Arts & Culture

On Documentaries and Life: A Chat With Marshall Curry

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By TAMAR LAW

This week, Cornell Cinema is hosting the two-time academy award nominated film director, Marshall Curry. He is presenting two of his more socially focused documentaries; Street Fight screened on Tuesday and If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front will play on Wednesday. While different in their subject matter, each film addresses current political and social themes in the United States. The screening of If a Tree Falls is at 7:15 p.m. and is free of charge. In preparation for his time on campus, The Sun was able to ask a few background questions about the path Curry has taken as a filmmaker and some of his future plans.

Editorials

EDITORIAL: Don’t Betray Cornell Cinema, Again

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Last week, Cornell Cinema was unable to secure the number of votes needed from the Student Assembly to raise the amount of byline funding the organizations receives each year. The vote follows a recommendation from the Student Assembly Appropriations Committee that urged the S.A. not increase the Cinema’s funding. While the committee suggested that Cornell Cinema further reduce its costs, additional cuts adversely affect the programming and benefits the organization provides for the campus community. We urge the members of the S.A. to reconsider their decisions to ensure the vitality of Cornell Cinema for future Cornellians. In its recommendation, the Appropriations Committee argued that Cornell Cinema should not be granted an additional $1.40 per student increase, raising its byline funding amount from its current $10.60 to $12 per student.

Arts & Culture

iGenius: Steve Jobs Biopic

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In his book Creativity Inc., which details the founding of Pixar, Ed Catmull likens the presence of fellow co-founder Steve Jobs to the famous 1980s Maxwell tape commercial, with the dude in the suit being blown back full force — tie, cocktail, lampshade and all— by the sheer power of his stereo system. According to Catmull, everyone else was always the dude in the suit, and the stereo system was always Jobs. Steve Jobs does nothing to disprove Catmull’s analogy of Jobs as an intense, driven, borderline psychotic individual whose life had controversy, ambivalence and intrigue to spare. Written by Aaron Sorkin, one of the few auteurist screenwriters of today, the film invites much comparison to his masterful script for The Social Network five years back, which likewise focused on an ambivalent, controversial, intensely driven individual who ended up forever changing the world as we know it. Social Network was helmed by David Fincher, a director of notoriously misanthropic and exquisitely dark films, who was originally slated to do Jobs before Danny Boyle stepped in.