#nextwavecinema

[gael-garcia]

STEVEN YEUN in Mayhem (2017), Okja (2017) & Sorry to Bother You (2018) 🔺

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inspired by @nextwavecinema’s live tweets during beyoncé’s coachella performance, i think it’s clear, especially in a post-lemonade, post-self-titled visual album reality, that we should more seriously discuss + evaluate beyoncé’s legitimate influence on live performance + live cinema, a developing cinematic + storytelling technique often associated with francis ford coppola. 

beyoncé’s coachella performance truly was.... phenomenal. 105 minutes of time-suspended theatrics which not only flew by in such a ferocious and enthrallingly overwhelming manner, but a live spectacle which somehow increased in energy + passion + visually artistic and sonic fury and technology the longer it went on, before concluding with fan-friendly, familiar, but still somehow the most ideal of cameos from the family who have been on this journey with beyoncé, helping to mold it, from the beginning. 

with every new live performance, beyoncé continues to develop + progress her narrative by discovering new, creative ways to retell it. these most recent performances aren’t just skits or one-offs meant to be digested separately from one another, but are an extension, a reimagination to what has already been presented prior. whether it’s by slightly remixing her own songs + accompanying choreography from her most distant or more recent pasts to finding playful, inspiring ways to combine lyrics from one song with another, she forms new poetry from existing emotions and sound bites of her reality as they now relate to her current culture and experience as a black woman, a similar experience shared by her most devoted and loyal of supporters. she’s often praised for her variety and ability to succeed within any genre, but she still knows exactly how to creatively incorporate it all into one recognizable, unmatched sound and visual look. with each new retelling, the story becomes more precise, more mastered, more controlled, which then inevitably allows for more playfulness, a looseness anchored by her own powerful balance. 

beyoncé is undeniably one of the most important living artists + voices of our time, constantly reinventing by perfecting. bow down, bitches. 

[gael-garcia]

Director Dee Rees accepting the 2017 Sundance Institute Vanguard Award (13 August 2017)

It has been 13 years since I came out. It has been 432 hours since the demagogue banned transgender citizens from serving in the military. It has been 44 days since the Muslim travel ban took effect, and that the bulk of black and brown immigrants who, solely on the basis of their sheer existence, have effectively been criminalized.

And it has been 191,625 days since the first arrival of European immigrants, whose criminal acts of theft, rape, subjugation, and genocide systematically destroyed and continue to destroy this country and the many nations that lived here first.

So you see, our position in the universe is elastic. It’s hard to know exactly where we are, impossible to measure progress, except in relation to what happened just before.  FULL TRANSCRIPT HERE