Sundance Kids
How the Mavericks Took Back Hollywood
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- 15,99 €
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- 15,99 €
Descrizione dell’editore
A formidable new generation of American film-makers are currently in their prime: Paul Thomas Anderson, Alexander Payne, Sofia Coppola, David Fincher, Spike Jonze, Wes Anderson, to name but six. Call them 'The Sundance Kids'. . .
A conspicuous number of these talents first kick-started their careers in the workshops of Robert Redford's Sundance Institute in Utah, or made the big time after screening their work at the Sundance Film Festival. Nowadays, acclaimed movies such as Payne's Sideways, Jonze's Being John Malkovich and Coppola's Lost in Translation have reminded people of that great period in the 1970s spearheaded by Scorsese, Altman, and Sofia Coppola's father, Francis.
In this comprehensive study, James Mottram traces the roots of this new generation to Steven Soderbergh's Sex, Lies and Videotape - a low-budget tour de force that premièred at Sundance en route to conquering Cannes which persuaded some of the 'Sundance Kids' to first pick up a camera. Mottram proceeds to analyse each director and their oeuvre, placing each carefully within the context of the ever-changing landscape of American cinema over the last fifteen years.
And Mottram poses the question - are we witnessing a new Golden Age of film-making?
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Mottram covers the same territory Sharon Waxman did in 2005's Rebels on the Backlot, including extensive considerations of directors Steven Soderbergh and Quentin Tarantino, but the British film journalist adds several filmmakers into the mix, including Sofia Coppola and Wes Anderson, concentrating primarily on hot young talents discovered at the Sundance Film Festival. He's also more interested in what's on the screen than Waxman was, so nearly every chapter has lengthy analyses of the movies discussed. But these interpretive flights distract from the reportage, especially when Mottram dismisses successful directors like Robert Rodriguez (who arguably have taken back Hollywood) because he doesn't consider movies like Spy Kids mature enough for serious consideration, or when he insists on linking every modern maverick to a counterpart in '70s cinema. He also links some films together by simplistic means, grouping a trilogy of films set in high schools in one chapter and building another chapter around Elmore Leonard adaptations. Mottram does give insight into the career trajectories of a few of his subjects, most notably Soderbergh, David Fincher and Bryan Singer, making his history a useful starting point. 50 b&w photos.
