The best* online video we’ve been watching over the last seven days.
Willem Dafoe in Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ Photo: Criterion
All of us at Widescreen hope you had a relaxing Easter. Some of you may even have spent some time in consideration of matters spiritual. Justine Smith and Chico Peres at Fandor have produced an extremely meditative ten minute video showing some examples of how Christ has been represented in cinema. No sign of the Maori Jesus from Kevin Reynolds’ new film Risen, though.
Writer, comedian and actor Garry Shandling passed away suddenly on March 24. To younger viewers he is probably best known as the evil Senator Stern in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (“Hail, Hydra!”) but he was a television innovator before then. His influence will be felt for decades to come. Here's an interview he did with Charlie Rose back in 1998 (h/t @insequential):
It’s almost an hour but an hour well spent.
Much shorter, but also time well spent, Pasquale Iannone’s four minute essay on art and Visconti, making us want to stop whatever we’re doing and watch some classic Italian cinema:
The notes are kind of essential to the full appreciation of this one.
Finally, in case you were thinking the short video essay was basically invented to drive traffic to Vimeo, here’s a history lesson from Kevin B. Lee at Fandor – “Breaking Through the Screen: Video Essays by Mark Rappaport”. A video essay about a master video essayist:
[*May not be the actual best. We haven’t watched the entire internet. If there’s anything you know of that we’ve missed, let us know at widescreen@rnz.co.nz]
