Back again in one of the very best chairs you can ever be invited to. With one of the most delightfully smart and funny people I know. We always wander happily and I never know if we got to anything of value to anyone else but it’s so damn fun that I don’t really care. My dream is that I’ll do something someday that gets me invited in as an Expert and I’ll get that coveted Blue square.
20 years ago this weekend. What a privilege to get to make this deeply felt film with one of my all-time cinema heroes and inspirations, Da King of NY…. @officialspikelee Not to mention one of the actors I admired most, Phil Hoffman. Shot in 26 days because Spike is a MASTER of the craft! A beautiful gift, the best kind of work. Thank you forever Spizzike! 🙏🙏❤️
I don’t post a lot about films or actor performances…maybe I should more often. But for those interested in really great acting I’ll share that Andrea Riseborough’s portrayal in ‘To Leslie’ just knocked me sideways. It’s about the most fully committed, emotionally deep, physically harrowing performance I’ve seen in a while. Just raw & utterly devoid of performative BS. It’s a tough but really elegant and compassionate film (by Michael Morris) where the emotion is really earned. I happened to catch it and, wow, I was really staggered by the depth she reached. Very rare. Check it out. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
I don’t post a lot about films or actor performances…maybe I should more often. But for those interested in really great acting I’ll share that Andrea Riseborough’s portrayal in ‘To Leslie’ just knocked me sideways. It’s about the most fully committed, emotionally deep, physically harrowing performance I’ve seen in a while. Just raw & utterly devoid of performative BS. It’s a tough but really elegant and compassionate film (by Michael Morris) where the emotion is really earned. I happened to catch it and, wow, I was really staggered by the depth she reached. Very rare. Check it out. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Celebrating the great Milos Forman Milos was one of my true artistic heroes. Not just because he was a great film director but because of his capacity to sustain an exuberant belief that individual human spirit can triumph over institutions of oppression and his conviction that art can and must play a role in that fight for the health of a society. He was an infectious optimist and lover of life, despite losing both of his parents to the Nazis as a boy and then finding his way as a young man and artist under the Kafka-esque oppressions of a totalitarian state. And, if you were lucky enough to get to know him and hear about these experiences and how they forged him, you realized that for all the success and privilege that came to him, his own perspective was that he was lucky to simply be alive and free and that he had an obligation to keep using his work to shake his fist in defiance. He was my first real mentor in filmmaking and, to this day, I’ve never worked with anyone who matched his wizardry at cultivating the ‘unrepeatable moments’ that made his films so magical. The innumerable wonderful memories I have from working with him on ‘The People vs Larry Flynt’, having him act in my first film and traveling with him to his beloved Prague remain one of the greatest gifts of my career.
I’d been wondering why, given all the rare natural resources that go into high tech phones, they weren’t more fully recycled. Just found out about Apple Give Back http://apple.com/giveback and went and tried it out. Fantastic. Got $50 back on an old phone. Video on Insta story
Last summer
Last summer
Last summer
Last summer
Last summer
Click the link in my bio for a chance to win a trip to NYC and see @radiohead with me.
Editing a movie you’ve always wanted to make is fun and all…but today I was day dreaming about the Vespa 300 my friends a Piaggio loaned me last summer and the Passo Tonales and Passo Gavia roads out of Ponte di Legno. How come when I’m working my mind is wandering and when I’m wandering my mind gets working?
Looked out my production office window today and saw this moment coming together.
A message from Wes Anderson – you can own a piece of Isle of Dogs history. Link in bio to find out more
Many of you know that the crew of our film ‘Motherless Brooklyn’ experienced a dramatic and ultimately tragic event on Thursday night, in which a fire engulfed the building we were working in and an FDNY firefighter died fighting the blaze. Thanks to the many, many people who have written to us supportively. Our team’s formal statement on the event is here in the slideshow. It has been reported in some news outlets that the fire ‘started on the set’. This is incorrect. It appears to have started in the basement cellar of the building we were working in. We were filming in a bar and an apartment within the building and our crew noticed smoke rising up into where we were working. It has been reported that I was the one who smelled smoke and raised an alarm. This is incorrect. I was outside setting up a shot outside the building. Our fantastic 1st AD was the first to notice the smell of smoke before anyone even saw it and it was he and others on the crew who acted decisively and quickly to try to locate the source of the smoke, evacuate cast and crew, call the fire department and then rapidly move our equipment and vehicles away so that the FDNY had clear access. I cannot praise the professionalism of our crew highly enough. Had our team not noticed the situation and responded and alerted the fire department with the speed they did, I believe the residents of the building above would have perished. And though we described what we saw the FDNY do in our statement and articulated our feelings, it’s worth doubling down. I have never witnessed firsthand that kind of bravery. I’m in awe of that kind of selfless courage. It’s devastating to contemplate that one of the men we watched charging in there lost his life. Please send a prayer of thanks for the spirit and courage of Michael Davidson. Our team is committed to honoring him and assisting his family and, in due course, when we can determine with his family what form they’d like that to take, I’ll pass along any information I have about a verified way people can contribute.
Many of you know that the crew of our film ‘Motherless Brooklyn’ experienced a dramatic and ultimately tragic event on Thursday night, in which a fire engulfed the building we were working in and an FDNY firefighter died fighting the blaze. Thanks to the many, many people who have written to us supportively. Our team’s formal statement on the event is here in the slideshow. It has been reported in some news outlets that the fire ‘started on the set’. This is incorrect. It appears to have started in the basement cellar of the building we were working in. We were filming in a bar and an apartment within the building and our crew noticed smoke rising up into where we were working. It has been reported that I was the one who smelled smoke and raised an alarm. This is incorrect. I was outside setting up a shot outside the building. Our fantastic 1st AD was the first to notice the smell of smoke before anyone even saw it and it was he and others on the crew who acted decisively and quickly to try to locate the source of the smoke, evacuate cast and crew, call the fire department and then rapidly move our equipment and vehicles away so that the FDNY had clear access. I cannot praise the professionalism of our crew highly enough. Had our team not noticed the situation and responded and alerted the fire department with the speed they did, I believe the residents of the building above would have perished. And though we described what we saw the FDNY do in our statement and articulated our feelings, it’s worth doubling down. I have never witnessed firsthand that kind of bravery. I’m in awe of that kind of selfless courage. It’s devastating to contemplate that one of the men we watched charging in there lost his life. Please send a prayer of thanks for the spirit and courage of Michael Davidson. Our team is committed to honoring him and assisting his family and, in due course, when we can determine with his family what form they’d like that to take, I’ll pass along any information I have about a verified way people can contribute.
The stuff you see working in out of the way little corners of NYC before dawn on a Sunday. Any guesses as to where this is?
I just donated to this campaign because we need to lean into this moment of cultural reckoning & address this issue in a way that lasts for our sisters, daughters, friends & colleagues. Kudos to my friends who organized it. Please Share #timesup timesupnow.com
I have learned that FDNY Foundation @FDNYFoundation has already set up a dedicated scholarship fund for the 4 children of Firefighter Michael Davidson. We have been told that 100% of funds donated to this fund will be used to fund education costs for this brave man’s children. I can’t think of a better way to honor his sacrifice. https://www.fdnyfoundation.org/donate/
Infuriating: giving the middle finger to the overwhelming majority of Americans who support preserving our public treasury of wild landscapes, outdoor pastimes and cultural history – @realdonaldtrump & @SecretaryZinke attack w unprecedented rollback. RALLY & RESIST #MonumentsForAll http://monumentsforall.org/ action
Infuriating: giving the middle finger to the overwhelming majority of Americans who support preserving our public treasury of wild landscapes, outdoor pastimes and cultural history – @realdonaldtrump & @SecretaryZinke attack w unprecedented rollback. RALLY & RESIST #MonumentsForAll http://monumentsforall.org/ action
Infuriating: giving the middle finger to the overwhelming majority of Americans who support preserving our public treasury of wild landscapes, outdoor pastimes and cultural history – @realdonaldtrump & @SecretaryZinke attack w unprecedented rollback. RALLY & RESIST #MonumentsForAll http://monumentsforall.org/ action
