Jeanne Moreau 1928-2017 / And Then Sam Shepard / Jolie's Travails / Never Too Early / Update: TIFF Announces Docs and Midnight Madness

Welcome to Tuesday...


JEANNE MOREAU 1928-2017

Legendary French actress Jeanne Moreau has died.  She appeared in dozens of films including Jules and Jim and The 400 Blows.

She also directed a bit including her debut in 1976-Lumiere.

That film appeared as a part of the 3rd Telluride Film Festival:

Despite the film's screening, The New York Times reported at the time that Ms. Moreau did not attend the festival.  Here's the link to that NYT story from 1976.

Moreau was 89.

AND THEN SAM SHEPARD 1943-2017

Later in the day yesterday we got word that playwright and actor Sam Shepard had also died. Shepard was one of the most important voices in the American theater during the last quarter of the 20th Century.  He also made his way into a significant number of American film classics:  Days of Heaven, Frances, The Right Stuff, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

Shepard attended TFF twice as far as I can tell.  First in 1984 as the writer of Paris, Texas and again in 1988 as writer and director of Far North.

Shepard was nominated for an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor in The Right Stuff playing real life American hero Chuck Yeager.

Shepard was 73.

JOLIE'S TRAVAILS

Last week a Vanity Fair piece outlined what it says was an audition practice for the children that Angelina Jolie was considering for casting in her film First They Killed My Father.  The claim of emotional manipulation as a part of that process produced a strong reaction from the film world and a strong counter-response from Ms. Jolie this past weekend .

Her claim is that VF misrepresented the process and that it was actually an improvisational exercise.

I think this merits some attention in this space as we believe that the film is currently set to screen at Telluride in a month.  Many have reached that conclusion since the film was announced last week as a Canadian Premiere for the Toronto International Film Festival.

Read the original Vanity Fair piece here.


And here's coverage of Jolie's response from:

The Hollywood Reporter

Variety


NEVER TOO EARLY

Sasha Stone has gotten the ball rolling with her first tentative look at possible Oscar players a month prior to Telluride/Venice.  As you might expect, TFF factors into the analysis.

Among items of interest to T-ride followers are her predictions for films that we think will likely play at Telluride:

Best Picture would include: Battle of the Sexes. The Shape of Water, Darkest Hour and Downsizing.
Director would include: Del Toro/The Shape of Water
Actor: Gary Oldman/Darkest Hour, Steve Carell/Battle of the Sexes
Actress: Sally Hawkins/The Shape of Water, Emma Stone/Battle of the Sexes


Check the entire post here.

NOTE:  TORONTO ANNOUNCES NEW SELECTIONS:

As best I can tell from the TIFF announcement this morning, it reveals no new films for Telluride. One note of import, however.  Frederick Wiseman's Ex Libris: The New York Public Library which we thought would be a part of TFF #44 after a story from last week from Ioncinema.  This morning's TIFF news says that it will be a North American Premiere there and if that's true...no TFF #44.

Here's a screengrab of the relevant segment of the Ioncinema story:

Later Taters...

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