As we’ve said, we are really excited about the Dreaming In Technicolor film showcase at the TIFF Bell Lightbox this year.

Among the films being shown are three musical spectaculars: Singin’ in the Rain on June 19th, Meet Me In St. Louis on June 21st, and The Wizard of Oz on June 27th. All three will be presented in 35mm, with The Wizard of Oz screening on an archival print.

Besides being innovative change-makers in the film industry through their use of Technicolor and their musicality, they each hold one very valuable characteristic in common: Arthur Freed.

Though best known and recognized for his hand in An American In Paris and Gigi, Arthur Freed wet his feet with MGM as an uncredited associate producer of The Wizard of Oz in 1939. Known for his memorable lyrics, he wrote most of the songs for Singin’ in the Rain and several for Meet Me in St. Louis. After The Wizard of Oz, MGM created for him his own “Freed Unit” of producers. They developed a large portion of the mainstay films within the musical collective that emerged from their heyday, making MGM the lead developer of film musicals.

The Wizard of Oz, released in the U.S. on August 25th, 1939, was directed by Victor Fleming and adapted to the screen from Frank L. Baum’s book by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allan Woolf. It starred Judy Garland in her first major role as hapless and innocent Dorothy Gale, who travels by way of twister to the land of Oz where she meets the confused scarecrow (Ray Bolger), the stiff Tin Man (Jack Haley), and the Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr). To get home, and to get each those parts of themselves they feel they are lost without, they set off to find the great wizard, played by Frank Morgan. Though gifted with the magical ruby-red slippers by Glinda the Good Witch (Billy Burke), along the way they are beset with many obstacles wrought by the Wicked Witch of the West, played by Margaret Hamilton.

One of the major changes from the book was altering Dorothy’s originally silver shoes to their now iconic ruby-red. This was done to take advantage of the new Technicolor process, which was also the reason behind their showing Dorothy’s farm life in classic black and white and only alternating to color when she arrived in Oz. Technicolor productions required a greater amount of lighting than their black and white counterparts. Often the studio lights on the set of The Wizard of Oz exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Several of the cast members, in heavy costume and make-up, required extra measures taken to keep from over-heating, and some even suffered permanent eye damage from the bright lights. This was one thing that added a significant amount to the overall budget for a movie filmed in Technicolor. The estimated budget for The Wizard of Oz was $2,777,000. Second only to Going My Way, it was one of the highest-grossing films of the year.

Roger Ebert said of the film that “the switch from black and white to color would have had a special resonance in 1939, when the movie was made. Almost all films were still being made in black and white, and the cumbersome new color cameras came with a ‘Technicolor consultant’ from the factory, who stood next to the cinematographer and officiously suggested higher light levels. Shooting in color might have been indicated because the film was MGM’s response to the huge success of Disney’s pioneering 1937 color animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.”

The Wizard of Oz won two Oscars that year. One for Best Original Song with “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” and the other for Best Original Score. It was nominated for four more Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, and Best Special Effects. Judy Garland was also awarded a Juvenile Academy Award for her work in both this and Babes in Arms, which was released that same year and was Arthur Freed’s first solo project.

It was selected by the Library of Congress to be preserved in the National Film Registry for its cultural significance in 1989.

Five years after working with Judy Garland for The Wizard of Oz and Babes in Arms, Arthur and his “Freed Unit” produced Meet Me in St. Louis, written by Irving Brecher and Fred Finklehoffe, which premiered November 22, 1944 in St. Louis, Missouri. Directed by Vincente Minelli who would meet Judy Garland for the first time on this set and marry her just a year later, this was only Garland’s second color film after The Wizard of Oz. It also starred child star Margaret O’Brien who would receive a Juvenile Academy Award for her work in this picture, though it was stolen from her and lost for nearly 50 years before collectors found it at a swap meet and returned it. Cast alongside Garland and O’Brien were Mary Astor, Lucille Bremer, and Tom Drake.

Based on a series of short stories titled “5135 Kensington” by Sally Benson and published in The New Yorker magazine, Meet Me in St. Louis was nominated for four Oscars in 1944 including Best Screenplay, Best Color Cinematography, Best Musical Score, and Best Original Song for “The Trolley Song,” and was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for its cultural significance in 1994. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” won an ASCAP Film and Television Music Award for Most Performed Feature Films Standard in 1989.

Time magazine is quoted as calling it “one of the year’s prettiest pictures” saying, “Technicolor has seldom been more affectionately used than in its registrations of the sober mahoganies and tender muslins and benign gaslights of the period. Now and then, too, the film gets well beyond the charm of mere tableau for short flights in the empyrean of genuine domestic poetry. These triumphs are creditable mainly to the intensity and grace of Margaret O’Brien and to the ability of director Minnelli and Co. to get the best out of her.”

Arthur Freed’s voice can actually be heard on the film as he dubbed the voice for Leon Ames in the song “You and I,” written by Freed and Nacio Herb Brown.

The last of this magical, musical trifecta was a crowning point in Freed’s career and MGM’s musical history. Singin’ in The Rain was released in the U.S. on April 11th, 1952, and starred Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, and Debbie Reynolds as silent actors trying to transition to “talkies” in 1920s Hollywood. Directed and choreographed by Kelly and Stanley Donen, it was nominated for two Oscars that year including one for Jean Hagen for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Lena Lamont, and one for Lennie Hayton for Best Music and Score in a Musical. Donald O’Connor won a Golden Globe for playing accompanist and self-proclaimed funnyman Cosmo Brown. This topped the most successful of all of the “Freed Unit” musical spectaculars churned out by MGM, the brainchild of producer Arthur Freed.

There is much about this beloved classic that is not commonly known. For example, while most of us recognize all of the songs only from Singin’ in the Rain, and probably assume they were written specifically for this movie, all but one song, “Moses Supposes”, was an original at the time of the movie’s release. Its namesake song, for example, was featured in 1929’s Hollywood Revue of 1929, and the famous “Good Morning,” which outed Lina Lamont as a terrible voice, was from 1939’s Babes in Arms.

Most have heard that the iconic scene with Gene Kelly’s Don Lockwood splashing through puddles while singing in the rain was filmed over the course of three days, and Kelly was running a high fever the whole time, but not many would guess that Debbie Reynolds, playing Kathy Seldon, didn’t have much dancing experience before Singin’ in the Rain, and was even criticized to the point of tears by Gene Kelly. Rumor has it Fred Astaire found her off-set crying and began tutoring her. It might explain why her feet were bleeding at the end of the shooting of the “Good Morning” dance scene.

TIFF has truly picked some gems to showcase in their Dreaming in Technicolor series, but these three are not only masterful in their cinematic scope. They are also wonderfully told stories, with beautifully sung songs, and feature some of film’s most talented treasures. These movies are essential viewing to anyone interested in mastering their understanding of the movie musical oeuvre.

MGM and Arthur Freed had a period in film history, and our history, that colored the big screen with light, paint and spectacular music. Through World War and famine and stark reality, they made something wonderful beyond escapism, and to this day have provided us worlds we can escape to.

Timeless sports docu Hoop Dreams was famously one of Roger Ebert’s favorite films. It’s fitting, then, that its director, Steve James, is the man behind Life Itself, a stirring collection of memories from Roger and his loved ones woven together to give us one final, lasting memory of arguably the most influential film critic of all time. Tracing Roger’s life from his days as a young newspaper editor to his last days on earth, when he’d lost his ability to speak, the film pulls no punches, highlighting not just the beauty of the man’s life, but the conflict and suffering that emboldened his character.

James spoke with us recently about he and Roger avoiding the route of hagiography, using Roger’s memoir as a key reference throughout filming, voice actor Stephen Stanton, who portrays Roger in the film, he and Roger’s chilling final email exchange, and more.

The film is very funny at times, but there’s also often a lot of pain involved. This isn’t a hagiography. How important was that to you and Roger?
Steve: It was very important to both of us. Not that I expected to, but if I had read his memoir and felt, “I don’t really like this guy and I don’t respect him” I probably wouldn’t have made the movie. I’m not a filmmaker that would be interested in telling his story as some kind of exposé. At the same time, I wasn’t interested in telling his story as just a tribute. His memoir, being as candid as it was, was a good signal to me that he wasn’t interested in that either, and that certainly proved to be the case. Roger prized complexity, honesty, and intimacy in the films he loved, especially the documentaries. It’s something I’ve tried to do in my career, and this film is no exception.

Did you use Roger’s memoir for reference quite a bit during filming?
Steve: Absolutely. It’s based on the memoir, and for good reason. I thought it was a terrific piece of writing. The idea of basing it on the memoir made all the sense in the world to me, so it’s the primary text that serves the film. It serves the film in terms of content, of course, but it also serves it in terms of storytelling. In the book, he’s very much looking back on his life from the vantage point of the present when he’s been through a lot and he can no longer speak. By the end of the book, he’s anticipating death. When we started the film, we in no way thought that he wasn’t going to survive–that wasn’t the reason we made the film–but that’s what happened. The memoir is the key guiding text for the film, but we do deviate from it. One way is that, the film isn’t just Roger’s point of view of his life; it’s other people’s point of view as well. We also dig much deeper into the Siskel & Ebert show than he does in the memoir, because I think it’s such an important, key part of how we came to know Roger, how he was defined, and how he made an impact on film criticism.

There’s a Siskel & Ebert outtakes clip online that’s been one of my Youtube treasures for years now. It’s incredible footage, and I like the way you implement them in the film. You frame them with interviews that further illuminate the different colors and dynamics of their relationship over the years.
Steve: I’d seen those clips before, too. They weren’t original to the film, but I like to think that we give them a new context that made them resonate more deeply in terms of who these guys were, how they viewed each other, and the deep competitiveness they felt. But also, the second set of clips where you see them bonding over the fact that Gene’s a Jew and Roger’s Catholic…I found those illuminating as well. They showed that fundamental connection they made as well. It wasn’t all vitriol and conflict; there was a bond between them, too.

Stephen Stanton adds a lot to the film.
Steve: He added a whole other dimension of intimacy. One of the problems when we were putting the film together and showing it to colleagues was that we were using the CD version of the book for the editing. I always imagined we’d replace that with someone who sounded more like Roger, but it was very interesting when we showed it to people, because they would say, “I really wish it showed more of Roger’s writing.” I’d say, “There’s tons of Roger’s writing in the movie. All that stuff being read for the memoir is his writing!” When we found Stephen Stanton, this amazing voice actor who was able to impersonate Roger to the degree he did, it really helped to reinforce that these are Roger’s words.

It’s chilling at first to hear Stephen’s voice mimicking Roger’s, but after a while it all melts away and you forget it’s not Roger speaking.
Steve: That’s what I want. I want you to forget. You’d be amazed at how many people don’t even notice that it’s not Roger. I’m a documentary guy, so I didn’t want to fool people: At one point in the movie, “Roger” says, “When I lost my ability to speak…”. That flies right over people’s heads and they go, “That wasn’t Roger?” at the end of the film. I’m talking about critics, film lovers…Stephen so embodies Roger and they are his words, so it just flies by people, which I’m happy about, frankly.

There are points in the film where you superimpose text of Roger’s critique over the imagery of the film he’s criticizing. It’s a beautiful technique.
Steve: Thank you. I wanted to find a way to feature his criticism and also put it in the context of the films that had inspired such writing. I didn’t want to just have him speak the words; I wanted to put them on the screen so that you could admire the written words.

Have you spoken to Roger’s contemporaries about the film and how he impacted their lives and work?
Steve: I haven’t spoken to many of them directly, but if you read the reviews of the film so far, you’ll see that connection. Many of them write about it in some fashion in reviewing the movie. There’s something about Roger that compels people to want to share something personal about their connection to him. In terms of his contemporaries, critics might tell stories about him. But in the case of younger writers, they’ll talk about how he inspired them, either through his writing or the show. It’s remarkable how many people are moved to speak personally about him in reviewing the film.

Roger fully embraced the digital age late in life, and the film does this as well in many ways. You display several email exchanges between you and Roger on screen several times.
Steve: The decision to put my email exchanges in the film was one that was made in the wake of his death. The emailing was initially a very practical way to conduct an ongoing interview with him that we would then hope to record. The way Roger would do interviews in the years since he lost his ability to speak was, he’d ask for people to give him questions in advance so that he could type up answers. If you sat there filming and waited for him to type up an answer and play it back, it would take forever. It would be hard on him. When he died, the emails loomed way more important in the relationship between me and him and the storytelling. Our last series of exchanges where he’s clearly is declining and can’t bring himself to really respond was so poignant and distressing to me that I felt I needed to reflect that in the film.

You didn’t know it at the time, but you got to spend time with Ebert in his final days, which is such a privilege. What was it like being close to him the months leading up to his passing?
Steve: I felt very fortunate. I had a very friendly professional relationship with him over the years. He’d been very kind to me beyond what he did for Hoop Dreams in terms of my other films. I greatly appreciated that. But this was a chance to actually get to know him as a person. I feel lucky to have been with Roger in his last days.

Read our review of Life Itself, now in limited release in U.S. theaters.

Loosely based off the late Roger Ebert’s 2011 memoir Life Itself, director Steve James’ documentary of the same name has released a new poster a month and a half before the movie’s impending release. Director Steve James, who is primarily known for his Oscar-winning documentary Hoop Dreams, spent months with Roger Ebert and his wife Chaz as Roger’s health began to deteriorate. In his film, he speaks candidly with Roger, Chaz, and close friends of Ebert’s on the At The Movies co-host’s esteemed career and deep love for film.

The documentary played to outstanding reviews (read our review) at its Sundance premiere. Many of the reviews were written by critics who openly acknowledged the influence Ebert had on their own lives. Last month Life Itself played at Ebert’s own film festival (Ebertfest) in his home city of Chicago. Life Itself will be available in theaters and on VOD this July 4th. A new poster featuring the late great film critic, can be seen below:

New Poster for Life Itself

I will never forget the day Roger Ebert passed away. As a film critic, I was left with a feeling of dreadful hopelessness as one of the most prominent film critics of all time was no longer with us. As I sulked in my car, the song “A Real Hero” from Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive began to play and brought tears to my eyes. It was purely a coincidence, but nevertheless miraculously appropriate. There are many people who viewed Ebert as a real hero, myself included.

Life Itself follows Ebert’s written memoir of the same name very closely, even displaying on screen what chapter from the book is being discussed. However, Steve James’ documentary is more than just a retelling of the book as it provides new material, making it a great companion piece. The bulk of the supplemental material shows Ebert during his last four months of his life, making it feel like an epilogue of both the book and his life. Because Ebert helped launch James’ career as a filmmaker after declaring his 1994 documentary Hoop Dreams to be the best film of the decade, it makes perfect sense that Steve James would be the documentarian in charge of showing Ebert’s story.

Ebert began as a professional film critic in the late ‘60s after the position was essentially handed to him when the former critic of the Chicago Sun-Times left. Throughout his career, Ebert continuously embraced technology and adapted to the times better than anyone else in the field. Less than ten years later, he began to co-host a weekly television show that skyrocketed his notoriety. Later in life, Ebert became an early adopter of blogging and using Twitter before it became standard platforms for critics. Being technologically-forward proved to be extremely important as he ended up relying on those services to stay vocal after losing the ability to speak due to a complication of his thyroid cancer. It is shown in the documentary that Ebert was eagerly involved with the new responsive design layout of his website, which tragically launched days after he passed away.

It is hard to talk about Ebert’s life without mentioning Gene Siskel. The documentary recalls how the two were basically professional enemies working for two competing newspapers in Chicago when they first met. Even after the two formed a very close-knit friendship, both professionally and personally, they never minced their words with one another. A couple of clips featured in Life Itself show the two verbally assaulting each other; hilarious to witness but it demonstrates how passionate they both were. A statement made in the documentary perfectly sums up their relationship, “They are like Siamese twins joined at the rear.”

Martin Scorsese is another famous filmmaker that Ebert helped bring people’s attention to after he gave a rave review of the 1967 film Who’s That Knocking at My Door. Therefore, it is fitting that Scorsese is listed as an executive producer of the documentary, especially when James captures Scorsese emotionally acknowledging that Ebert and Siskel saved his life during his heavy addiction period. Ebert had considered Scorsese to be the American Fellini, adoring most of his films and eventually writing a book about him. But Ebert maintained a professional relationship with the director, even criticizing the director’s work in The Color of Money. Even if Scorsese didn’t always flat-out agree with Ebert’s opinion, he respected it. More than anything, it demonstrated how unbiased Ebert could be even towards someone he greatly admired—a quality all journalists should strive to have.

Life Itself utilizes the voice talent of Stephen Stanton for the scenes in which Ebert is retelling stories from his book. His voice resembles that of Ebert so closely that if you did not remember that the book was written after he lost the ability to speak, you would think it is actually Ebert narrating the documentary. James brilliantly leaves in the computer-generated voice whenever Ebert communicated something new that was not from the book. The decision to use both types of voices for Ebert is as clever as it is functional, doing so helps distinguish Ebert’s earlier thoughts from the present narrative.

James admitted in the Q & A that making a film about the beloved film critic was a daunting task considering the film would obviously be assessed by the critical crowd. It doesn’t help that James has typically featured unknown non-celebrities in his past projects. For example, Hoop Dreams features a couple of ordinary inner-city teenagers who were unknown to people outside of Chicago high school basketball. This, however, may be why James is the perfect person to direct this film. Interviews featured in Life Itself reveal that deep down Ebert was just a regular Midwesterner, a trait which allowed him to intelligently speak to the common man.

Perhaps the best part about Ebert’s work is that agreeing with his writing wasn’t always necessary in order to appreciate it. He changed the medium of film criticism, but more importantly he opened millions of people’s eyes to great films with effortless insight and knowledge, teaching them how to truly appreciate a film. His universal appeal makes his final days even more crushing.  In the film Ebert intends to answer interview questions from James over email, but due to his worsening health conditions he only responds with, “I can’t.” Although Life Itself is not exactly groundbreaking in terms of documentary filmmaking, it serves as a superb tribute that will leave Roger Ebert fans delighted and inspired. Thumbs Up.

It deeply saddens me to report that legendary movie critic Roger Ebert passed away today at age 70. With his incredibly successful and equally influential television program “Siskel and Ebert and The Movies”, he not only provided entertainment around films to the mainstream, but more importantly, he made film criticism more insightful and relevant than it ever had previously. He was the first film critic to ever win the coveted Pulitizer Prize. But aside from just his passion for films, he was a kindhearted man whose generosity fascinated everyone who cared to listen.

The news comes just two days after he announced on his blog that he would be slowing down the number of reviews due to his health. He also stated, “What’s more, I’ll be able at last to do what I’ve always fantasized about doing: reviewing only the movies I want to review.” The tragedy is that he never got to do just that. In closing he said, “On this day of reflection, I say again, thank you for going on this journey with me. I’ll see you at the movies.”

He was a personal hero to me and will be deeply missed by not just the people in the film industry, but everyone who is a fan of the movies.

The Playlist names their Top 10 most anticipated indie films this summer. Some of them that made the list are; Moonrise Kingdom, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Safety Not Guaranteed, To Rome With Love, and Take This Waltz. [Playlist]

Speaking of Top 10’s recently Roger Ebert names his Top 10 Movies of All Time. The biggest surprise in his list was the inclusion of last year’s Tree of Life. Or maybe it was not such a big surprise, it scored high in our review of the film. [HitFix]

LA Film Festival made their lineup announcement with Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike and Wood Allen’s To Rome With Love making premieres. There are almost 200 films playing at that festival which begins on June 14th in downtown LA and ending on June 24th. [LAFilmFest]

Sounds like Spike Lee finally found his villain for his re-make of Oldboy. Sharlto Copley (District 9) will be playing the “mysterious billionaire trying to destroy the life of Joe Douchett (Josh Brolin).” I just hope the remake is half as good as the original (it’s one of our highest rated films). [MovieLine]

We posted a trailer for Beasts of the Southern Wild that we think must be watched by all. The film won the Grand Jury Prize for Drama at Sundance. Watch the trailer now.

Another trailer worth taking a look at is Your Sister’s Sister. We recently posted the official trailer for the film by director Lynn Shelton that stars Mark Duplass, Emily Blunt and Rosemarie DeWitt.

It was nice knowing you Kodak. A deal was struck that The Dolby Theatre will host the Oscars’ for the next 20 years. “Dolby will continue to update the theatre with innovative, world-class technologies to ensure that the theatre remains state-of-the-art, beginning with the immediate installation of its recently released Dolby® Atmos sound technology.” [HitFix]

Ever wanted to go behind the scenes with a film festival judge? Follow an IFC contributor who joins a film jury at the Sarasota Film Festival. [IFC]

News hit last week that Windows 8 will not support DVD or Blu-ray playback natively. Because of decoding licenses Microsoft has opted to not support playback by default even if the computer comes with a DVD or Blu-ray drive. Windows 8 will require you to buy an upgrade option in order to play your movies.

The Jury and Audience Award winners of the 2011 SXSW Film Festival were announced. Winning big this year was the comedy Natural Selection with seven different awards including Grand Jury Winner for Narrative Feature. Below are the full details from the official press release: