Alex Fitch talks to screenwriter Charlie Kaufman about his new film Synecdoche, New York, the challenges of directing his own script, working with Spike Jones and Michel Gondry on his previous screenplays Being John Malkovich and Human Nature and issues of post-modernism and magical realism in his work. Alex Fitch also talks to Electric Sheep editor Virginie Sélavy about Synecdoche, New York, looking at Kaufman’s depictions of the internal workings of the human mind in that film and in earlier scripts such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.(Originally broadcast 21 May 2009 on Resonance 104.4 FM)
Billed as ‘a terrifying love story’, this controversial, unjustly overlooked film by Nicolas Roeg is a dazzling, provocative and ferocious dissection of a couple’s disintegration, starring Theresa Russell and Art Garfunkel. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to see this stunning film by the director of Performance and Don’t look Now on the big screen!
I’M READY FOR MY CLOSE-UP
Alex Fitch talks to the directors of two new films that take as their starting point a character walking through a landscape and twist it into unexpected directions. Bent Hamer is the director of the gentle Norwegian comedy O’Horten, which tells the tale of a recently retired train driver who gets embroiled in a series of misadventures of the kind Victor Meldrew would be proud of – including having to wear red stilettos after losing his shoes in a locker room and ending up in a car driven by a blind man. Alex Fitch also talks to Christine Molloy, one half of the filmmaking duo Desperate Optimists, about their debut feature Helen, which concerns a young woman who helps the police with their inquiry into a girl’s disappearance and starts identifying with her.
Helen is released in selected UK cinemas on May 1 O’Horten is released in selected UK cinemas on May 8
Alex Fitch and Virginie Selavy will be interviewing Marc Caro, co-director of The City of Lost Children about his work on stage after a screening of the film at the Apollo Piccadilly on Lower Regent Street at 9pm on Friday 1 May.
On Saturday 2 May at 4:15pm at the same location, Alex Fitch is chairing a panel with Marc Caro, Richard Jobson, director of A Woman in Winter, Cory McAbee (The American Astronaut) and Gerald McMorrow (Franklyn) called The problem of Sci-Fi and Fantasy Filmmaking.