticipated films at this year's festival:
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
Sundance has been, in some years, a great market for films. Are there any titles that you think are going to get a lot of interest this year?
Well, it's already kicked off. I was just reading that "Don Verdean" — which is the new movie by Jared Hess, who did "Napoleon Dynamite" — has already sold to Lions Gate. That's one of those good, quirky comedies with breakout potential, which always do very well at Sundance.
There are a lot of very serious movies at Sundance, and so when you have a comedy like "Little Miss Sunshine," it really takes off like a rocket, and I think that we'll see a couple other comedies that could break out there.
Last year, a number of documentaries showed at Sundance and got a lot of attention. This year's Oscar's short list includes "Last Days in Vietnam," which premiered at Sundance. How important are documentaries to the Sundance lineup?
Very. Obviously, people like to focus on the big stars slumming in the independent film world, but I think if you took out all the narrative films, and you just left the docs, you'd have one of the world's best documentary festivals.
There are a couple here this year that I think everybody's excited to see. One of them, which should be one of the most controversial movies of the festival, is called "Going Clear." It's based on Lawrence Wright's book on Scientology, and it promises to be a barnstormer. It's directed by Alex Gibney.
The Church of Scientology has taken out full-page ads in newspapers, condemning the movie sight-unseen. We should say that Alex Gibney is a very good filmmaker who's made movies about Julian Assange and Lance Armstrong; he's won an Oscar, and it's a serious movie with serious subject matter. It's got great promise, doesn't it?
We'll see. It's definitely going to be talked about.
There are also a couple other films that I am looking forward to. There's "Tig," a documentary about Tig Notaro, a standup comedian who's been battling cancer and whose profile has deservedly risen over the past few years.
And then I'm also super curious about this movie called "The Nightmare." It's directed by Rodney Ascher, who did "Room 237" about "The Shining," and this one is about the little-known but often-experienced condition called sleep paralysis, which is when you wake up and your consciousness hasn't quite woken up with you. So you're trapped in your body. It's a really unnerving feeling.
What movie are you most excited to see? Is there something that's at the top of your list?
There are a couple that are really intriguing me. I'm very interested in this film called "Last Days in the Desert," which stars Ewan McGregor as both Jesus and the Devil. And it's shot by Emmanuel Lubezki, who won the Oscar for shooting "Gravity" and who did all those marvelous single takes in "Birdman." So with those two alone you've got me.
I'm also very curious about "Mistress America," the new movie by Noah Baumbach that he co-wrote with Greta Gerwig, who also stars in the movie. They last teamed on "Frances Ha," which was another big hit that debuted at Sundance.
And, you know, I'm a big fan of a good psychological drama, so there are a couple here that I'm interested in, two of which seem sort of twinned.
OK, tell us about those.
"Stanford Prison Experiment" is based on this study that was conducted at Stanford that essentially separated some students into jailers and some into captives. It was supposed to be a very innocent study, but suffice it to say that, since it's being made into a movie, you can intuit that things didn't go so well.
And then we've got "The Experimenter," which is based on the famous experiments [on obedience] conducted by Stanley Milgram. He's played by Peter Sarsgaard, and so I'm very interested. There are a lot of button-pushing movies at Sundance, and those look to be two of the ones that are jamming down on that button the hardest.
Check the KPCC's website in the coming days for on-the-ground coverage from Sundance. Are you attending the festival? Tell us which films you loved in the comments, on our Facebook page or on Twitter (@KPCC, @TheFrame).
Drawing a bead on everyone from Charles Manson to Lindsay Lohan
At high-profile legal trials, photographers are sometimes not allowed in the courtroom. That’s where courtroom sketch artists come in.
An exhibit currently at the Newport Beach Public Library features the work of three of the country’s best courtroom sketch artists.
Bill Robles can count himself in that group.
Go through the 10 large sliding drawers in his office and you are literally paging through history — or at least the history of mostly rich people accused of behaving extremely badly.
“A lot of people look guilty,” says the veteran of hundreds of trials. “But they turn out not to be.”
Robles has spent the past 44 years quickly drawing the players in America’s most high profile court cases. And it’s his illustrations that allow TV viewers to “see” what is happening when cameras aren’t allowed.
His first gig was the nine-and-a-half month trail of Charles Manson.
“Manson was a little agitated during the proceedings and all of a sudden — bingo! — he leaped up and lunged at the judge with a pencil and his flip-flops on, and the bailiff tackled him in mid-air," Robles recalls. "I had to freeze that moment, so the artists all got together to compare notes, then we all did our thing."
Still a relative rookie, he’d use his lunch hour on the Manson trial to finish drawings for a children’s book.
“Manson had a compassionate look about him. I guess I would have been a family member under the right circumstances,” Robles jokes.
He works on high-quality velum paper with pens and markers. A quick sketch can be done in 20 minutes, and he’s paid by the day for each network that wants his work. It is fast and sometimes difficult, especially when you combine a long trial with a high profile defendant such as Michael Jackson.
“Everyday he’d show up in a different outfit," says Robles, "and we had to see what he was wearing."
With hundreds and hundreds of trials on his résumé, Robles' anecdotes move faster than his pen.
Biggest media circus? Actress Lindsay Lohan.
“I remember coming out of the airport courthouse with the drawing and [as] I was carrying it upside down and walking to the van, there was a couple of photographers trying to shoot the drawing as I was carrying it upside down,” Robles says.
And on occasion, he’s actually make the news himself.
“This was in the L.A. Times,” he says, taking a framed article off the wall and reading the headline. “'Jury sketches too accurate Judge Ito tells court artist.' That's me.”
The scariest person he’s seen? Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker, whom Robles remembers had extremely large hands.
In recent cases, he's drawn former Clippers owner Donald Sterling and the accused shooter in the LAX attack.
Robles says he’s an artist first, journalist second. He does sell his work — an original sketch will cost you a couple thousand dollars. They go mostly to judges, but so far, and perhaps understandably, never to a defendant.
And although Robles' job is to record history as quickly and faithfully as he can, once the trial is over, he will make the occasional exception to his journalistic guidelines:
“I sold a drawing years ago to a lawyer, took it to his office — a profile shot of him at the podium. He had me shave down a little off the nose and he was happy."
“The Illustrated Courtroom: Famous Trials in Pictures” is at the Newport Beach Public Library through March 5.
Xavier Dolan talks about his Oedipal drama, 'Mommy'
French-Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan is only 25, but he's already made five feature films and garnered multiple awards at film festivals around the world.
"Mommy," Dolan's latest film, was awarded the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. The film tells the story of a turbulent relationship between a single mother and her troubled, often violent son.
When Dolan joined us on The Frame, host John Horn asked him about the inspirations behind "Mommy," making movies for the first time in the U.S., and why his latest film was shot in a ratio that presents the image as a square.
Interview Highlights:
Can you describe the psychological state of the son in "Mommy?"
The son lives with the constant doubt that his mother's love is equivalent to the love he feels for her. And so he seeks an answer to that every second of his life, and every gesture, every action, everything he does is meant to provide him with an answer to that question.
The film opens with a tease of a future law in Canada that allows parents to commit their unruly children to an institution. Where did you come across that idea? Did that trigger the rest of the story, or did that come on after the fact?
At the earliest stage of the inception of "Mommy" was that law. I had read an article in Reader's Digest about a similar law in three or four states, and it was a horrible article. It actually enabled parents who felt they were endangered by their behaviorally disordered children to drop them in state facilities similar to hospitals.
And that was the beginning of this idea for this film?
It was the beginning, because I thought, Wow, it would be such a powerful thing to tell the story. Then it was immediately about telling the story not of the son, but of the mother, and of making that choice. And then the other thing was that I heard a song that I loved, and it made me write a scene that I didn't know would later be incorporated into "Mommy."
What was the song?
The song was "Experience" by Ludovico Einaudi. It plays in the film, when [the mother] has this vision of a very optimistic future [laughs]. It's almost oneiric, because it's so positive, it's so optimistic, it's so bright and tacky and perfect. It's so far from her own life, and when you see that scene I don't think you know if it's the actual future or just a mere fantasy.
But it is something where she's visualizing the future as she dreams it, and when I heard the Einaudi song I was like, Oh, this should be in a movie. I don't know which movie, but with a mother, though I don't know which mother. And she should be dreaming of a future. I used that scene and wrote "Mommy" around that scene, knowing we would be progressing towards that sequence.
What does this film have to say that is different or consistent with your 2009 debut, "I Killed My Mother"?
Both films are diametrically opposed. They're so different to me, actually, and one is not really a response or answer to the other. They're not made against each other, or ...
Except it's a mother-son story.
Yes, but I could spend literally the rest of my life with one or two or three or four movies a year, if you'd like, telling stories about moms and their sons.
Does your mom like your work? Do you get along well?
She loves the films, yes. [laughs]
You say that with some hesitation.
No, I mean, we're not the most compatible beings. She doesn't like to hear that, obviously, but such is life. She's been a bottomless well of inspiration for me, and she will always be. I mean, I love her with all my heart.
It's really weird how some people will play a very, very important part in your creation and in your work, and then in real life and reality they will occupy a very different space and place. My mom is everywhere with me in every work that I write, but that does not necessarily translate into normal, compatible human dynamics in real life.
This film has a distinct visual look, as it's shot in a 1:1 aspect ratio, which some people would also call a square. Does the visual way in which this film is presented strike you when you start photography, or as you're writing it?
Oh, I knew before writing it.
Why?
In between movies, I was approached by a band to direct a music video, and I was very much scared. I didn't know that I wanted to do that, but I listened to the song and immediately I saw all of the images. The music video was a perfect vehicle for exploring devices and formalities.
We did it in 1:1, and I thought it would come off as very arty, but I didn't really care because it was a music video, right? But when I saw the dailies and the portraits and the closeups of the characters, I [thought], Those are the most striking portraits I have ever shot.
It's almost a subconscious closeup inside a practical closeup.
Exactly. And I knew that I would want to shoot a movie like that, and "Mommy" seemed completely fit. It seemed like the aspect ratio was completely cut out for that sort of storytelling, where the story is so character-driven that you need to be close to the characters. You don't want to embark on that story, and go inside their houses and their rooms, with an aspect ratio like you're shooting "Batman." It would be completely unseemly. You can't look to something else in the film than the characters' eyes.
What are the most obvious challenges and opportunities in coming from Canada to Hollywood to make a film?
There's nothing else but an independent scene in Canada. We don't have private money, we don't have financiers; we're either financed by the state or it's sweet nothing. So it's very hard to exist as an artist in Canada. And then ... the leap to making a movie in the USA is tough, because you stem from an industry in which look, allure and style are not defined by what you strive for, but rather what you can afford.
I've tried to be creative in making movies look good, but I've reinvested my money in all of these films. I've never had any form of income for producing these films, ever. I've done the costumes myself, I've edited, you know? [laughs] So what's tough now is to make a certain industry understand that the movie I want to produce is actually quite commercial.
"Mommy" opens in theaters on January 23. Dolan's first American film, "The Death and Life of John F. Donovan," is slated for release in 2016 with a cast that includes Jessica Chastain, Kathy Bates and Susan Sarandon.