TV

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Almost the entire hour and three-quarters of Jean Eustache’s 1971 film “Numéro Zéro” is filled with the director’s interview of his grandmother Odette Robert on Feb. 12th of that year. Eustache includes in the film the conditions of its production—the director himself is seated at the table with her, pours her some whiskey, speaks with the camera operator, manipulates the clapboard at the head and tail of the reels, and even takes a phone call from a foreign firm that wants to distribute one of his early short films. Odette Robert had come from her home in the provinces to live with Eustache in Paris and help care for his son Boris (who is seen, at the beginning of the film, helping guide her through the streets of Paris—she had recently had eye operations and had to wear dark lenses, including on-camera).Read More »

Second film in the Renoir documentary trilogy directed by Jacques Rivette, featuring a conversation between Jean Renoir and Michel Simon.

A quote from “Projections of Memory: Romanticism, Modernism, and the Aesthetics of Film” by Richard I. Suchenski:
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Musician and independent film personality John Lurie hardly seems like the sort of guy who would host a TV show about fishing. But then again, Fishing With John was hardly a typical nature program; Lurie and guests such as Tom Waits, Dennis Hopper, and Matt Dillon take to the water in search of adventure but usually end up with something else altogether. Discover how to catch fish using cheese and a pistol with Jim Jarmusch, let Tom Waits teach you new ways to store your catch, and build an ice fishing shanty with Willem Dafoe in these surreal, dryly witty outdoor escapades. Fishing With John aired in the U.S. on the Independent Film Channel. — Mark DemingRead More »

First part of an over four hour documentary for TV in which Rivette visited Renoir at his country place, lunched with him, and let him talk about his work, interspersed with extracts from some of his oeuvre.Read More »

In 1893 Massachusetts, 32-year-old spinster Lizzie Andrew Borden is put on trial for killing her father Andrew and stepmother Emma with an ax. The film explores complex family relationships and uses facts to provide a possible solution.Read More »

First filmed theatrically in 1962, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s final novel, TENDER IS THE NIGHT, was given a lavish (seven million dollars) treatment in this British-Australian-American miniseries version. Set in Europe’s waning days of the Roaring Twenties, the plot focused upon the tempestuous marriage between jaded psychiatrist Dick Diver (Peter Strauss) and the beautiful, schizophrenic socialite Nicole Warren (Mary Steenburgen). An international cast did an excellent job impersonating the “Lost Generation” for which Fitzgerald was the principal spokesman (the author was himself all but burned out by the time the original novel was published, and his desperation oozes through every page).Read More »

Reverend Huie Rogers is a preacher at the Bible Way Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ in Brooklyn. He is the topic of this short film, during which launches into an epic call-and-response denunciation of human hubris, greed, corruption and failure. The use of lengthy shots present it less like a sermon and more a performance, and induce an almost trance-like state.Read More »

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New dark comedy starring Olivia Colman and Julian Barratt as the eccentric Deborah and Maurice Flowers. As Maurice fights inner demons and dark secrets, Deborah tries to keep their family together at all costs and becomes increasingly suspicious that Maurice is in a secret homosexual relationship.Read More »

The program director of a German TV station desperately looks for a new talk master for the Late Show.Read More »