Although he hasn’t directed his own film since 2013 (the underrated “Go for Sisters”), John Sayles is having a year. In January, his 1996 neo-western crime film “Lone Star” entered the Criterion collection with a 4K UHD Edition that includes interviews with cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh, as well as an interview with Sayles himself conducted through “El Norte” director Gregory Nava.
“A lot of times, what happens with videos like ours,” Sayles told IndieWire, “the first five videos, six videos, seven videos that we made — I don’t think any of those providers exist anymore. We’ve literally had studies, when we call and say, “Well, they gave you our movie, are you going to do something with it?They say, “No, we don’t have your movie. ” That’s why we say, “Well, check again. “And they’re like, “Oh, damn, I guess so. ” It’s not simply something vital enough in their minds to exist. Or go to the trouble of spending more money.
“He understands all those things that are going on,” Sayles said of Strathairn’s character, adding, “just in a really excessive way. The challenge with all the advertising — the kind of visual pollutants, the acoustic pollutants — feels tense. “, that other people feel, but just as aware of how they feel.
In this, Sayles also sees the connections to where we are today and says, “If you’re also on TikTok and a lot of other things, and you’re betting video games that are a hundred times faster than when we created in the movie, there’s a lot of bombardment about what you think, and it’s no wonder that a lot of other people choose: “I’m just going to watch this. I’ll just check how I’m here. ” This is the global I need to enter. I eliminate everything else.
Working with cinematographer Robert Richardson (they collaborated on his previous film, the baseball drama “Eight Men Out”), Sayles maximized the minimum budget they were working with and the brief era of the shoot by incorporating a visual taste that keeps many of the main shots long. and reflects the derivative nature of all his characters, as well as their interdependence.
“Basically, the problem,” Sayles says, “is that there are all these interest groups and ethnic teams in this city that think, ‘These other people have nothing to do with my life, I’m here, they’re here. ‘But the audience realizes that, wait a minute, we see this total machination without interruption. We move from one organization to another; That’s why we also shot in widescreen [2. 35:1], because we had six or 8 other people (we have another 3 people entering the hallway, and another two people crossing and who knows which one we’re passing by) and without it being too abrupt a movement, you can transfer between them in a masterful shot. Especially if you have a widescreen and you can warn other people, “Oh, someone else is concentrating, we can limit ourselves to them. ”
“I feel like I deserve credit for inventing the Obamas,” Sayles joked about Bassett’s casting. It was the first time they had worked together, but they would later collaborate on two more films, “Passion Fish” and “Sunshine State. “
“She’s just an actress,” Sayles said of Bassett. I’d seen her in, you know, a couple of plays and temporarily she played bigger roles and we had a chance to get her to come back to other things. But there were several actors that I’ve been looking forward to working with for a long time and I’ve had the opportunity to do so. You know, a huge cast.
Some of the actors featured in the film, including Frankie Faison and Bill Raymond, would later participate in an examination of the interconnectedness surrounding the lives of those involved in the center’s life: the hit HBO series, “The Wire. “
Another obvious difference is that while “The Wire” prided itself on filming in and around Baltimore, Sayles chose to film in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine community rather than a genuine New Jersey town. Sayles said, “We took a look at Newark, we took a look at Jersey City, I was living in Hoboken at the time, and we learned that in five weeks we needed a city where the traffic wasn’t so bad. And I filmed, we shot, a bunch of “Eight Men Out” scenes in Cincinnati, particularly in this Over-the-Rhine community, where urban renewal had ignored it and done nothing about it, so you had this housing inventory and, you know, a kind of clever downtown view and enough six- or seven-story buildings. So we ended up filming there, but we never had a problem getting around the city.
These other aspects of Sayles’ filmmaking—preparing as much as he can in advance and incorporating less expensive techniques and practices that are compatible with his narrative goals—are what make him a true independent to this day. Unfortunately, their business style hasn’t changed in recent years, with film sellers more attracted to what Sayles and others call “event films. ”
Rather than abandon his artistic endeavors entirely, Sayles has discovered other outlets to spread his art around the world, writing novels (adding last year’s highly acclaimed “Jamie MacGillivray: The Renegade’s Journey”), continuing his paintings as a screenwriter. Make sure that your paintings beyond are noticed through as many other people as possible to give back to those who have been involved in making them.
When discussing the preference between physical media and streaming, Sayles is careful not to judge either format, saying, “Both are tactics to get your film seen. So my ideal is for them to be available in both places. Because most of our films were made with a mosaic of investors and there are actors and crew members who have points, I appreciate when there’s waste coming back, so I’d rather other people don’t go through YouTube and watch. So we regularly go through watching each and every movie from time to time and say to YouTube, “You don’t actually own the rights, so remove it from your service. “
Checking their respective homepages and browsing through lists of videos and relatively well-curated TV screens is reminiscent of what it felt like to go to the library as a child and the freedom to find anything that can replace your life. When I’m on Netflix or Max those days, I remember the value of the ticket and how those corporations are robbing other people of their cultural growth. Speaking to Matthew Belloni last month for his podcast “The Town”, Anjali Sud, CEO of Tubi, believes that the channel’s success, offering and future lies in “a combination of freedom literally executed in a solid way, listening to our audience with a vast library of on-demand broadcasts, and we try to serve that audience, Show them and give them more of the things they love and it’s literally that simple.
To go further, Sud added, “Besides being one hundred percent free, is it rarely?We do not ask you to subscribe to an advertising or subscription tier. We’re not looking to sell to you. Fragmentation and friction are reduced. It’s as simple to start watching a movie on Tubi as it is to open TikTok.
After all, what channel was sailing twenty years ago?What was going on in the record store fifty years ago?We’ve all had to work to get a taste, but at the end of the day, it’s still worth it and this message is reinforced. through the greater presence of John Sayles’ filmography, both in streaming and in physical format.
This means that there is no need to paint anymore. There are many films, in addition to others in Sayles’ filmography, that continue to struggle to see the light of day. However, Sayles is still hopeful for the future of the film’s preservation.
“Our friend Nancy Savoca and her husband Rich Guay, who’s their producer, and other smart people from this Missing Movies organization,” Sayles told IndieWire, “especially for independent filmmakers, but even for other people who have done things for the studios. . There are a lot of videos you’d like to watch, still. . . How do you see them?