Guy Maddin: Interviews

by D. K. Holm (Editor)

Overview

One of Canada's premier cinematic exports, Guy Maddin (b. 1956) is an award-winning filmmaker with a rising reputation. Known for his autobiographical tales---hidden deeply within comical, absurd, and surrealistic narratives---Maddin has earned international acclaim, including a lifetime achievement award at the Telluride Film Festival at the age of thirty-nine.

Possessing a deep knowledge of silent cinema, modernist artists, and novelists, Maddin's seemingly amateurish visual style and unusual subjects (patriphagia in The Dead Father, incest in Careful) obscure the surprisingly literate sources for his films. These include novelists Knut Hamsun (Twilight of the Ice Nymphs) and Kazuo Ishiguro (The Saddest Music in the World), the Royal Winnipeg Ballet (Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary), and the films of Erich von Stroheim (Archangel).

Guy Maddin: Interviews collects pieces published between 1990 and 2009 and offers the reader a whirlwind tour of Maddin's offbeat career in his own words, as solicited by a range of journalists, scholars, and fellow filmmakers. Maddin is a charming, erudite, and candid conversationalist who is frank about his own perceived drawbacks, his good fortune, and the often high art culture that motivates his cinematic explorations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781604735635
Publisher:	University Press of Mississippi
Publication date:	07/07/2010
Series:	Conversations with Filmmakers Series
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

D. K. Holm is a movie reviewer for the Vancouver Voice. He has published books on Quentin Tarrantino and R. Crumb. He has also written articles for the New York Times Book Review, Film Quarterly, and Sight and Sound. He is the editor of R. Crumb: Conversations (University Press of Mississippi).

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

Chronology xvii

Filmography xxi

Far from the Maddin Crowd Robert Enright 3

Far from the Maddin Crowd: Guy Maddin Interviewed Alan Jones 19

Weird Art and Science: Guy Maddin's Primitive Genius David Chute 28

A Trip through Maddin's Videotape Collection Caelum Vatnsdal 31

"I may be straying into a minutiae that even I'm not interested in at the moment" Guy Maddin 40

"Well, maybe now's the moment" Guy Maddin George Toles 42

Tales of Guy Maddin Mike White 45

"Now here we have…" Guy Maddin George Toles 53

Purple Majesty: James Quandt Talks with Guy Maddin James Quandt 57

"Hi, I'm Guy. I made this thing" Guy Maddin 67

Guy Maddin Discusses His Film Career Terry Gross 70

The Reconfiguration of Film History: Guy Maddin Jonathan Marlow 77

Mr. Beaks Gets to the Root of Brilliance with Guy Maddin-An Absolute Genius! Jeremy Smith 110

"I wanted to use as much Bram Stoker text as possible" Guy Maddin 117

The Pleasures of Melancholy: An Interview with Guy Maddin Marie Losier Richard Porton 119

Dissecting the Branded Brain: An Interview with Guy Maddin David Church 140

When in Winnipeg José Teodoro 166

Interview with…Guy Maddin D. K. Holm 172

Talking with Winnipeg's Remarkably Well-Adjusted Guy Maddin Aaron Hillis 174

Interview with Guy Maddin, Director of My Winnipeg James Nadeau 176

"So, this was our first talkie. And how" Guy Maddin George Toles 182

Guy Maddin Isabella Rosselline 185

Index 197