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The performance of SHALLOW by Bradford Cooper and Lady Gaga at the 2019 Oscars was captured in a single-shot Steadicam “Oner”. The scene is beautifully sober, with simple backlighting and a staging and camera movement that ends up with a stunning close-up of their two faces.

As Lady Gaga recounts to Jimmy Kimmel, Bradford Cooper conceived and directed the entire performance, just as he directed the film “A Star is Born”. Indeed, one of the distinctive approaches of the movie is to shoot all the musical performances only from the stage, to bring the audience into the world of the performers.

Here too, the Steadicam operator starts behind the curtain at the back of the stage, then moves forward to meet the actors, but stays behind them facing the audience throughout, and the camera’s closeness to the actors give us a feeling of intimacy. Cooper also asked for an amber backlight on the audience that brings them into the performance, while keeping them anonymous.

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LINKS

Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga perform Shallow at the 2019 Oscars
http://bit.ly/ShallowOscarsOnerCooperGaga

Lady Gaga on Jimmy Kimmel

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Despite very bad reviews, the DC movie is breaking box office records.

watch on YouTube

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Hey Robin Williams
I salute the intelligence, emotion, generosity of your humor and acting

Oh Captain, my captain
I thank you for the speed, intuition and poetry of your insights
to everything human
in Dead Poets Society, Good Morning Vietnam, Deconstructing Harry,
The Fisher King, Good Will Hunting, Mork and Mindy,
and all the others

Thank you for making me laugh
and making me cry

May God bless your soul

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O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.

Walt Whitman

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In response to the actor’s reported retirement, The Beast offers this montage of some classic Nicholson moments:

watch on the Daily Beast

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This follows other reports in the French press from crew complaining about the very harsh production conditions. To be honest, the conditions described in the interview with the actresses above are not that unusual in France. In the US David Fincher, for example, is known for doing up to 90 takes of a scene. Some observers are saying that, while undeniably demanding, Kechiche is being singled out because of the film’s unexpected success.

In any case, I find Léa Seydoux’ behavior profoundly unprofessional. The 28-year old Seydoux is a talented and experienced actress who has appeared in 30 films. Partly because of her award-winning role in the Blue, she has recently made the cover of half a dozen French magazines (including the one below for the new French men’s magazine, Lui).

Seydoux is also a child of privilege, she is the grand-daughter of the head of Pathé, a French studio. For her to diss the director on a promotional trip to the US paid by the production is unacceptable. If she truly hated the filmmaking and never wanted to work with the filmmaker, she should not have accepted to be part of the promotion, and perhaps she should have even turned down a few magazine covers. Or else she should have kept her mouth shut.

Using an old French expression, Léa Seydoux is “spitting in the soup” — biting the hand that amplifies the fame she seeks.

Adèle Exarchopoulos is another story. Like Abdellatif Kechiche she is from humbler origins than Seydoux, and she really is grappling with a new world of celebrity at the age of 19. In a telling interview with Emily Greenhouse, Exarchopoulos wisely states: “We say that we were suffering on this movie … we always said that he is suffering, too, but just said nothing”.

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The bottom line is that Blue is the Warmest Color is a masterpiece that tells a simple story about finding and losing love with incredible performances by Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux.
Go see it.

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LINKS

New Yorker: Emily Greenhouse – Did a Director Push Too Far?

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Léa Seydoux on the cover of the September issue of Lui magazine.

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Blake Edwards throws a pie at Natalie Wood. The great comedic director targets his actress on the set of The Great Race in 1964, as a cream-faced Jack Lemmon looks on. Edwards and Wood reportedly did not get on well during the shoot, so this may have been a cathartic moment for both.
Photo by Bob Willoughby

The on-screen pie fight scene from The Great Race can be seen here

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Tonto gives the Lone Ranger a mask and his name in 1949 TV pilot. They heal a sick horse: http://bit.ly/16rraD3
In the 2013 trailer Tonto becomes the hero http://bit.ly/16rndyp