SHORT FILMS

Greta Gerwig, Chiwetel Ejiorfor & More in 11 Janusz Kaminski Shorts

by Ethan Anderton
November 26, 2013
Source: NYT Magazine

For those who don't know the name Janusz Kaminski, he's the go-to director of photography for Steven Spielberg, shooting films like Lincoln, Catch Me If You Can, Minority Report, Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List and more. Now New York Times Magazine has commissioned the cinematographer to direct 11 different short films from various writers like J.C. Chandor, Spike Jonze, Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen and Before Midnight trio Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater. Their job was to write a single line of dialogue, and then a short film was created based around that writing, featuring stars like Bradley Cooper, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michel B. Jordan, Robert Redford and more. Watch!

We've posted three of the short films below, but for the rest, you must check out New York Times Magazine.

Here's Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg's scene starring Robert Redford:

Andrew Bujalski's (Computer Chess) scene starring Cate Blanchett:

Sarah Polley's (Stories We Tell) scene starring Oprah Winfrey:

Also, here's a behind the scenes look at the project called Making a Scene:

All of the writers (more than 11 since writing teams were counted as one) are Lake Bell, Andrew Bujalski, J.C. Chandor, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke & Richard Linklater, Greta Gerwig, Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen, Nicole Holofcener, Spike Jonze, Jeff Nichols, Sarah Polley and Danny Strong. And their stars were Cate Blanchett, Bradley Cooper, Chewetel Ejiofor, Greta Gerwig (Frances Ha), Michael B. Jordan, Adele Exarchopoulos (Blue is the Warmest Color), Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Robert Redford, Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey. That's some impressive talent.

Kaminski says, "Most of the vignettes are very whimsical, it's like they're off-center. We've worked with thrillers, we've worked with a bit of comedy, we worked with French New Wave, as well as we did some very conventional stuff. These little vignettes allowed me to do stuff that's not necessarily linear, but still employ filmmaking style." Adam Sternbergh from NYT said, "We want to celebrate the part of a film that starts on the page and ends up, in the best cases, inscribed onto our memories. In other words, the words." These are very short films, but it's awesome to see what these talents can do with such a limited piece of inspiration.

Find more posts: Short Film, To Watch

1 Comment

New comments are no longer allowed on this post.