New Feist Video (Feat. Cillian Murphy) - "The Water"
So many actors getting work on Stereogum today. The new Feist video for The Reminder's fluid and spacious gem "The Water" is a 15 minute piece written and directed by Kevin Drew and starring David Fox, Cillian Murphy, and Leslie. Back in 2007, Kevin Drew interviewed Cillian for Under The Radar and bonded with the thespian over their shared Irish heritage and love for Broken Social Scene. In the making of featurette you'll find along with the video here, Drew says he thought Murphy and Leslie shared similar eyes, which is code for they are both hot people, and this realization inspired him to conceive a narrative. Kevin brought the idea to Feist and they settled on this Reminder song to soundtrack it, or at least the three minutes of it that aren't awash in silence, cigarettes, and the two lines of dialogue. Better "The Water" than "Feel It All"; the film opens with Cillian and David dragging a body through the snow, and its eerie uncertainty doesn't snap into focus until a crumpled photo toward the end establishes the roles and relations. It's not Kevin's first directorial effort, but certainly his most ambitious.
Here's the making-of, with lots of talk about acting and the directorial process with Kevin and Leslie:
(Both via P4K)
Feist says that she would love to be a walk-on in the Deadwood movie that's being made, but I don't think there's a Deadwood movie being made. Although that would be great, I think Milch is busy working on Last Of The Ninth. Anyway, Leslie would look great in that period-era garb, so maybe that's a good enough reason to get Al Swearengen back in the habit, Milchy.
The Reminder is an album.
Posted at 3:24 PM by amrit in Video
Tags: Broken Social Scene | Cillian Murphy | Feist | Kevin Drew
wow! Feist showing off her horrible acting chops for a whole 15 mins.
Pretentious Shit.
Score = -21
our thoughts exactly...snorrrrre
Score = -7
As an aspiring independent filmmaker, it breaks my heart that projects like this get green-lit and funding just due to the talent involved.
To me, this is pretentious bullshit, I couldn't even watch the whole thing. Kevin Drew, I love you to death, and I hope you can hone your craft of directing in the future. Until then, how about another BSS record?
Score = -4
BEAUTIFUL.
just kidding. an utter waste of 15 minutes. cinematography was nice i guess, but watching these slow, slow, SLOW scenes of cillian murphy making grimaced, upset faces (for reasons that i dont know why) was just painful. what a waste of time, money, and effort. so much talent in BSS and they produce this.
Score = -7
Christ, I couldn't get through 5 mins. of this garbage. How much is A&C paying Pitchfork to hype this shit?????
Score = 2
B-O-R-I-N-G! Dang. I so wanted to like it.
Score = 1
It was a little drawn out but that's sorta par for the course when it comes to Kevin Drew. I thought that it looked pretty cool and the song's great, but I prefer Kevin working with Brendan Canning, not a video camera.
Score = 8
This type of long, slow, pretentious filmmaking is totally my bag, but I don't like this video/short very much. Not as painful as it could have been, but it's still melodramatic, pretentious and completely predictable. I like the concept a lot, but the execution is, yeah, really pretentious. The best part about it I think is the cinematography. Oh, and the song of course.
Score = -1
Man fuck you guys, I thought it was great.
Score = 8
it's such a good cast! this could be much better
Score = -1
It was a great short. Cillian Murphy was incredible as always and for being a musician NOT AN ACTOR, I thought Feist did very well.
Score = 3
This isn't pretentious so much as it is boring.
Score = 2
"Alright. Now sit there. Look pensive. More pensive. Ok. A little bit less. Yes. More. Perfect"
Score = 15
feist can do no wrong i liked it
Score = 2
WOW. Why didn't you put a WARNING: EXTREMELY BORING label on this?
Score = 1
Because, this is Stereogum where no one is lame, like EVER man!!!! (unless it's a band it's cool to rip on)
fucking sycophants.
Score = -1
People are obviously confused. This isn't a "Feist video", it's a "short film soundtracked by a Feist song".
I'm sorry to say this but the storytelling is too slow-paced for a short film. Nothing really compelling about it, definitely wouldn't watch it again.
And give me a break, Feist acting was inexistent, to say the least.
Score = 4
I think it's admirable that they went for something less obvious here, more about mood, and ultimately even the reveal still leaves questions due to its ambiguity. That said, he could have made the film a few minutes shorter, and it would have still held the same feeling, only he wouldn't have repeated himself so much. It's hard to beat the viewer over the head with ambiguity but he did so a few times. Strong effort, good lighting, nice acting (I actually thought Feist was solid). Kevin was clearly thinking about his decisions and choices as a director, and although they didn't all work, I thought it was a decent piece, and I look forward to his next outing as filmmaker (and of course the next BSS record). Cheers.
Score = 21
Deep, man.
Score = -3
i love feist and winter
but please less BS and more BSS!
what was the photo of? i couldnt see
Score = 0
sooooo.....feist was getting younger while the man grew older, right? i love those movies.
really though, it was fine. i'm NOT asking for my 15 minutes of life back.
i think zachary summed this up just about perfectly.
Score = 0
most beautiful thing ever.
Score = 1
Robots walking across the desert walking across the desert walking across the desert.
Score = 3
It does NOT get better on repeat viewings. Second time around, I found myself getting increasingly annoyed with Cillian Murphy: his expression ranges from "BUSTED!" to "The hell--? Mom, you're dead: what the hell are you doing here?" It seems (and I may be waaaaay off) that Drew & Co. were going for some sort of death-is-coming-for-Dad thing here: in that case, whose "thing" is it? The perspective seems to be sonny-boy's, but it's all wrong: if he's come this far in imagining a peaceful passing for Dad, then why does he resent Mom when she shows up to take the old man away...? The hug at the end makes no sense, because we're not sure what the kid is reconciling. Has he been upset because Mom died in the first place, because she's back now for Dad, because Son had a role in her death, or.... ALRIGHT. STOP. MY BRAIN HURTS. Cillian's sideburns look like two Hostess Ding-Dongs glued to his head. And I want my half hour back.
Score = -3
I would LOVE to see leslie in deadwood. She could be one of trixie's pals and work with sol and bullock in the hardware store. But I'm pretty sure deadwood is done forever. I saw Ian McShane on the daily show talking about Kings and Jon Stewart asked him when deadwood was going to resolve itself, and he said 'deadwood is dead...you get Al Swearengen in King Silas.'
I think he's right...kings does have a few similarities.
Score = 0
Well I liked it. Yeah it was drawn out and pretentitous in places, but if they had crammed it all into 5 minutes there would have been no sense of mystery about what was going on, or indeed any chance to use that oft-neglected 'imagination' thing people used to have before the internet.
Score = 2
>>"which is code for they are both hot people"
did you watch the same video I did??
calling Feist a "hot person"?? dude you need to get out more...
Score = -6
Feist is not hot but beautiful. It's all subjective.
With that being said, it's...okay. There's not much to the film..It picks up the pace near the second half. I think it could have been cut down to...even 5 minutes. Only Terrance Malick can make a barren scene interesting so.... I don't know. It's a good effort though.
Score = 0
There was a Deadwood movie being made (I had a friend that was a whore extra in it), but it got scrapped I believe. Maybe getting picked back up?!
Also, on the Pitchfork page the movie is called "The Water: Chapter One", leading me to believe, and hope, that there will be more.
Score = -1
This is utter shit...
Score = -2
Come on, do you guys not have any kind of an attention span? I was expecting to hate it after reading the comments but I thought it was pretty well made. Subtle, but captivating. Much more about atmosphere and anticipation than anything else. It was a little student film-like, but a very well made one. I didn't find it boring at all anyway.
Score = 3
I agree. I probably wouldn't watch it again, but definitely captivating.
I agree though; she is a bad actor.
Score = 0
It wasn't really boring it was just blah...
Score = 0
As an experienced audio guy, might I say that the foley was really bad in this, especially at the beginning. The sound of the chain is like, the same thing looped over and over, the snow sound is obviously corn starch, and in general it's just a BAD audio mix.
D-. Or, in Pitchfork terms, 1.8
Score = 0
I appreciated that the song acts as a script instead of a soundtrack.
Score = 0
I found that weird, incomplete
Still, where can I get the full version ?
Score = 0
Same here, after reading all those comments I had to watch it just to see how bad it was! But it wasn't actually as bad as you have all been making out. A little tedious and drawn out, it could have been wrapped up a lot faster with the same effect but not sufficient to receive such slagging off.
Score = 0