Liza Bear's Beyond the Frame provides immediate insights into the modus operandi of many of the most intriguing figures of world cinema from the past 20 years. This lively collection consists of in-depth profiles reprinted from the cultural quarterly Bomb, and feature stories written for the mass media. Speaking here in their own voices are master directors such as Gillian Armstrong, Milos Forman, Takeshi Kitano, Wong Kar-wai, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Jacques Rivette, Ousmane Sembene, Agnes Varda, and Zhang Yimou. The spontaneity of the exchanges cuts to the creative quick. What drives filmmakers? What are the sources of their scripts? How do art films get made? These and other questions explored in incisive interviews uncover a rich array of topics, from sociopolitical context and family collaborations to directorial choices of casting, location, and mise-en-scene.
In addition to cinema veterans, the book focuses on debut features such as Alejandro Inarritu's Amores Perros, Shirley Barrett's Love Serenade, Samira Makhmalbaf's The Apple, and Jafar Panahi's The White Balloon. Other highly original films discussed include Infernal Affairs, Swimming Pool, and Princess Mononoke. Supplementary to the interviews is an introduction by noted author Robin Andersen that elucidates recurrent themes arising out of the discussions, a foreword by Laurence A. Kardish, Film Curator at the Museum of Modern Art, an index, and numerous photographs.

Beyond the Frame: Dialogues with World Filmmakers

Humor & Entertainment

Bear, Liza

Movies

Praeger

The massive investments made in Hollywood today mandate tight studio controls on mainstream cinema. As a result, one must often look to alternative outlets in order to see a movie intended primarily as art―or even as a sincere effort at entertainment―instead of as a simple source of revenue. Foreign and independent movies thus often play the role of bellwether for the Hollywood studios that are unable to experiment themselves: behind the look of the studio smash Sin City, for instance, was the rigorous pulp style of Road to Perdition; before the sadism and cynicism of many current thrillers and horror movies there was the work of Neil Labute; and where would Hollywood's plots be without the harsh, fragmented narratives of Guillermo Arriaga and Alejandro Inarritu? By looking at these films, and at the people who created them,we can obtain a clearer sense of what movies really are at heart, and what they may still want to become.
Elaborate measures are thus taken everywhere and at all points to maintain a grip on the public's imagination, but the more adept Hollywood becomes at giving the public what it wants, the less any given studio is able to say anything new or truly innovative. Inside of the United States, this means looking to independent films; outside of the United States, it means filtering through an enormous mass of movies and moviemakers.
In Volume 1 of this revealing set, Mario Falsetto presents extended interviews with nine of the most prominent independent film directors working in America today; while in Volume 2, Liza Béar gives prominent international filmmakers the opportunity to address essential issues surrounding creativity and production in a number of different geographical setting and contexts.

The Making of Alternative Cinema [2 volumes]: 2 volumes

Falsetto, Mario

Willoughby Sharp and Liza Béar founded Avalanche shortly after they met in 1968. At the time, Sharp was a New York-based independent curator and Béar an underground magazine editor who had recently moved to New York from London. They published the first issue in 1970 and collaborated on 13 issues from 1970 to 1976. Avalanche focused on art from the perspective of artists rather than critics, and investigated new forms of art that were developing in the U.S. and Europe with probing interviews, extensive use of photography and dynamic layouts. For many artists, publication in Avalanche preceded a one-person gallery or museum show. Aside from an eight-page news section, the editorial content included only interviews, artists' texts and documents of art and art making. All interviews were conducted by Sharp, Béar or done jointly. Among the featured artists were Vito Acconci, Joseph Beuys, Hanne Darboven, Walter De Maria, Jan Dibbets, Philip Glass, Barry Le Va, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Gordon Matta-Clark, Bruce Nauman, Dennis Oppenheim, Yvonne Rainer, Keith Sonnier, Richard Serra, Robert Smithson, William Wegman, Lawrence Weiner and Jackie Winsor. This boxed facsimile edition of Avalanche's complete run reproduces the first eight issues individually, and the final five in a single newsprint paperback.

Avalanche

Arts & Photography

Sharp, Willoughby

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Primary Information

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Books by Bear, Liza