Show Notes
In a wide-ranging conversation, veteran director Ridley Scott returns to the podcast to talk with IndieWire features writer Jim Hemphill about his latest film, “The Dog Stars.” Scott also has stories about “Blade Runner” and “Black Hawk Down,” reveals his very English approach to love stories, and explains how he’s able to make epics on a budget. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
More from IndieWire's Filmmaker Toolkit
Lance Oppenheim is a favorite guest on the Filmmaker Toolkit; a director who loves dissecting his process. Lance has two films in theaters that demand this kind of breakdown more than any this year. First, we dig into the Elizabeth Holmes documentary he co-directed with Nathan Fielder, 'You Can See Everything.' Lance explains the web of confusion and falsehoods they were drawn into by Holmes, often disagreeing about the nature of what they had just captured on camera.
Director Cristian Mungiu ("4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days") uses his films to challenge audience's morals and sense of justice. In his newest film, the Palme d'Or winning "Fjord," Mungiu follows an immigrant Romanian family targeted by Norwegian child protective services for their conservative beliefs. Our challenging conversation digs into the messy morality of a progressive nation enforcing its beliefs with authoritarian practices, and how Mungiu writes his films to place the viewer in the role of jurist.
The legendary screenwriter returns to the subject that won him an Oscar for "The Social Network," this time in the director's chair. Hear Sorkin explain how he tried to get David Fincher to direct, replacing Jesse Eisenberg with Jeremy Strong's intense transformation into the Facebook founder, and why America's growing political extremism made him change his mind about "not wanting to jump up and down" on Zuckerberg. We also explore the making of the 2010 original film, and even touch a bit on 'The West Wing.'
In his fourth film as writer and director, Chris Rock is coming out as a cinephile. In this conversation with IndieWire's Chris O'Falt, Rock shares his love for independent filmmakers like Alexander Payne and Noah Baumbach, and how he is trying to be taken seriously as a director of personal, dramatic films. We also discuss casting and collaborating with the film's star Rosalind Eleazar, and stumble into some fun anecdotes from Rock's comedy past.
In a live edition of Filmmaker Toolkit, writer-director Walter Hill joins IndieWire’s Jim Hemphill at the American Cinematheque for a post-screening discussion of his action-comedy classic “48HRS.” Hill discusses casting Eddie Murphy, designing one of the great long takes of the 1980s, and what he thinks his imitators got wrong in the buddy films that came later.