It’s been 18 years since Ira Sachs won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival for his Southern relationship drama “Forty Shades of Blue” — but it’s only now, six films…
Perfection is rarely achieved in movies, but this heaven-sent concert doc hits the sweet spot. Over two days in January 1972, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin — she was 29 at the time — sweeps into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts in front of a congregation and testifies to God in song. The blessed thing took nearly half a century to come out because director Sydney Pollack failed to sync the image with the sound. Then digital angels stepped in, and glory, glory, hallelujah!
Perfection is rarely achieved in movies, but this heaven-sent concert doc hits the sweet spot. Over two days in January 1972, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin — she was 29 at the time — sweeps into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts in front of a congregation and testifies to God in song. The blessed thing took nearly half a century to come out because director Sydney Pollack failed to sync the image with the sound. Then digital angels stepped in, and glory, glory, hallelujah!
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Perfection is rarely achieved in movies, but this heaven-sent concert doc hits the sweet spot. Over two days in January 1972, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin — she was 29 at the time — sweeps into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts in front of a congregation and testifies to God in song. The blessed thing took nearly half a century to come out because director Sydney Pollack failed to sync the image with the sound. Then digital angels stepped in, and glory, glory, hallelujah!
Perfection is rarely achieved in movies, but this heaven-sent concert doc hits the sweet spot. Over two days in January 1972, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin — she was 29 at the time — sweeps into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts in front of a congregation and testifies to God in song. The blessed thing took nearly half a century to come out because director Sydney Pollack failed to sync the image with the sound. Then digital angels stepped in, and glory, glory, hallelujah!
Perfection is rarely achieved in movies, but this heaven-sent concert doc hits the sweet spot. Over two days in January 1972, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin — she was 29 at the time — sweeps into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts in front of a congregation and testifies to God in song. The blessed thing took nearly half a century to come out because director Sydney Pollack failed to sync the image with the sound. Then digital angels stepped in, and glory, glory, hallelujah!
Perfection is rarely achieved in movies, but this heaven-sent concert doc hits the sweet spot. Over two days in January 1972, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin — she was 29 at the time — sweeps into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts in front of a congregation and testifies to God in song. The blessed thing took nearly half a century to come out because director Sydney Pollack failed to sync the image with the sound. Then digital angels stepped in, and glory, glory, hallelujah!
Perfection is rarely achieved in movies, but this heaven-sent concert doc hits the sweet spot. Over two days in January 1972, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin — she was 29 at the time — sweeps into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts in front of a congregation and testifies to God in song. The blessed thing took nearly half a century to come out because director Sydney Pollack failed to sync the image with the sound. Then digital angels stepped in, and glory, glory, hallelujah!
Perfection is rarely achieved in movies, but this heaven-sent concert doc hits the sweet spot. Over two days in January 1972, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin — she was 29 at the time — sweeps into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts in front of a congregation and testifies to God in song. The blessed thing took nearly half a century to come out because director Sydney Pollack failed to sync the image with the sound. Then digital angels stepped in, and glory, glory, hallelujah!
It’s been 18 years since Ira Sachs won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival for his Southern relationship drama “Forty Shades of Blue” — but it’s only now, six films later, that the Memphis-born, New York-based indie filmmaker believes that he’s really finding himself as a filmmaker.
Joining us at the Variety Lounge at the Zurich Film Festival, Sachs explains why his latest film “Passages” — a vibrantly queer, Paris-set love triangle starring Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw and Adele Exarchopolous — is a turning point for him. “I felt that I was making something new… that my craft had caught up to my instincts,” he says. “I felt very free, and I had a collaborative group that gave me a certain confidence that felt new.”
The film’s intricate adult relationships are enacted via frank sex scenes that have raised conservative eyebrows — the MPAA controversially slapped the film with an NC-17 rating, so distributed Mubi released the film unrated instead. The sex was crucial to Sachs’s vision of a film that was “without shame, [where] nothing is hidden”: “I’m always trying to create opportunities for characters to reveal themselves, and to share themselves, with the audience, and sex was certainly a part of that.”
Empowering his actors do that, he explains, is akin to being a good therapist in that “you feel confident that you are being listened to and you have a space that feels very warm, but there’s also room to explore things you can’t control.” As for the MPAA’s rating, he admits to finding it “upsetting” — a “warning signal,” in his words, that “certain images will not be allowed, and will be punished.” “Passages” boldly defies that warning.