The most stunning scene of any movie this year was conceived partly as an attempt to beat your attention span. Athena, Romain Gavras's riveting tale of a massive modern-day uprising at a French housing project, opens with one of the most impressive single shots ever put to film: an intense, unbroken 11-minute sequence that begins with a press conference outside a police station, plunges into the madness that erupts when a group of young people raids the station, and eventually ends over a mile away against the castlelike ramparts of a housing estate that has been taken over and fortified for an epic, inevitable clash with the cops.
The director wanted this opener to accomplish a number of important tasks: introduce his central characters, establish the grammar of the picture, and set up the location of the (fictional) Athena housing project where most of the movie takes place. But he also wanted to make sure he held the average streaming viewer's attention. "It's my first time doing a film for a platform and for Netflix in particular," Gavras says. "And when we were writing with Ladj Ly"-who also produced-"we were thinking we needed to start really strong because even when I watch a Netflix film, if it's not interesting in the first five minutes, I'm going to go away." By contrast, he says, "when you do a cinema film, you can ease people in because they're not going to leave after minute ten or 15."
Bu hikaye New York magazine dergisinin September 26 - October 09, 2022 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye New York magazine dergisinin September 26 - October 09, 2022 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Drowning in Slop - A thriving underground economy is clogging the internet with AI garbage-and it's only going to get worse.
SLOP started seeping into Neil Clarke's life in late 2022. Something strange was happening at Clarkesworld, the magazine. Clarke had founded in 2006 and built into a pillar of the world of speculative fiction. Submissions were increasing rapidly, but “there was something off about them,” he told me recently. He summarized a typical example: “Usually, it begins with the phrase ‘In the year 2250-something’ and then it goes on to say the Earth’s environment is in collapse and there are only three scientists who can save us. Then it describes them in great detail, each one with its own paragraph. And then—they’ve solved it! You know, it skips a major plot element, and the final scene is a celebration out of the ending of Star Wars.” Clarke said he had received “dozens of this story in various incarnations.”
The City Politic- The Other Eric Adams Scandal The NYPD shot a fare evader, a cop, and two bystanders. He defends it.
On Sunday, September 15, Derell Mickles hopped a turnstile, got asked to leave by cops, then entered the subway again ten minutes later through an emergency exit. This was at the Sutter Avenue L station, out by his mother's house, five stops from the end of the line. Police said they noticed he was holding a folded knife. They followed him up the stairs to the elevated train, asking him 38 times to drop the weapon.
Can the Media Survive?
BIG TECH, Feckless Owners, CORD-CUTTERS, RESTIVE STAFF, Smaller Audiences ... and the Return of PRINT?
Status Update
Hannah Gadsby's fascinatingly untidy tour through life after fame and death.
A Matter of Perspective
A Matter of Perspective Steve McQueen's worst film is still a solid WWII drama.
Creator, Destroyer
A retrospective reveals an architect's vision, optimism, and supreme arrogance.
In Praise of Bad Readers
In a time of war, there is a danger in surveying the world as if it were a novel.
Trust the Kieran Culkin Process
First, he nearly dropped out of Oscar hopeful A Real Pain. Then he convinced Jesse Eisenberg to change the way he directs.
The Funniest Vampires on TV
What We Do in the Shadows is coming to an end. Its idiosyncratic brand of comedy may be too.
The Water-Tower Penthouse
Gigi Loizzo and Angel Molina's apartment on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx looks out on Yankee Stadium.
