The Last Thing I Saw

Cannes #5 with Eric Hynes: War Pony, Rodeo, Brother and Sister Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. The highlights from the Cannes Film Festival continue with Eric Hynes, curator of film at Museum of the Moving Image, who joins to discuss Arnaud Desplechin’s Brother and Sister, starring Marion Cotillard and Melvil Poupaud, and two debut features, Rodeo (from Lola Quivoron) and War Pony (from Riley Keough and Gina Gammell). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Music: “Tomorrow’s Forecast” by The Minarets, courtesy of The Minarets Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 118: Cannes #4 with Amy Taubin: Crimes of the Future and Forever Young (Les Amandiers) Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. The highlights from the Cannes Film Festival continue in this very special episode with critic Amy Taubin, who joins to discuss David Cronenberg’s hotly anticipated Crimes of the Future, about a world of organ performance art; and Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi’s outstanding chronicle of young actors, Forever Young (also known as Les Amandiers). Be sure to read Taubin’s feature and interview with Cronenberg in the upcoming print issue of Artforum. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Music: “Tomorrow’s Forecast” by The Minarets, courtesy of The Minarets Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 117: Cannes #3 with Eric Hynes: Eo, Armageddon Time, and Ukraine documentary Mariupolis 2 Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. The highlights from the Cannes Film Festival continue with Eric Hynes, curator of film at the Museum of the Moving Image. We talk on an especially lively terrace at Cannes about Jerzy Skolimowski’s formally wild donkey epic Eo, James Gray’s semiautobiographical Armageddon Time, and the posthumously assembled Ukraine documentary Mariupolis 2 (from director Mantas Kvedaravicius). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Music: “Tomorrow’s Forecast” by The Minarets, courtesy of The Minarets Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 116: Cannes #2 with Mark Asch: Scarlet, Tchaikovsky’s Wife, Top Gun Maverick, Harka Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. The highlights from the Cannes Film Festival continue with a deluxe episode with critic Mark Asch, a delightful correspondent of the show at last summer’s edition of the festival. We talk about recent viewing including Pietro Marcello’s Scarlet, Tchaikovsky’s Wife from Kirill Serebrennikov, Lotfy Nathan’s Harka, and oddly quite a bit of Top Gun Maverick (the one with Tom Cruise). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Music: “Tomorrow’s Forecast” by The Minarets, courtesy of The Minarets Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. I’m back at the Cannes Film Festival after a pandemic absence and couldn’t be more delighted to share the latest and greatest in films with you. For the kick-off episode, I’m joined by Eric Hynes, curator of film at the Museum of the Moving Image and writing about Cannes for Reverse Shot. We review the lineup of the 2022 edition, highlighting some titles and filmmakers, and also share a quick look at the opening film, Coupez!, from director Michel Hazanavicius (whose film The Artist won the Academy Award for Best Picture). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Music: “Tomorrow’s Forecast” by The Minarets, courtesy of The Minarets Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 114: The Aesthetics of Cope, The Cathedral, Deepfake, Slade in Flame with Chloe Lizotte Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. The show is back from spring break with a special episode starring writer Chloe Lizotte, a contributing editor at Le Cinema Club. She joins us talking about her work for her wide-ranging Reverse Shot column Event Horizon, including her essay about strange media phenomena during the pandemic, called “The Aesthetics of Cope,” and her thoughts on the film The Cathedral and the dangerous art of deepfakes. I chime in with thoughts on the 1975 movie Slade in Flame, starring the band Slade. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Music: “Tomorrow’s Forecast” by The Minarets, courtesy of The Minarets Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 113: Jacques Audiard on Paris, 13th District Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. Paris, 13th District is the latest movie from Jacques Audiard, a writer-director whose work has spanned many genres, from The Beat That My Heart Skipped to Rust and Bone to The Sisters Brothers. Paris 13th District is Audiard’s unabashed look at a younger generation in love, and it starts by focusing on a woman, Emilie (Lucie Zhang) and her roommate, briefly turned lover, Camille (Makita Samba). But it gradually shifts to the story of Nora, a newcomer to Paris played by Noémie Merlant, who gets mixed up literally with a cam girl named Amber Sweet. Its soulful and beautiful moments have a way of sneaking up on you with their intensity and then commanding your attention. I talked with Audiard about making the movie (which adapts a graphic novel by Adrian Tomine). He spoke with the help of a translator and in a brief span of time had a lot of illuminating things to say. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Music: “Tomorrow’s Forecast” by The Minarets, courtesy of The Minarets Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 112: S.S. Rajamouli's RRR, Laida Lertxundi's Inner Outer Space, Leo McCarey's Part Time Wife, Kinuyo Tanaka's Love Letter with R. Emmet Sweeney Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. It’s time for a good old-fashioned romp through recent viewing, with guest R. Emmet Sweeney of Kino Lorber. He shares his experience with S. S. Rajamouli’s new adventure, RRR, as well as the latest work from Laida Lertxundi, a (partial?) Leo McCarey feature that’s of a piece with The Awful Truth, and a documentary about stuntmen. Plus: Kinuyo Tanaka’s Love Letter. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Music: “Tomorrow’s Forecast” by The Minarets, courtesy of The Minarets Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. One of the greatest action movies of all time is also one of the most beautiful: Mad Max: Fury Road. It was on the top ten lists of 2015 and more than a few best of the decade lists. But making the movie was no walk in the park, and a new oral history by Kyle Buchanan is full of well-researched and entertaining detail about the movie’s sometimes insane production process, which involved stops and starts dating back to the 1990s. Buchanan is a pop-culture reporter at The NeW York Times, writing its Projectionist column and interviewing a daunting array of Hollywood talent. The new book is called Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road, and it draws on over 125 new interviews, including stars Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy, director George Miller, and a fascinating and wide-ranging selection of other cast and crew. It’s a multilayered look at making movies in a changing Hollywood, with all its delays and demands, and of course all the challenges of shooting an apocalyptic action film in the desert. I spoke with Buchanan a few weeks ago about the book, which is published by William Morrow and is available now. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Music: “Tomorrow’s Forecast” by The Minarets, courtesy of The Minarets Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Episode 110: Nadav Lapid on Ahed’s Knee Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. The filmmaker Nadav Lapid has made one tense, kinetic, indelibly original drama after another: Policeman, The Kindergarten Teacher, Synonyms, and now Ahed’s Knee. Ahed’s Knee premiered at the Cannes film festival last year where it shared the Jury Prize with Memoria, and it opened in New York on March 18. The film follows an Israeli director who is presenting one of his movies in a small town, thanks to an invitation by a young, eager library official. But when he arrives, she asks him to sign a government form saying exactly what topics he can and cannot talk about. The director—who’s named only with the letter Y—lashes out at his host. But the small community doesn’t have exactly the reaction he might expect. The film’s title refers to a well-known incident when a Palestinain teenager named Ahed Tamimi slapped an Israeli soldier, and a conservative politician responded by saying that she should be shot in the knee. I spoke with Lapid about the film’s ferocious vision and how it explores the idea of speaking out, among other things. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Music: “Tomorrow’s Forecast” by The Minarets, courtesy of The Minarets Photo by Steve Snodgrass