In the midst of what has blossomed into a stellar awards season for Argo, director Ben Affleck sat down with SHOOT editor Robert Goldrich for a Q&A session after a screening of the film for an audience of DGA members at The Landmark theater in West Los Angeles on Thursday, January 17. The event was presented by Warner Bros. in conjunction with SHOOT.
Argo has earned seven Academy Award nominations, including for Best Picture, garnered Affleck his first DGA Award nomination, won Best Picture and Best Director honors at both the Golden Globes and the Critics’ Choice Awards, took the SAG Award marquee honor for best cast performance as well as the top prize at the Producers Guild Awards, among other assorted industry accolades.
Argo is the third feature directed by Affleck who also served as producer and the lead actor in the film. He looked back on his transition to the director’s chair and what he learned from the first two movies he helmed, Gone Baby Gone and The Town, what led to him selecting cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC, and editor William Goldenberg, ACE, for Argo, and what he has learned as an actor working with other directors, including master filmmaker Terrence Malick.
Here is SHOOT‘s conversation with Ben Affleck:
“Beatles ’64” Documentary Captures Intimate Moments From Landmark U.S. Visit
Likely most people have seen iconic footage of the Beatles performing on "The Ed Sullivan Show." But how many have seen Paul McCartney during that same U.S. trip feeding seagulls off his hotel balcony?
That moment — as well as George Harrison and John Lennon goofing around by exchanging their jackets — are part of the Disney+ documentary "Beatles '64," an intimate look at the English band's first trip to America that uses rare and newly restored footage. It streams Friday.
"It's so fun to be the fly on the wall in those really intimate moments," says Margaret Bodde, who produced alongside Martin Scorsese. "It's just this incredible gift of time and technology to be able to see it now with the decades of time stripped away so that you really feel like you're there."
"Beatles '64" leans into footage of the 14-day trip filmed by documentarians Albert and David Maysles, who left behind 11 hours of the Fab Four goofing around in New York's Plaza hotel or traveling. It was restored by Park Road Post in New Zealand.
"It's beautiful, although it's black and white and it's not widescreen," says director David Tedeschi. "It's like it was shot yesterday and it captures the youth of the four Beatles and the fans."
The footage is augmented by interviews with the two surviving members of the band and people whose lives were impacted, including some of the women who as teens stood outside their hotel hoping to catch a glimpse of the Beatles.
"It was like a crazy love," fan Vickie Brenna-Costa recalls in the documentary. "I can't really understand it now. But then, it was natural."
The film shows the four heartthrobs flirting and dancing at the Peppermint Lounge disco, Harrison noodling with a Woody Guthrie riff on his guitar... Read More