The secret life of children is fertile territory. The unsullied logic of those for whom preconceived notions and ossified received wisdom are phenomenon yet to come make for a piquant commentary on both. The innocence, the unrestrained emotion, and the intellect unfettered by the conventions of society are a potent combination in VITUS, a delightful… Read More »
Ursula Meier Finds A Brother for SISTER
Ursula Meier knew she had found her muse in Kacey Mottet Klein when she discovered him in 2008, casting him in her film HOME. When I spoke to her on October 29, 2012, we talked about his evolution as an actor, and how she managed to keep that unselfconscious quality that he had shown in… Read More »
Fredi M. Murer on VITUS
Fredi Murer, a courtly gentleman given to performing deft sleight-of-hand for his interviewers, tapped his own childhood when he created VITUS, both the film and the character. Murer himself was not a genius in the classroom, as he tells it, but he did have a creative streak that landed him in all sorts of usual scrapes. When we talked… Read More »
Sandra Nettlebeck Cooks Up MOSTLY MARTHA
Inevitably, food was going to come up while talking with Sandra Nettlebeck, and when it did, she helped me to understand the different religions, as she put it, of French and Italian cooking when we chatted about MOSTLY MARTHA in 2002. Being in charge, identifying blind spots, and the separating herself from her characters were… Read More »