This rerelease reminds us how staggeringly clever and ambitious Buster Keaton’s Romeo-and-Juliet drama from 1928 actually was
Buster Keaton’s 1928 silent movie Steamboat Bill, Jr, now on rerelease, is most famous for that staggeringly clever and ambitious shot of the house front with the strategically positioned open window collapsing on top of our hero, leaving him unscathed. It is a sublime vision of innocence being protected by comically benign forces – famously pastiched by British artist and Oscar-winning film-maker Steve McQueen in his 1999 video piece Deadpan. Steamboat Bill, Jr is a Romeo-and-Juliet drama and also a gently tender story of a man coming to respect and love his son. Bill Sr (Ernest Torrence) is the captain of a tatty old pleasure boat who hasn’t seen his son since the boy was a baby. He’s hoping for a strapping lad to help out with the business. But Bill Jr (Keaton...
Buster Keaton’s 1928 silent movie Steamboat Bill, Jr, now on rerelease, is most famous for that staggeringly clever and ambitious shot of the house front with the strategically positioned open window collapsing on top of our hero, leaving him unscathed. It is a sublime vision of innocence being protected by comically benign forces – famously pastiched by British artist and Oscar-winning film-maker Steve McQueen in his 1999 video piece Deadpan. Steamboat Bill, Jr is a Romeo-and-Juliet drama and also a gently tender story of a man coming to respect and love his son. Bill Sr (Ernest Torrence) is the captain of a tatty old pleasure boat who hasn’t seen his son since the boy was a baby. He’s hoping for a strapping lad to help out with the business. But Bill Jr (Keaton...
- 9/17/2015
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
In case you weren't already aware, before wowing audiences with his filmed traditional narrative storytelling abilities, director Steve McQueen was impressing critics in the art world with his more experimental static and moving works, like this one, titled "Deadpan," made in 1997, which was included as part of a collection of work by the artist, that was awarded the prestigious Turner Prize in 1999. In the work, a re-enacting of a stunt from Buster Keaton’s film "Steamboat Bill, Jr." (1928), we see a younger McQueen, centered an event that happens from several different angles. He stands still in front of a simple wooden house, as the the front wall of...
- 4/27/2015
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
The Oscar-winning director of 12 Years a Slave has pushed back the boundaries of film because of the fearlessness that comes with a background in art
When the director Steve McQueen was an art student learning basic film-making skills at Goldsmiths College, London, he joked he was already aiming for the time when his name would eclipse that of his glamorous namesake, star of The Great Escape and Bullitt. "One day," he told his tutor, Professor Will Brooker, "when people talk about Steve McQueen, I am going to be the first person they think of."
Now, with an Oscar for his film 12 Years a Slave, the transition from Turner prizewinning artist to celebrated director has been made in style. It is a path to cinematography also taken by the British artist Sam Taylor-Wood, nominated for a Turner prize in 1998 and now editing her high-profile film of the erotic bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey.
When the director Steve McQueen was an art student learning basic film-making skills at Goldsmiths College, London, he joked he was already aiming for the time when his name would eclipse that of his glamorous namesake, star of The Great Escape and Bullitt. "One day," he told his tutor, Professor Will Brooker, "when people talk about Steve McQueen, I am going to be the first person they think of."
Now, with an Oscar for his film 12 Years a Slave, the transition from Turner prizewinning artist to celebrated director has been made in style. It is a path to cinematography also taken by the British artist Sam Taylor-Wood, nominated for a Turner prize in 1998 and now editing her high-profile film of the erotic bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey.
- 3/9/2014
- by Vanessa Thorpe
- The Guardian - Film News
Brutal slavery movie marks another collaboration between this news cameraman turned cinematographer and the Turner Prize-winning artist and film-maker Steve McQueen
"The beauty about Steve McQueen," says Sean Bobbitt, "is his collaboration. He picks people who he respects and trust; he briefs them very clearly and let's them get on with it. That's for every department, from cinematography to hair and makeup. In all these things he has the final say, but he lets you go. Because of that, working with him is incredibly rewarding. When you are allowed to be brave, it is so exciting."
Bobbitt, we can assume, knows whereof he speaks: he has shot all three of McQueen's features – Hunger, Shame and now 12 Years a Slave – as well as five of McQueen's gallery shorts, dating back to 2002's Western Deep, shot in South Africa inside the world's deepest gold mine. He is clear that it is McQueen's...
"The beauty about Steve McQueen," says Sean Bobbitt, "is his collaboration. He picks people who he respects and trust; he briefs them very clearly and let's them get on with it. That's for every department, from cinematography to hair and makeup. In all these things he has the final say, but he lets you go. Because of that, working with him is incredibly rewarding. When you are allowed to be brave, it is so exciting."
Bobbitt, we can assume, knows whereof he speaks: he has shot all three of McQueen's features – Hunger, Shame and now 12 Years a Slave – as well as five of McQueen's gallery shorts, dating back to 2002's Western Deep, shot in South Africa inside the world's deepest gold mine. He is clear that it is McQueen's...
- 1/9/2014
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
Although the latest Turner prize went to a video artist, the 12 Years a Slave director shows that the art form is just a finishing school for serious film-making
The rise of video and film art appears irresistible. The Turner prize has just been given to a video for the second year in a row.
Yet in spite of the successes of Laure Prouvost and Elizabeth Price, the triumph of video art is an illusion. It is not a stable, enduring art form; it may not even be an art form at all. It is in reality an experimental space at the margins of a much bigger culture of the moving image – a place for talented film-makers to mess around with a freedom they could never enjoy in commercial cinema or mainstream television, but which the true artists among them hunger to apply in those bigger, more important arenas.
For it...
The rise of video and film art appears irresistible. The Turner prize has just been given to a video for the second year in a row.
Yet in spite of the successes of Laure Prouvost and Elizabeth Price, the triumph of video art is an illusion. It is not a stable, enduring art form; it may not even be an art form at all. It is in reality an experimental space at the margins of a much bigger culture of the moving image – a place for talented film-makers to mess around with a freedom they could never enjoy in commercial cinema or mainstream television, but which the true artists among them hunger to apply in those bigger, more important arenas.
For it...
- 12/6/2013
- by Jonathan Jones
- The Guardian - Film News
This is another edition of Short Starts, where we present a weekly short film(s) from the start of a filmmaker or actor’s career. Before he started making features, like his new release 12 Years a Slave, Steve McQueen was a celebrated visual artist known primarily for film installations. His “short start” was 20 years ago with a 10-minute work called Bear, in which he and another black man wrestled in the nude. After that, he made the shorts Five Easy Pieces (1995), Just Above My Head (1996), Exodus (1997) and Deadpan (1997), the last of which involved a recreation of Buster Keaton’s famous falling house facade stunt from Steamboat Bill Jr. You can see an excerpt of that film, with McQueen pulling off the dangerous bit himself, here. While many of his shorts can be seen in the occasional museum exhibit, most are otherwise pretty rare. Meaning not available to be viewed online. There...
- 10/20/2013
- by Christopher Campbell
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
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