UPSTREAM COLOR, a new film from Shane Carruth (Primer)

fwiw I interviewed him around the time of Primer, and looking back at some quotes I transcribed, his attitude/stance is not that different from that recent interview. He was pretty burnt out, jaded, disgruntled, self-deprecating etc. And he wasn't a dick, if memory serves. One quote I got from him was basically him complaining that "Primer" took so much time and energy from him, with so little reward, that he would sooner go back to engineering rather than attempting anything like that again.

primer won the grand jury prize at sundance, its not crazy imo for that person to be annoyed that after almost 20 years of grinding hes been able to get exactly one project off the ground for the equivalent budget of apprx 8 minutes of Tiger King

I always liked how he ended up "having" to cast himself in Primer cause everyone he auditioned was "acting too much' or something to that effect.

I've said this before but fans of Carruth and ppl in his orbit really need to see at least s1 of The Girlfriend Experience, the series, which involves pretty much that whole loose squad (Carruth, Lyn Shiel, Seimetz, as well as Lodge Kerrigan)

didn't he do the music for that?

yep, and he has a memorable cameo as well

he should just suck it up and sell out a bit imo

otm

you'll be happy to learn he's in Amazon's Tales From the Loop (anyone seen it?)

I've watched half of it so far, it's very good

should just go back to engineering

I'm sure it's been said around here before but rockism doesn't really apply to film in the same way it applies to music

engineers are dime a dozen. he’s probably not even that good at it. he should dumb his shit down and make one Nolanesque MOR brainblaster, get super rich and famous, then do whatever he wants. it’s obvious

It’s always obvious what other people should do!!

"we need more garbage, he should go make some"

it needn’t even be garbage, just accept that you work in a capital intensive and commercialized medium and figure out how to make cool art in that constraint. he could prob make something like 35% smarter than Nolan and still smash

worth trying it out before quitting at least \o/

the world is littered with ppl who agree with that, I am glad there are at least a few uncompromising ppl out there

In a field where collaboration is crucial to getting work completed, being uncompromising can be self-defeating

plenty of compromising ppl end up every bit as miserable anyway for the opposite reason! at least when he makes things they're actually worthwhile

xpost Unless you're the writer/star/editor/director/producer/composer/FX guy. But not Robert Rodriguez.

what he really needs to do is take part in a webinar about being a more effective manager

instead of complaining about the industry he should just hire a life coach, then he'll eventually get that promotion to senior regional filmmaker

there's only one mainstream project I want to see him star in, and that's as the grown-up, world-weary Brendan in the office-set Brick sequel that will only ever exist in my head

he should dumb his shit down and make one Nolanesque MOR brainblaster, get super rich and famous, then do whatever he wants. it’s obvious

true he should just decide to make an extremely successful tentpole movie, someone should email him with that suggestion

people love tom cruise, he should try asking tom cruise to be in his next movie, then after that he'll be able to do whatever he wants

where does this instinct to sarcastically talk down to everyone you disagree with come from? Why did it become the second most popular way to post on these boards?

idk same place you got "dick" & "Muskoid" from?

oh you tease you're not going to get us to ask about the first most popular way

where does this instinct to sarcastically talk down to everyone you disagree with come from?

hums the ILX version of the stonecutters theme song

in all seriousness tombot you shouldn't be surprised when ppl push back on yr characterization of someone whose work you apparently know nothing about

reading this interview made me love shane carruth

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Monday, May 25, 2020 10:10 AM (four hours ago)

even more than i did before! i don't feel that he is a dick.

It's a shame he's so uncompromising if only because I am extremely curious what a MOR Shane Carruth picture would look like.

feel like Zal Batmanglij/Brit Marling/Mike Cahill have been trying to mine a similar vibe while still not going full MOR for a while now

Carruth doesn't seem like a dick from that interview, or from anything else I've read about him. interested to see anything he's involved in.

All the Marling/Cahill stuff I've seen is dreadful alas

he should dumb his shit down and make one Nolanesque MOR brainblaster, get super rich and famous, then do whatever he wants. it’s obvious

worth trying it out before quitting at least \o/

I read an interview recently where he says he wasted years on trying to do this, wish I could remember where I saw that linked 🤔

who among us has the patience to put up with pure Hollywood bullshit for two years

It always sounded like The Modern Ocean would be that kind of higher profile and more accessible thing from him. There were certainly big names attached to it.

Kinda crazy that first sentence in that Hollywood Reporter piece refers to him as an "emerging talent."

So what happened with Modern Oceans? You'd think that cast would have gotten him enough funding, plus he's got lots of high profile friends. Anyway, glancing at his wikipedia page, there's an interview back from October where he talks about quitting, too. How long did Soderbergh's retirement or sabbatical or whatever last, two or three years?

Yes, retirement comes up in that interview I read sometime, wish I could remember when 🤔, specifically because they mention that he made headlines last year by talking about retiring.

Hardly like-for-like, given Soderbergh's level of output from before the retirement, but:

He announced his retirement from film-making in February 2013.

During his retirement he: had a completed telemovie screen at Cannes in competition for the Palme d'Or and enjoy theatrical release outside the US; directed & shot & edited ten hour-long episodes of The Knick; did a draft cut of Spike Jonze's Her, trimming the film from 2.5 hours to 90 minutes; developed & produced the half-hour-episode dramedy series Red Oaks; developed a six-hour narrative / 18-or-w/e-hour interactive mystery; shot & operated camera on & edited a feature film sequel to an earlier feature that he'd directed & shot & edited; compiled & music directed an installation piece combining the 1946 The Killers with the 1964 The Killers; edited & sound directed a mashup installation piece incorporating parts of his The Underneath and the noir it was based on, Criss Cross; generated a "silent" film version of Raiders Of The Lost Ark by removing the colour and scoring it with Reznor & Ross cues from The Social Network; cut a 110-minute edit of 2001: A Space Odyssey; cut a 108-minute edit of Heaven's Gate; directed & shot & edited another ten hour-long episodes of The Knick; and EP'ed the Girlfriend Experience TV series, hiring Shane Carruth to score it. Plus he started a new day job as importer and promoter of a Bolivian liquor.

He un-announced his retirement from film-making in February 2016.


(Then before he made the unretirement film, he cut & music directed a feature-length mashup of the three theatrical films starring Michael Caine as Len Deighton's Harry Palmer.)

I think my interpretation of his dickishness in that interview can be chalked up to my “takes one to know one” instinct. Then again I usually am surprised that more people don’t think I’m a dick.

wait I forgot Sodes's mashup of Psycho (1960) and Psycho (1998), called Psychos

also he revived an earlier side-gig, directing Chloe Grace Moretz in a play by his frequent collaborator Scott Burns

i agree that carruth has been pretty consistently himself since he surfaced; he's a smart, intense guy who is well aware of the conditions working against him. i can understand the reasoning in not wanting to continue to hustle for budget when the ideas in your head aren't going to be realized for anything close to the 100k upstream color cost. at the same time, i was never particularly optimistic that the shipping routes movie or the other stuff he was working on post-UC would ever see the light of day.

oh well, we'll always have upstream color, one of the most beautiful and affecting movies i've ever seen.

yeah Primer is technically astonishing but leaves me cold, UC surprised me with its beating heart

Fwiw i would’ve said the same thing abt orson Welles if ilx threads existed back then

Here's another current interview covering much of the same ground: https://theplaylist.net/shane-carruth-interview-retirement-20200523/

He says of The Modern Ocean, and even A Topiary, that they're 'probably' over. Though it doesn't sound totally definitive and he maybe suggests letting someone else tackle them? Maybe I'm just being too hopeful.

Soderbergh seemingly loves to work and believes he hones his craft by going through the actions, which makes Carruth's insistence that he find the right situation to make the right thing more frustrating if you like the latter's work.

I guess it comes down to personality and view, whether you make the work you like by grinding through tons of material to the point where you're confident in your technique, or you meticulously work through a couple hours of movie by your own hand for years in order to make the one thing you love.

Yeah good point, its an interesting divide. I feel like I've been on different sides of it at different times in my own life. "I love getting slightly better at this!" vs "what annoying stuff do I need to figure out to get this thing out of my brain & into the world."

Soderbergh namechecked Carruth in that State of the Industry speech thing he did, I wonder if they ever sat down together.

I think I'm definitely in the anxiety/procrastination side of things where I'm afraid to finish things because I want a good outcome? Trying to become a little Soderbergh of my field in recent years

Soderbergh definitely seems to do stuff just to challenge himself, like the "Raiders," "Psycho" and "2001" larks, or filming on an iPhone, or "Bubble," or acting as his own DP or whatever else it takes. Like, I must have known this, but Soderbergh apparently filmed second unit stuff for the first "Hunger Games" movie, more or less just as an exercise. But he can also make slick movies and work with movie stars, which who knows if Carruth is capable of doing but which seems key to getting green lit by studios. Though if Robert Eggers and Ari Aster et al. can do what they do, I don't see why Carruth couldn't. "The Lighthouse," a more or less academy ratio, black and white psycho-sexual homoerotic tale of seamen/semen/seamonsters, was a pretty bonkers movie to get such a wide release. Carruth must have some specific, particularly ineffable goals he has convinced himself he can not achieve.