Tag: Frank DiGiacomo

New York City officials weren’t exactly helpful when Ken Burns and his daughter were making a documentary about the racially charged 1989 Central Park jogger case, but now they’re hoping the finished film, The Central Park Five, will be useful to them.

The film, which got a special screening in New York on Tuesday night, explores the lives of the five men who were convicted and later cleared in the case which became a symbol of racial tension in a metropolis besieged by crime. (The terms “wolf pack” and “wilding” were added to the media’s lexicon of fear-inducing terms as a result of the case.)  The documentary, which was shown at the Cannes, Telluride and Toronto film festivals,  scrutinizes the initial convictions of the Central Park Five, noting, for instance that the five men did not appear to be in the area of the park where the rape occurred, that their DNA was not found on the victim and that their confessions did not jibe with one another’s.

Despite the movie’s perspective, the  New York Times reported  that lawyers for the city of New York have subpoenaed notes and outtakes from the documentary, which Burns directed with his daughter Sarah Burns and her husband David McMahon, in order to determine whether the material can help them fight a $50 million federal civil rights lawsuit that five men filed nine years ago as a result of their experience.

In 2009, on the 20th anniversary of the incident, their lawyer Jonathan Moore called that experience “the most racist prosecution that occurred in the City of New York.”

Ken Burns told the Times that the Sept. 12 subpoena came after the city had spent years declining the filmmakers’ requests for interviews to explain the actions taken by law-enforcement officials involved in the case.

“There is a great deal of disappointment that it came to this, given the fact that we had given so many of the factions in this complicated story many, many opportunities, on a regular basis, to comment,” Burns said.

The city insists that cops and prosecutors acted appropriate given the information that they had available to them then.. “We believe that based on the information that the police and prosecutors had at the time, they had probable cause to proceed, and the confessions were sound,”  a city spokeswoman told the Times.  [New York Times]

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via Movieline http://movieline.com/2012/10/03/new-york-city-subpoenas-ken-burns-film-central-park-jogger-rape-89-central-park-five/

After reading the statement that Martin Scorsese‘s representatives released in response to the lawsuit that’s been filed against him  by Cecchi Gori Pictures over a project called Silence, I think I can save both sides a bundle in lawyer’s fees and, ultimately, production costs.

Both sides of this legal battle should ask themselves a pertinent question: Do you actually think that this movie, if it’s ever made, will actually put asses in seats?

Hear me out.  Scorsese is one of my favorite filmmakers, and given his obsession with religion, I’m confident he’d make a compelling adaptation of  Silence, an acclaimed 1966  Shusaku Endo novel about a Jesuit investigating whether his mentor committed apostasy — renounced his beliefs — at  a time when Christians were faced with the prospect of being hung upside down over a pit and slowly bled to death if they refused.

The Christians are essentially coerced into renouncing their faith by stepping on fumie,crudely carved wooden images of Jesus Christ.

Heard enough? Look, movies about the strength of one’s beliefs and God’s relationship with humanity can be powerful. One of the aspects of Prometheus that I particularly loved was how Ridley Scott and Damon Lindelof explored those very deep concepts in their sci-fi blockbuster earlier this summer.

Silence doesn’t sound powerful to me, though. It sounds like a ponderous slog that covers territory Scorsese already traversed in The Last Temptation of Christ. More importantly, Silence , just by virtue of its subject matter, has the markings of a small, boutique film. That’s not the kind of film Scorsese, one of our greatest living directors, should making in his golden years. I want him doing David Lean-size big-picture stuff like The Wolf of Wall Street, and, I suspect, so do his handlers.

According to Deadline, Cecchi Gori Pictures claims in its lawsuit that it invested more than $750,000 to develop Silence into a feature film based on contracts and assurances that it would be Scorsese’s next project.

Scorsese initally agreed in 1990 to co-produce and direct Silence after he completed Kundun (1997). But the lawsuit alleges Scorsese and Sikelia arranged to postpone starting on Silence so the director could make The Departed (2006), Shutter Island (2010) and Hugo (2011).

When Cecchi Gori learned that Scorsese was going to shoot The Wolf of Wall Street instead of Silence, the company claimed breach of contract.

Scorsese’s responded to the suit today with the following statement:

“It is shocking to us that the lawyers for Cecchi Gori Pictures would file a suit pursuing such absurd claims considering the amicable working relationship existing between Martin Scorsese and the principals of Cecchi Gori Pictures.The claims asserted are completely contradicted by, inconsistent with, and contrary to the express terms of an agreement entered into by the parties last year.”

The statement added: “The lawsuit filing on the eve of Mr. Scorsese starting another picture has all the earmarks of a media stunt.”

Given that the amount of Cecchi Gori’s investment isn’t even $1 million — a paltry sum in moviemaking terms — there should be a compromise here that enables Cecchi Gori’s principals to walk away without feeling like they got burned and for Scorsese to make the movies he wants to make, when he wants to make them. I just hope that Silence isn’t one of them.

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via Movieline http://movieline.com/2012/08/24/martin-scorsese-silence-lawsuit-response/

The deep thoughtful look, the craggy face — the signature beard. Oscar-winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis resonates as Abraham Lincoln in this first shot of him in full character for Steven Spielberg’s upcoming epic about the nation’s 16th president, Lincoln.

Paparazzi snapped photos of a bearded Day-Lewis at a diner last year, but on Tuesday morning, EW.com posted this exclusive shot of Day-Lewis in period costume for the highly anticipated movie that will be released on Nov. 9, just three days after the 2012 Presidential election.

The site also addresses reports that Day-Lewis, known for his immersive acting techniques, prepared for the role of the mid-19th Century president “by avoiding the trappings of the trappings of 21st — not to mention 20th — century life during the shoot”.  Not so, says Spielberg, who tells EW: “Daniel was always conscious of his contemporary surroundings” and “never went into a fugue state. He did not channel Lincoln. All that stuff is just more about gossip than it is about technique.”

Those on the set, including Spielberg, did, however refer to Day-Lewis as “Mr. President,” but the Jaws  director says that was about maintaining atmosphere. “I was calling [all] the actors by their character names,” he tells EW. “That was something I felt was important to establish a little authenticity, maybe even more for me than for them.”

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via Movieline http://movieline.com/2012/08/07/daniel-day-lewis-as-lincoln-first-photo-spielberg-film/