By Robert Goldrich
NEW YORK --Maysles Shorts, the spot production division of Maysles Films, has added directors Kevin Breslin and Rebecca Dreyfus. Both fit the shop’s directorial profile with experience spanning documentaries and commercials.
Dreyfus’ Stolen, a documentary on the notorious art heist in the mid-1990s at Gardner Museum in Boston, recently debuted to critical acclaim. Her ad credits include campaigns for Avon and Michael Kors.
Breslin’s documentary filmography and his spot work are both in the socially responsible vein. He has directed assorted PSAs for such groups as the American Cancer Association, Urban Aid and the New York Blood Center. His documentary endeavors include Women of Rockaway, a TV documentary on the widows of men who died during the 911 attacks on the World Trade Center.
Breslin and Dreyfus continue an expansion of Maysles Shorts’ directorial roster that began in late 2005 when Lora Nelson came aboard as executive producer. Since that time, the lineup has grown from two directors–Robert Leacock and Gilly Barnes–to seven with Jonathan Lennard joining in January, followed by Karen Stanton (a.k.a. Stanton) and Chandler Kauffman. Lennard resides in Paris, Stanton in Seattle and Kauffman is based in New York. All–except Barnes–are documentary makers who have diversified into spots. Barnes’ experience is in commercialmaking.
Beyond the addition of five directors, 2006 is significant on several other fronts for the company. This marks director Albert Maysles 50th year in filmmaking. He and brother David Maysles, who passed away in 1987, gained recognition as a leading documentary-making team. They also moved successfully into commercials.
Secondly, 2006 has seen the opening of the off-Broadway musical Grey Gardens, which cast a spotlight hearkening back to the classic 1975 documentary of the same title directed by the Maysles Brothers, Ellen Hovde, Susan Fromke and Muffie Meyer. (The musical is now slated to hit Broadway.) The documentary told the quirky story of elderly Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edie, a reclusive pair who lived with cats and raccoons at Grey Gardens, a crumbling mansion in East Hampton. Further attention figures to be paid to the documentary in that plans were recently announced for a feature film based on Grey Gardens, with a cast headed by Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore; the director is Michael Sucsy.
Meanwhile The Gates, photographed by Albert Maysles and directed by Antonio Ferrera, was screened as a rough cut at the Tribeca Film Festival this month and is slated for completion in late summer. The documentary covers The Gates, New York City’s largest public arts project, an installation by Christo and Jeanne Claude, which was on display for 16 days in Feb. ’05 at Central Park. Maysles has been commissioned to produce documentaries on the last six Christo projects, including The Gates.
Maysles Films and its commercial division are also slated for new digs. After 40 years, the company intends to move its offices from mid-town Manhattan to a new complex in Harlem. The move is scheduled to take place in mid-summer.
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More