He pronounces the GoPro “cinema’s Copernicus”: The human POV isn’t necessarily the center of the screen universe anymore - a ground-shifting development, to put it mildly.
But Cousins is unequivocally upbeat about everything from performance capture to digital de-aging. Some find the high-end computerization of filmmaking distracting. Some bemoan the cross-pollination of movies with consumer tech. From Black Panther to Shoplifters to Song of the Sea, he celebrates fresh takes on community and identity, and reminds us, six years after its release, that Sean Baker’s Tangerine shattered boundaries in terms of its subject matter (putting trans women front and center) and its filmmaking technology (an iPhone). His straightforward anatomy of Us and Parasite as striking portrayals of our shadow selves couldn’t be more lucid or potent. Some of the chosen films embrace genre to reimagine it (Johnnie To’s Vengeance) and others defy it completely (Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin). He uses genres - comedy, action, dance, horror, slow cinema, documentaries, movies about the unreal - to explore his themes. Cousins honors filmmakers’ identities while emphasizing that cinema is, in essence, borderless. A New Generation is further argument against the persistent practice of categorizing movies by country, with Western films at the top of the hierarchy. But their overlap is as inescapable as it is exhilarating. The doc is divided into two sections, “Extending the Language of Film” and “What Have We Been Digging For?” As organizing principles, these work well, one concerned with visual style and storytelling, the other with questions of identity and point of view. (Would a convo between him and Werner Herzog, another filmmaker with an exceptionally distinctive speaking voice, be the equivalent of the music of the cinephile spheres?) The eloquence of his voiceover narration is heightened by the lilts and slants of his Northern Irish–Scottish accent, an intoxicating match for the hypnotic visuals. He excerpts dozens of films with a piercing sensitivity, the transitions elegantly choreographed by editor Timo Langer.Ĭousins is a compelling writer and narrator, and one who doesn’t shy away from superlatives ( Mad Max: Fury Road is “the best action film of our times” the Safdie brothers are “two of the most distinctive filmmakers of the 21st century”).
In a film whose overriding thesis is an optimistic belief in the language of cinema, he’s more interested in opening our eyes to its trailblazing practitioners around the globe, in tentpoles and well beyond.
#THE MOVIES SUPERSTAR EDITION REVIEW MOVIE#
Cousins, himself an indie filmmaker, makes his point without beating us over the head with the economic realities of the Hollywood-dominated movie industry. He then pivots to another megahit, the 2014 Indian satire PK - a movie toplined by a superstar (Aamir Khan) and drawing a huge audience, and yet one that most Western moviegoers have never heard of. Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Special Screenings)Ĭousins’ comparison of those two blockbusters draws parallels that are as incisive as they are unforced, setting the tone for the film as a whole. A New Generation is never less than inspired, and there’s a heady thrill to its juxtapositions, beginning with the gambit that opens the doc, pairing Joaquin Phoenix’s deranged dance down a flight of New York City stairs in Joker with Idina Menzel’s showstopping belting as an animated princess in Frozen. Having surveyed the first century of filmmaking with his 15-part The Story of Film: An Odyssey, Cousins turns his restless and impassioned explorations to the 10 years since that 2011 series’ release - up to and including these past months of pandemic-mandated lockdowns and shuttered theaters. The Story of Film: A New Generation sometimes has the unhurried flow of a friendly saunter, and sometimes it rushes headlong around corners, where jaw-dropping surprises await. In his latest discursive love letter to cinema, documentarian Mark Cousins notes that essay films “take ideas for a walk.” The walk he takes us on here is a beauty, a dreamscape crafted from a decade’s worth of mind-bending ideas and innovative screen creations.
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