the greatest

Very few artists have perfect careers. John Cazale is the exception to the rule. His filmography is brief, but important. "The Conversation", "Dog Day Afternoon", "The Godfather", "The Godfather Part 2", and "The Deer Hunter" are seminal works of not only their time, but of the early, developing careers of some of the greatest filmmakers of the last half century. They're also what would become Cazale's varied, dimensional, and faultless career on screen. Lanky with a recessed hairline that stopped to reveal a prominently carved out forehead and brow, Cazale was not leading man material. However, his performances were never lost in the shadows of his big name co-stars.

It's hard to say which one of his performances is my favorite, but I love how diametrically opposed his singular portrayals of the turncoat brother in "The Godfather" and the blue collar Average Joe effected by his friend's war traumas in "The Deer Hunter." I wish the New York Magazine article on Cazale's legacy was a little more fleshed out, but it does make me excited about the documentary short on Cazale's life to be released this year.


"The Godfather Part 2"
1974
directed by Francis Ford Coppola


"The Deer Hunter"
1978
directed by Michael Cimino

tribute: mj

That's how you wear a fucking tuxedo. Thanks Michael for doing you.

performance: on the run

If the guns, sex, '70s grit, or the film's middle-finger-to-the-world point of view isn't seductive enough, please watch the opening credits sequence to Sam Peckinpah's "The Getaway".

the look

Avedon Fashion
1944-2000
International Center of Photography
The lines, the composition, the glamour, the sex, the energy--what more could you want?

moz attacks

I'm still not sure how to put into words what the experience of seeing Morrissey at Carnegie Hall was like. This will do for now, I suppose.

the comeback

I think there's some old saying that rap is a young man's game. Well, Q-Tip is pushing forty and his latest album is much more interesting than whatever rapper du jour is using Auto-Tune and making the top of the charts. After his incredible solo debut, the booty-shaking about face party album, "Amplified", Q-Tip attempted a more daring direction for his next album, the unreleased "Kamaal the Abstract." Lengthy and comparatively experimental (this was when Nelly and Chingy were having their moment), it appeared as though Q-Tip would hang up the mic after such a deterrence or finally achieve the balance between something relevant and the soulful hip-hop he helped create in the late 80s/early 90s. His new album, "The Renaissance" should satisfy old fans as well as entice new ones who without him there would be no Kanye West, Andre 3000, or Common. Listen below for some of the album's highlights:

want: the one we all strive to be

Steve McQueen
photographs by William Claxton
$19.99“One time when I was with him, he drove a brand new Ford convertible, with only thirty miles on the speedometer, at top speed for such a long stretch of the Texas highway that the engine began to smoke and eventually caught on fire. He slowed down and shouted to me, “Clax, when I tell you to jump, jump!” We did jump out of the car just as it burst into flames. Steve sat on the side of the country road at a safe distance from the burning vehicle and laughed his head off.”—William Claxton

Who needs Black Friday when you can window shop online?

a slowed down actress

ARNAUD DESPLECHIN: Right, I am going to start a silly game with you. It’s a quiz. But I don’t want to bother you…
CATHERINE DENEUVE: No, go on!
Picasso or Matisse?
I would say Picasso.
Rolling Stones or Beatles?
Rolling Stones.
Town or country?
Town, but I like the country nonetheless.
Renoir or Bresson?
How cruel to be asking me this! I am going to say Bresson… No… Oh, Renoir, when I was younger! Now, I would probably say Bresson, I think.
Studio or location? I was very surprised to read that you like shooting in studios.
I do prefer natural landscapes. But on some films, the natural landscapes are so narrow, the noise is so loud, the presence of the crew is so strong, that it’s very hard to find intimacy.
Flaubert or Stendhal?
Stendhal.
Pollock or Warhol?
Pollock.
Beethoven or Mozart?
Oh dear… You see, I could draw a line down the middle and say: that’s my night, that’s my day… I will say Mozart because I want to stop crying.
Shakespeare or Molière?
Well, Shakespeare, yes.
That question was too easy. Shakespeare or Strindberg?
That’s a hard one! I will still say Shakespeare.
Too easy. Strindberg or Chekhov? Now I’m being a bastard.
Oh, I love both their worlds so much! I can’t choose.
I have a solution: Nicolas Ray or Téchiné?
[laughing, she chants]: Téchiné! Téchiné!

"How Does My Queen?", interview By Arnaud Desplechin
Film Comment, November/December 2008

For the uncut interview click here.

in memoriam: paul newman

"Hud"
directed by Martin Ritt
1963

One of the last of the greats...

grizzly man

The Limited Edition Karl Bear, $1,500
“Bears are very nice, as long as you are nice to them."--Karl Lagerfeld

Does this not make you laugh out loud?

the perfect crime

"Elevator to the Gallows"
directed by Louis Malle
1958
To view more iconoclastic and hard-boiled sexy moments on film, check out Film Forum's "French New Crime Wave" series now through Sept. 11.

For more info, click here.

in memoriam: black moses

"Hot Buttered Soul"
Isaac Hayes
1969
An iconic album cover if I've ever seen one.

the man who fell to earth

It's a mixed up, jumbled up puzzle of a world in the cinema of British filmmaker Nicolas Roeg. Time, sex, obsession, and the psycho-sexual savagery that can exist between a man and a woman take on hypnotic and iconoclastic new meaning in his films. A true and punkish visual artist, Roeg's visual schema is a cacophony of disorienting, challenging, erotic images intended to fill the mind in a non-linear way; daring his audience to absorb the rush of images in a way that more closely evokes how we actually digest memories and thoughts. His films confidently and consistently establish their own vocabulary, a vocabulary that never leaves the mind no matter how confusing or vexing his stories play initially. An alien-looking David Bowie spreadeagle in front of a wall of television screens in "The Man Who Fell to Earth" (1976), Theresa Russell taunting Art Garfunkel with the sight of her exposed crotch in "Bad Timing" (1980), and the ingeniously elegiac sex scene between Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland in "Don't Look Now" (1973) are moments in which artist and chosen medium seemed destined to create such profoundly bizarre and rousing results.

As a recent guest on BBC'S "Film Programme", Roeg discusses the issue of time on film, censorship, and his latest mind-binding work, "Puffball." To listen click here.

in memoriam: charles h. joffe

"Annie Hall"
directed by Woody Allen
produced by Charles H. Joffe
1977
The enduring relationship between filmmaker Woody Allen and producer Charles H. Joffe has come to end with the death of Joffe, at 78, due to lung disease. Joffe won an Oscar for "Annie Hall" and has since produced nearly every film Allen has made since. No longer will the titles that have become an Allen trademark in their white lettering and black backdrop, read: "A Jack Rollins and Charles H. Joffe Production." Their last film together, "Vicky Christina Barcelona", will be in theaters this August.

the man

Clive Owen in Giorgio Armani
at the Giorgio Armani Spring/Summer 2009 collection in Milan
And I thought I perfected the shades of gray look.

how to turn 80

As a subscriber of Interview I've noticed a change in the past two issues. There are new photographers, interview subjects I'm not entirely familiar with, a graphic black and white design scheme, and less emphasis on celebrity interviewing celebrity. The intersection between art, glamour, and the exchanging of ideas in form of a one on one conversation has been freshened up by newly appointed editorial directors Glenn O'Brien and Fabien Baron. Charlie Rose gathered O'Brien, cover subject Marc Jacobs, contributing fashion editor Stephanie Seymour, and publisher Peter Brant for a discussion on the synthesis of art and business, the legacy of Warhol, and the future of magazine's new life.

dvd of the week: bonnie and clyde

Somewhere on a dusty road on a sleepy dot on the map in Texas...
BONNIE: I'm going to work, anyway.
CLYDE: You goin' to work, huh?
BONNIE: Yeah.
CLYDE: What kinda work you do?
BONNIE: None of your business.
CLYDE: I bet you're a movie star.
BONNIE: (laughs)
CLYDE: A lady mechanic?
BONNIE: (laughs) No.
CLYDE: A maid?
BONNIE: What do you think I am?
CLYDE: A waitress.
BONNIE: (pauses) What line of work you in, when you're not stealing cars?
CLYDE: Well, I can tell you I'm looking for suitable employment right at the moment.
BONNIE: What'd you before?
CLYDE: I was, uh, I was in state prison.
BONNIE: State prison?
CLYDE: Uh huh.
BONNIE: Well, I guess, uh, some little old lady wasn't so nice.
CLYDE: It was armed robbery.
BONNIE: My, my. The things that turn up on the streets these days.

The 40th anniversary of Arthur Penn's "Bonnie and Clyde" is being commemorated with the release of a special two-disc deluxe edition DVD today. Equal parts counter culture revolutionary middle finger to the studios and sexy, violent breath of fresh air, "Bonnie and Clyde" hits as hard as those bullets penetrating the anti-heroes during the balletic and poetically bloody ending. A must-see, even forty years later.

And because I couldn't find a clip that did the film justice, this will do:

manhattan

Donatella Versace, Woody Allen, and his wife, Soon Yi Previn
at the opening of the Versace menswear collection at Barneys in NYC

"I've been friends with Donatella for a while, and one important thing that I learned from her is to never say no to her," said Allen. "I can also claim to have many wonderful Versace cashmere sweaters in my closet."--Fashion Week Daily

photo courtesy of dlisted

aint nobody

Yes, that would Chaka Khan on the drums.

third world democracy

M.I.A. for Marc by Marc Jacobs
photographed by Juergen Teller

I really like those ties.

courtesy of oh no they didn't