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©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
12/10/18
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
12/10/18
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Monday, December 10, 2018
ACROSS
1 Strains to lift
6 Scribble (down)
9 Former Russian
despots
14 Dickens’ Heep
15 Cain raiser
16 Florida’s __
Center
17 Nabisco cookie
with a pastry
jacket
19 “Cold Case Files”
airer
20 Seminoles’ sch.
21 Lukewarm
reviews?
22 Sadden
24 Gulf Coast
Florida city
27 Scrape or scratch
28 F equivalent, in
music
29 Investigations
33 Hostess snack
35 Sound from a
tabby
37 Wee hr.
38 Barley brew
39 __ Fáil: Irish
coronation stone
40 Joseph of ice
cream fame
42 “Cats” monogram
43 Mazda sports car
45 City bond, briefly
47 Suit to __
48 The “M” in LEM
50 Like red-line
traffic, on Google
Maps
52 For example
53 Lights that darken
56 Kate of “Steve
Jobs”
60 SSW opposite
61 Bucolic setting
62 __ Gay: WWII
bomber
63 Succeeded
big-time
66 “Over the
Rainbow”
composer Harold
67 Grow older
68 The Lindy, e.g.
69 Tally again
70 Hide-hair link
71 Jouster’s ride
DOWN
1 Blows like the Big
Bad Wolf
2 Pension law
acronym
3 *Nominal leader
4 Beachgoer’s
color
5 “Good grief!”
6 *Atmospheric
wind that aids an
eastbound U.S.
flight
7 Lacto-__
vegetarian
8 Look after
9 *Boston tax
protest of 1773
10 Cousin of a
snowfinch
11 Most common
skin condition in
the U.S.
12 Fishing sticks
13 Fr. holy women
18 End of many a
riddle
23 Holy Roman VIP:
Abbr.
25 Japan’s largest
active volcano
26 PFC’s address
30 Net profit, and
what the answers
to starred clues
have
31 Lessen, as pain
32 Hook’s right
hand
33 Soccer great Mia
34 Mishmash
36 *Failed, as a
business
39 *2016 film
wrongly
announced as
Best Picture
41 Singer Warwick
44 Wrestled
46 Battleship
initials
47 Turkish chief
49 Peacock tail
feature
51 Tells it to the
judge
54 Pound’s 100, in
England
55 Totally full
56 Be dressed in
57 Regarding, on
memos
58 Pelican St. city
59 Fed chasing
Capone
64 In the past
65 Doorstep
welcomer
FOR RENT
HEY.
YOU'RE
DOING GREAT
AND WE
know you
can do it.
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Classifieds
Call: #734-418-4115
Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com
Director Daniel Goldhaber talks ‘Cam,’ collaboration
and the normalization of sex work through cinema
A few days before writing this
article, my Instagram briefly got
hacked. My initial reaction was
confusion, followed by a sudden
surge of panic and a series of
unanswerable questions: How
could this have happened? Who
could have done this? Why
me? Once I logged back into
my account, I found that my
username and email address
had been changed to something
completely
different.
After
hastily
putting
the
correct
information back in, I thought
more about this collective fear
embedded in our culture of
online identity theft, that at
any given moment, a random
stranger could access and distort
the intimate details that define
how we are perceived on the
Internet and beyond.
This bewilderment, paranoia
and dread that manifested from
this momentarily scary situation
are the same emotions endured
to an extreme by the protagonist
of the glossy, thought-provoking
psychological thriller “Cam,”
which premiered at the Fantasia
International
Film
Festival
in July and on Netflix in Nov.
The film follows cam girl Alice
(Madeline Brewer, “Orange is
the New Black”), who faces an
unexpected dilemma when she
is locked out of her account and
finds a doppelgänger has taken
her place.
While
Instagram
is
not
at the forefront of the film’s
premise, “Cam” reflects the
same existential horror someone
might encounter when their
online profile has been violated
and
exploited
out
of
their
control. In the specific case
of Alice, who operates as an
online sex worker, this issue is
particularly
anxiety-inducing.
As Alice sets out on a desperate
quest to investigate how this
“clone” took over her life, “Cam”
gradually blurs the lines between
fantasy and reality, resulting in
a twisty, unnerving and utterly
captivating viewing experience.
Although “Cam” is his feature-
length directorial debut, Daniel
Goldhaber has directed music
videos for ambient rock artists
Michal Menert and StaG and
worked on several short films
and
commercials,
including
an ad for MapQuest that won
the 2016 Emmy Award for Best
Commercial, Single Spot. In an
exclusive phone interview with
The Michigan Daily, Goldhaber
talks about the process of making
the film, finding his lead from
a “Black Mirror” episode and
normalizing sex work through
an immersive narrative.
The Michigan Daily: Tell
me a little bit about your
background, what got you
interested
in
filmmaking,
where you went to undergrad,
what you studied, etc.
Daniel Goldhaber: I grew
up in Denver, CO. I went to
Harvard for undergrad. They
have
a
department
called
the
Department
of
Visual
and
Environmental
Studies.
Essentially, it’s a combination of
film, photography, studio art and
visual theory all up in one. I had
known about it in high school
and that Darren Aronofsky, who
I was quite obsessed with, had
gone through the department.
I learned just a little about
what the pedagogy was like
there, which is very different,
I think, from how a lot of film
departments are run in this
country.
There’s not so much a focus on
production as much as there is a
focus on learning what is a movie,
how you watch film, what is the
meaning of images, what are the
ethics of images, why make a
movie. The big exercise they do
that was pretty formative for me
is that the first year that you’re
in the film program, the entire
class directs a documentary film
by committee over the course of
a semester. There’s no director,
so it takes this idea of authorship
and it really focuses the idea of
authorship on the collaborative
filmmaking process. I think
that
that’s
something
that’s
really under-talked about and
under-thought about, especially
in film school. Filmmaking is a
collaborative medium, but we
can kind of just automatically
assume the authorship belongs
to a director.
When you’re directing a film
by committee with a whole class,
you really start to think about
the nature of authorship and the
nature of the filmmaking process
quite differently. One of the other
cool things about the program is
that there’s no permanent film
faculty there. It’s all visiting
professors. You don’t get that
stale sense that I think you get in
a lot of film departments where
it’s three or four professors
with their idea of what a good
narrative film is and it kind of
just becomes the house style
and that’s that. That’s definitely
true of Harvard, which is mostly
a documentary program, but
with new blood, it keeps the
intellectual conversation around
film alive.
TMD: How did you venture
into filmmaking after college?
DG: I did the (short films)
in college. Kind of everything
else came after. It was really
just me trying to survive post-
grad, trying to find work, trying
to build a reel. Ultimately,
most of it didn’t really help me
land a feature film. One of the
interesting things about getting
“Cam” made and jump-starting
my career was that it really was
just a script, the idea, the clarity
of vision that me and (“Cam”
screenwriter)
Isa
and
our
creative producers at Divide/
Conquer all had. We didn’t get
into the Sundance Labs. I didn’t
ever have a short film at a major
film festival. It really was just
faith in the ideas and that we
could answer any question that
we were asked.
TMD: I read that the film’s
screenwriter
Isa
Mazzei
worked as a camgirl, which
helped inspire and shape the
story. How did you two get
together to collaborate and
what was that collaboration
like?
DG: We’ve known each other
since high school. We actually
dated in high school. And we’ve
been collaborating since that
point in time too in some form
or another. Ultimately, what
happened is she hired me to
shoot… long after that, she went
into camming and when she
started camming, she needed
to make a bunch of promotional
video content for her show
and thought that I might make
some good porn for her. That
was my introduction to the
world of cam. Her story and her
approach to her own practice of
sex work … I think that we both
felt like there was a film to be
made about it. Through a series
of conversations, we kind of
just found that making a genre
movie set in that world would
be the best way to communicate
our ideas to a large, commercial
audience, which was really the
goal.
TMD:
“Cam”
tackles
a
dense bevy of topical themes
—
namely,
the
obsession
with maintaining an online
identity, the commodification
of desire, the male gaze and the
conflation of sex and violence.
What were you hoping people
would get out of watching the
film?
DG: Politically, I think that
the goal was to tell a story
that would ask an audience to
empathize with a sex worker
who was a creative
professional
and
to make a film that
was from her point
of view formally,
that it’s from a
woman’s point of
view,
portraying
her sexuality as
she sees herself.
From a filmmaking
standpoint,
I
think
that
was
another
goal.
But ultimately, I
think that movies
are
empathy
machines
on
a
certain level. We
wanted to reflect
Isa’s
experiences
of being a cam
girl, being a sex
worker,
talking
about
putting
forth an example
of how she feels
like her experience
of a sex worker
was for her and a
way of thinking
about
portraying
sex work in media
in a more ethical,
representational
capacity. Also, just
wanting to make a
movie that felt true
to our experiences
of being online…
there’s no moral to
the story outside of
the politics of its
representation.
TMD:
Madeline Brewer
gives a striking
performance
as
the
main
character
Alice.
How did you land
on casting her as
the lead?
DG:
My
dad
actually
saw
Maddie
(Brewer)
in an episode of
“Black
Mirror”
and was like, “She’s
really perfect for
this.” So, we just
really beat down
our
manager’s
door.
Luckily,
someone on our
team
knew
her
manager and beat down his door
and got him to actually meet
with me before she even read the
script, so that I can kind of be
like, “Hey! So, this is crazy, but
here’s what we want to do with
it…” That was really effective.
She read the script and then she
met with Isa and then came in
to read for us and we cast her
within minutes later. What was
so immediately telling about her
earlier work was that we needed
a film in which the actor can go
from a completely naturalistic
person to algorithmic sex robot.
Maddie has that kind of rare
combination of technical ability
and naturalism. She’s a very
technical actress and you can
tell that in her performance. She
never feels particularly “act-y.”
TMD: There’s some stigma
surrounding
“the
cyber-
cinema” subgenre — films that
revolve
specifically
around
technology. But considering
the attention your film is
getting and the success of
other recent indie films like
“Ingrid
Goes
West”
and
“Searching,” do you think
cyber-cinema
will
receive
more critical recognition in
the years to come?
DG: I think good movies
should
receive
critical
recognition, regardless of what
they are. I can’t think of a
cyber-cinema movie about the
Internet or technology that’s
really good that’s gone horribly
unrecognized. Even a movie
like
“Unfriended,”
which
is
pretty genre, was very well-
reviewed and I think was a
game-changing movie in a lot of
respects. The reason that a lot
of “cyber-cinema” hasn’t been
taken seriously is that it’s been
made by people who didn’t grow
up with the Internet. I’ve had
social media since elementary
school in some form or another.
There’s no alienation factor.
People have seen the Internet as
an impediment — “Oh, movies
set in the modern day, we kind
of have to deal with this Internet
thing in order to do that.” But
they’re not taking a step back and
saying, “Hey, there’s this new
thing that exists. Let’s change
the way we think and interact.
How do we make cinema that
responds to that? Is there one
way to do that?”
What we wanted to do with
“Cam” was simply say, “How do
we show the main character’s
experience online with no tricks,
just editing? Let’s go back to the
basic fundamentals of cinema
and build up from there.” That’s
where the use of the cut-ins
came from. The kind of flat space
of the Internet that’s seen in the
movie — that was very inspired
by “Unfriended.” On some level,
I think the movie is a refutation
of this screenlife idea that if
you’re gonna make a movie
online, it has to only take place
online. What I’m interested in is
the collision between the digital
and real.
TMD: What was the process
of conceptualizing “Cam”?
DG:
It’s
honestly
really
complicated in the sense that it
was a really organic process, it’s
a talking process, it’s a process
of sharing ideas and constantly
challenging
each
other
to
specify the idea, to dig deeper
into the idea and then to find the
best possible way to deliver the
idea inside of the architecture
of a commercial movie. P.T.
Anderson says that “writing is
like ironing.” I think sometimes,
it’s also about layering things
into each other, so you start
with this idea of a movie about
webcam porn. What’s the right
story for that? One of the things
I really like to do process-wise
when I’m working with anybody
is trying to build world banks,
to build a big bank of, “Here are
all the potential stories we could
tell in that world.” And then,
we start whittling them down:
Which of these stories are good?
Which of these stories have
common ideas?
Eventually, we actually met
with a bunch of other cam
girls
and
sex
workers
and
interviewed them. We’re trying
to find the similarities between
Isa’s
experiences
and
their
experiences, trying to figure
out which of the more universal
things was connecting these
ideas. Then, whittling that idea
down to the idea of identity, the
dopplegänger. You start saying,
“OK, well, what’s that look like?”
You start talking about the big
themes that you’re interested
in. Isa would frequently talk
about her practice as a former
performance artist and how
it felt to her. So, OK, that’s
something that is a very relatable
idea for people. What are movies
about great artists that we really
love?
TMD: How were you able
to get “Cam” financed and
distributed?
DG: (Blumhouse Productions
CEO
Jason)
Blum
basically
financed the movie and set it
up at a production company
called Divide/Conquer. Divide/
Conquer
finished
the
film.
Blum bought the film back and
then they sold it to Netflix.
Blumhouse
helped
develop
the script. They were kind of
advisors on the project, but they
weren’t significantly involved
in the day-to-day making of
the film. Couper Samuelson
and Bea Sequeira were the two
executives over there that we
worked really closely with. Bea
was the person who found the
script and kind of kicked it up to
Couper. Both really championed
the film and gave notes and
helped us connect with people
when necessary. It’s an amazing
company. They’re doing amazing
work. Jason’s some sort of cross
between Roger Corman and…
I need to figure out who else
because he’s not just Corman.
He’s taking what Corman did
and he’s bringing it into the
mainstream,
and
it’s
really
interesting.
TMD: What has been your
reaction to the film’s response
from audiences and critics?
DG: I’m surprised that the
ending has gotten the response
that it’s gotten. To be completely
honest, I don’t think the movie
is nearly as confusing as people
seem to think it is. People were
like, “What is Lola?” And all the
evidence is in the film for what
she is. It’s not that we don’t
explain it — the main character
figures it out. We don’t literally
spell it out because you’re seeing
it from (Alice’s) perspective and
she’s figuring it out on her own.
I’m kind of surprised that that’s
as controversial as it is. That’s
more of an audience response
thing than a critical response,
and that’s really not something
that became clear until after it
was actually out on Netflix. It’s
been extremely satisfying to
see the critical response to the
film. (“Cam”) is like the second
highest-rated horror movie of
the year on Rotten Tomatoes.
It’s
extremely
gratifying
also to see the politics of the
movie be embraced in the way
that they are. It was a surprise
when The New York Times
called it a “feminist film.” We
have to take a second to realize
that that’s The New York Times
Arts
section
embracing
the
destigmatization of sex work
and the legitimization of sex
worker narratives from that
point of view. That’s a really big
step forward. I don’t even think
that that was even a conscious
decision on the part of (New
York Times critic) Jeannette
Catsoulis. I think that was just
kind of what she took away from
the film.
To me, one of the most
gratifying things for a filmmaker
is when you’ve told a story, you
put an incredible amount of work
into the politics of the film, but
that ultimately, a great political
film isn’t necessarily one where
it ends with a big speech with
somebody explaining what the
politics of the movie is. It’s a
movie that’s taking you into
somebody
else’s
world
and
allowing you to empathize with
them in a way that only film can.
When that’s been successful,
you can’t necessarily explain
it. You just know that you had
that experience. Seeing people
embrace the experience they
had with “Cam” has been really
amazing.
SAM ROSENBERG
Senior Arts Editor
FILM INTERVIEW