Beyond The Frame: Dialogues With World Filmmakers, Liza Béar's captivating and comprehensive collection, contains more than 60 conversations and filmmaker profiles, which range from emerging artists discussing the challenges of making their first film to master directors at the height of their careers. The diverse, luminous list includes Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Milos Forman, Wong Kar-Wai, Jim Jarmusch, Jacques Rivette, Hayao Miyazami, and Michael Winterbottom. Béar even talks to a father, Iranian filmmaker Mosem Makhmalbaf (Khandahar) and daughter, then eighteeen-year-old Iranian filmmaker Samira Makhmalbaf (The Apple).
Béar is able to engage her subjects on a level that is deeply empathetic. The resulting conversations are fascinating. I knew I was hooked when Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter) interrupted his lunch-time interview with Béar. "Aren't you eating?" he asks. Béar, a contributing editor at Bomb, founder of the conceptual art magazine Avalanche and a filmmaker in her own right, doesn't miss a beat. She orders the soup and continues with her line of questioning.
Liza Béar will be making two upcoming New York appearances: February 20, 7 PM at McNally Robinson with Betsy Sussler, editor-in-chief of Bomb; March 18, 8:30 PM at Sugartown and Spoonbill.
Beyond The Frame: Dialogues With World Filmmakers, Praeger Paperback, 2007: * * * *
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