Dailies is a round-up of essential film writing, news bits, videos, and other highlights from across the Internet. If you’d like to submit a piece for consideration, get in touch with us in the comments below or on Twitter at @TheFilmStage.
If you’re in Dublin on June 3rd, The Tree of Life is screening with a live score from a 100-piece orchestra.
Watch a video on the parallels between the original Star Wars trilogy and The Force Awakens:
With A Brighter Summer Day now on Criterion, producer Curtis Tsui discusses the making of the film (and read Godfrey Chesire‘s essay):
The inspiration for the film was the real-life murder of a teenage girl by a classmate, committed in Taipei on June 15, 1961—an event that deeply affected filmmaker Edward Yang and other members of his generation in Taiwan. In fact, A Brighter Summer Day’s Chinese title translates as “The Youth Killing Incident on Guling Street.”
Valérie Donzelli, David Robert Mitchell, Alice Winocour, Nadav Lapid, and Santiago Mitre will make up the 2016 Critics Week jury at Cannes.
Listen to Kent Jones‘ 40-minute discussion with Arnaud Desplechin:
Peter Strickland interviews Yorgos Lanthimos for Bomb Magazine:
The general notion of becoming a filmmaker, especially when I was growing up, was that it was an absurd thing. There weren’t many filmmakers or many films being made in Greece. It wasn’t considered a proper or serious thing to do; it was seen as a hobby. So there was no infrastructure or support for younger people to go into filmmaking. I basically went to film school to learn the craft of commercials, which seemed like a thing you could do to earn a living.
Listen to Ethan Hawke‘s extensive talk with Marc Maron:
Sense of Cinema interviews Michelangelo Antonioni’s wife and collaborator Enrica Fico:
Michelangelo had a unique gaze, and I would not look at the same things he would look at, not even today. For instance, when we were walking on the streets in Rome, he used to stop to make me notice a couple fighting; he was fascinated by their dynamics, and in fact he inserted a similar episode in The Passenger.
Aki Kaurismaki will get the Directors’ Fortnight Golden Coach Prize at Cannes this year, THR reports.
Listen to an extensive talk with Billy Wilder from 1978:
Metrograph‘s Phillip Lopate discusses ravishing revivals:
Though I consider myself a fairly levelheaded person, not much given to mysticism, I’ve had certain movie experiences that I would say approached the magically sublime. Often they involved revivals of previously unavailable films I was dying to see. Being an incorrigible auteurist, I’ve brought a collector’s passion to my efforts to complete the sets of directors I revere. As most of this hunting took place in the days before VCRs and DVDs, I had to keep an eye out for rare titles popping up at a revival house, film festival, or museum, and then pounce. Usually there would be only one screening of the film.