MZS
The Unloved, Part 115: The Drowning Pool
Scout Tafoya's video essay series about maligned masterworks looks at Stuart Rosenberg's The Drowning Pool.
Scout Tafoya's video essay series about maligned masterworks looks at Stuart Rosenberg's The Drowning Pool.
An interview with Ethan Hawke, who received a lifetime achievement award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
"Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand."
Call it a bloodbath. Not literally, of course, but it sure felt like one.
It was a Friday afternoon in late spring 1993 at The American Film Institute. The Class of 1992, which had pretty much killed itself making short films ("cycle projects") since starting the program in September, was waiting for a list. Dreading it, too. Because everybody'd known all year that of 168 "Fellows," as AFI calls them --- only 40 (or just 8 across 5 disciplines - directing, producing, cinematography, editing, production design) would be invited back, making that coveted Second Year cut for the opportunity to produce a second year film.
A top secret selection committee debated late into the day. Even I, then Special Projects Coordinator and right hand to the Dean of Studies, didn't know who was meeting. There was tension everywhere, clinging like the humidity of a Midwestern summer, as the committee decided, and the Fellows waited.