How Mick Rock, Music Photographer, Spends His Sundays

There is no slowing down for the British photographer Mick Rock, who has spent some 50 years capturing images of pop and rock stars like David Bowie, Ellie Goulding, Janelle Monáe and Lou Reed. Between shoots, Mr. Rock, 68, edits his photography books and travels all over the world to attend his exhibition openings. A documentary about his life, “SHOT! The Psycho-Spiritual Mantra of Rock,” will be released on April 7 by Magnolia Pictures. Mr. Rock lives in Livingston, Staten Island, with his wife, Pati, who works in real estate, and their two Maine coon cats, Bellini and Razor. (more…)

There is no slowing down for the British photographer Mick Rock, who has spent some 50 years capturing images of pop and rock stars like David Bowie, Ellie Goulding, Janelle Monáe and Lou Reed. Between shoots, Mr. Rock, 68, edits his photography books and travels all over the world to attend his exhibition openings. A documentary about his life, “SHOT! The Psycho-Spiritual Mantra of Rock,” will be released on April 7 by Magnolia Pictures. Mr. Rock lives in Livingston, Staten Island, with his wife, Pati, who works in real estate, and their two Maine coon cats, Bellini and Razor.

AN EXTRA HOUR I’m usually up by 10. It’s an hour later than usual, but I can do it on a Sunday, and it’s a nice indulgence. Pati wakes up an hour or two before me.

SHAKE IT UP I head downstairs to make a protein shake. I never used to eat breakfast, but Gabrielle Francis, this amazing woman on Grand Street who is a chiropractor, acupuncturist, massage therapist and nutritionist all in one, and who I’ve been seeing for three years, has gotten me into the habit of having this shake first thing in the morning.

MORNING MANTRAS A big benefit of living in Staten Island is the amount of space Pati and I have. This includes a huge bedroom, and I use the floor area in there to do a 75-minute yoga routine. I start with meditation, then stand on my head for about 10 minutes and then go through various postures. I finish with chanting mantras I’ve learned over the last 18 years that I’ve been practicing Kundalini yoga.

CHILL Right after yoga, I take a hot shower, but I always end with a cold rinse which gives me a boost of energy. I wear jeans and either a black T-shirt, denim shirt or black sweater, depending on the weather, and I’m dressed for the day. I head back downstairs and have a cup of coffee.

TURN BLUE Around 2, we get out of the house for a late brunch. Normally, we go to this place called Blue. I haven’t eaten meat for over 40 years. I may get a veggie burger with sweet potato fries, cereal, a salad or an egg white omelet with toast. Pati eats everything, so she may get bacon and eggs or sausage with pancakes and maybe a glass of wine. There’s no wine for me because I don’t drink alcohol.

STROLL AND SHOOT We like going on a long walk when we’re done with brunch and tend to head to Snug Harbor Cultural Center to get our fix. It’s near our house and used to be a home for sailors but now has a beautiful Chinese garden, a theater, a gallery and tons of areas for walking. I like taking pictures during our stroll. Tree shots are a favorite, but I also take snaps of ponds, bridges, plants or anything else that catches my eyes. Sometimes, I’ll take the pictures with my iPhone camera or else I’ll carry my Canon G1 X.

COUCH TIME We’ll watch football when it’s in season and watch movies, too, like black-and-white film noir, documentaries or anything with Humphrey Bogart. Bellini and Razor sit with us while we watch. They like to be petted.

MAN AT WORK I hit work again in the early evening. Rock photography is a big deal compared with when I started, and the art of it is much more appreciated, both from a monetary and artistic perspective. This is good for me, but it means that I rarely get a full day off.

JAZZY DINNER Pati will cook for us. There’s some fish for me and maybe chicken or red meat for her. Pasta is sometimes on the menu, and she gets jazzy with vegetables; it could be roasted brussels sprouts or heirloom carrots with ginger.

NIGHTTIME NEWS Sunday evenings are for reading, usually The New York Times. Pati reads the entire paper, and I read the Book Review, Sunday Review, Sports and Arts & Leisure. She heads to bed at 11, and I wander upstairs around midnight. Two decades ago, I used to stay up all night, but, considering I’m in my late 60s, I still think of myself as a night owl.

How To Go ‘Straight Up’ With Production

Founded in 2008 by Marisa Polvino and Kate Cohen, Straight Up Films has productions starring the likes of Johnny Depp and Natalie Portman, and SUF produced “Manos Sucias,” which premiered at the Tribeca Film Fest; the film’s director Josef Wladyka walked away with a best new narrative helmer nod. (more…)

Founded in 2008 by Marisa Polvino and Kate Cohen, Straight Up Films has productions starring the likes of Johnny Depp and Natalie Portman, and SUF produced “Manos Sucias,” which premiered at the Tribeca Film Fest; the film's director Josef Wladyka walked away with a best new narrative helmer nod.

“Manos Sucias” was shot in Colombia. What advice do you have about producing outside of the U.S.?
MP: It is vitally important to acquaint oneself with the local film community whenever you are shooting overseas. They are incredibly helpful in making introductions to the best crew, equipment, and locations available. They also understand and will advise on the local cultures and nuances associated with filming in that territory. There are a multitude of tax advantages around the world, and doing the necessary amount of research while choosing a location can help reduce your negative cost and mitigate risk.

What was the biggest challenge about starting a production company?
MP: Finding the right partner and subsequent team members whose collective vision for the company, taste in material, and future goals are aligned. It’s very difficult to grow and be successful in this business when the people you are working with put their own agendas first. Filmmaking is a very collaborative process, and finding the right people to work with is essential.

What advice do you have for women who want to produce or start their own production companies?
MP: Just go out and do it already, and don’t let anyone stop you. It is a humbling and empowering journey being a woman in this industry today, but that being said, none of us have any excuses. The business of making movies is a difficult world for everyone, not just women. We don’t make a habit of thinking of ourselves as “women in the industry.”

What can actors do to make your job easier?
KC: We’ve been so fortunate to work with some of the most capable and professional actors out there. I don’t know if anyone can make the job easy, but they certainly make it rewarding with their incredible talent and dedication to bringing the characters we love to life.

What types of projects do you hope to add to your résumé? Actors you’d love to work on a production with?
MP: Our selection process is extremely filmmaker and story driven, as well as curating commercial projects that reach across several media platforms. We have taken chances with first-time film directors, like Wally Pfister on “Transcendence,” but are also working with more seasoned filmmakers. We would love to work with Steve McQueen, Wes Anderson, David O. Russell, Benh Zeitlin, David Lynch, Tarantino (of course), PTA, Spike Jonze. We would also love to work with more female directors: Sofia Coppola, Kathryn Bigelow, Dee Rees.

We have worked with some fantastic actors. In the future, it would be amazing to work with Rebecca Hall again, as well Cate Blanchett, who also wants to direct. Other actors on our dream list are diverse as well, but some actors that come to mind who continually amaze us with their talent would be Michael Fassbender, Christoph Waltz, Sean Penn, Marion Cotillard, Helen Mirren, Elizabeth Olsen, Kate Winslet, Rooney Mara, Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba… There is a world of talent out there, our list could go on!

What do you have on deck for future projects?
KC: I would love to find a smart psychological thriller to add to our slate, but I’m open to almost all genres. We don’t like limiting ourselves and potentially missing out on something truly amazing.

New Michael Jackson Song Backs Jeep Summer TV Campaign (Watch)

Today Epic Records and Jeep launched a global brand campaign for the car company’s Altitude Edition in which Michael Jackson’s new single “Love Never Felt So Good” is featured in four 30-second TV commercials. The campaign will air from today (May 8) and run through summer. (more…)

Today Epic Records and Jeep launched a global brand campaign for the car company’s Altitude Edition in which Michael Jackson’s new single “Love Never Felt So Good” is featured in four 30-second TV commercials. The campaign will air from today (May 8) and run through summer.

The track is from Jackson's second posthumous release “Xscape” (out May 13, Epic) and was co-written in 1983 by Michael Jackson in a session with Paul Anka (who played piano on the track) and Kathy Wakefield. Two new versions of the song were recorded: one produced by John McClain co-executor of the Jackson estate (with John Branca) is featured in the new ad; and another helmed by the trio of Timbaland, J-Roc and Justin Timberlake finds JT duetting with Michael and debuted this week at No. 20 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The campaign's origin came in late-March when Epic chairman and CEO Antonio “LA” Reid played the album for Chrysler CMO Olivier Francois. “I played him almost every song,” Reid says. “When we played 'Love Never Felt So Good' he made the connection and went ‘Bingo! This was what I was looking for!'" Francois, for his part, says that when he first heard the track he got up off the couch in the Epic offices and started dancing and hopes the ad will have the same impact on consumers.

A former music producer and publisher, Francois is credited with rejuvenating Chrysler's music branding strategy with an impressive string of ads featuring major music placements. This includes Eminem’s two-minute Super Bowl ad for Chrysler; the new Fiat spot with Sean “Ciroc" Combs at a desert party while Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” blares; and a previous ad for Jeep with Lenny Kravitz. Jackson, however, provides Francois a greater opportunity to take his work global.

When asked how big the spend would be on the new campaign Francois wouldn’t give an exact figure but said it would be bigger than the Diddy Fiat spot. According to Kantar Media, Fiat spent $17 million on measured U.S. media in the first three months of 2014, when the still-active Diddy campaign was just starting to roll out.

Jeep also hired multicultural ad agency GlobalHuefor the creative who gave the commercial a summer-y outdoor feel. One ad is shot primarily at the beach, another is more World-Cup-friendly and shows celebratory Latin American soccer fans while another focuses on basketball and features Cleveland Cavalier point guard Kyrie Irving. That campaign was co-sponsored by USA Basketball, which holds global b-ball tournaments throughout summer.

Nearly five years since Michael Jackson's unexpected passing, his brand shows little sign of flagging. Since his death on June 25, 2009, Jackson's albums have sold 12.8 million in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan. His “This Is It” concert film grossed $261 million worldwide while "Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour," a partnership between the Jackson estate and Cirque du Soleil, last year became the ninth-top-grossing tour of all time with earnings of $325.1 million from 407 shows drawing nearly 3 million concertgoers. A second Cirque du Soleil show, "One," began a residency at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas last year.

Music from "Xscape," according to Reid, will also be featured in ads by Xperia, a line smartphones and tablets by Sony, Epic’s parent company. The label chair said the ads will air outside of the U.S. He also confirmed that Pepsi, which has had a long-standing relationship with Jackson, has no immediate plans for a tie-in with this album. A video currently being filmed for the Timberlake version of “Love,” however, will feature one rather large product placement: a Jeep Altitude.

Tribeca Review: Spike Lee-Produced ‘Manos Sucias’ Casts Drug Smuggling In a Personal Light

Two Colombian men attempt to smuggle cocaine up the Pacific. That’s the slim, basic trajectory of director Josef Kubota Wladyka’s first feature, “Manos Sucias,” and it rarely ventures beyond those restrictions. But that very minimalism gives its drama a personal quality steeped in the desperation of its lower class anti-heroes. Shot on location in and around Buenaventura, the movie has a frantic, gritty energy attuned to its characters’ frustrations—not unlike the fiery sentiments found in the most polemical output of Spike Lee, who serves as an executive producer. Even so, Wladyka’s debut has a more claustrophobic feel than anything in Lee’s oeuvre; running just under 75 minutes, it’s a fierce snapshot of reckless behavior enacted by helpless men.

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Two Colombian men attempt to smuggle cocaine up the Pacific. That's the slim, basic trajectory of director Josef Kubota Wladyka's first feature, "Manos Sucias," and it rarely ventures beyond those restrictions. But that very minimalism gives its drama a personal quality steeped in the desperation of its lower class anti-heroes. Shot on location in and around Buenaventura, the movie has a frantic, gritty energy attuned to its characters' frustrations—not unlike the fiery sentiments found in the most polemical output of Spike Lee, who serves as an executive producer. Even so, Wladyka's debut has a more claustrophobic feel than anything in Lee's oeuvre; running just under 75 minutes, it's a fierce snapshot of reckless behavior enacted by helpless men.

At its center is Delio (Cristian James Abvincula), a pouty young black man eager to leave "that fucking construction job" and find a better life for his wife and infant child. In an early scene, he complains about economic and racial hindrances alike, pointing out to a friend that even in Bogota, the only black people work in servant jobs. These moments arrive as a flashback shortly after the establishing scene in which Delio joins forces with fisherman Jacobo (Jarlin Javier Martinez) to take on the uneasy job of cruising up the Pacific with their clandestine sack of drugs. As a result, the fleeting scenes in Buenaventura are weighted with dread: Delio has lost faith in any chance of a secure route to stability, which seals his fate in dangerous waters.

The ensuing narrative largely unfolds with just the two men on the boat, alternately discussing their fears, aspirations and the prospects of their scheme. Cinematographer Alan Blanco (who also co-wrote the screenplay with the director) capably frames much of the movie in closeups, allowing the dual protagonists' scowling, worried expressions to drive the story forward, while the grey ocean provides an abstract backdrop that highlights the sheer emptiness of their ambition.

The restrained setting has many precedents: While one could easily place "Manos Sucias" in a tradition stretching back to Alfred Hitchcock's "Lifeboat," a more contemporary reference point would be Lucy Malloy's 2012 drama "Una Noche," in which a trio of young Cubans attempt to row from Havana to Miami under similarly dire conditions.

But in "Manos Sucias," the men are as much a hazard to their situation as the uneasy waters around them. As they slowly progress toward a drop-off point, communicating with their menacing contacts on rickety cell phones, Wladyka regularly cuts to a POV of the ramshackle torpedo weighed down with 100kg of cocaine trailing their boat from a few feet away. Its watery perspective effectively conveys the murkiness of their only hope.

While marked by a pair of brooding performances, however, "Manos Sucias" isn't consumed by dreariness at every moment. An aspiring rapper, Abvincula's character has a playful demeanor that regularly surfaces whenever the action temporarily subsides; Martinez, playing an older, more professionally focused figure, radiates a paternal generosity toward his younger peer that ultimately leads him to adopt frightening measures for the sake of their survival. A vibrant soundtrack of local Colombian melodies hints at the happier world just beyond their reach. The movie regularly establishes a calm state only to veer back to duress: the duo's cozy discussion about soccer around the fire one night is counteracted by a sudden violent outbreak moments later; the final act arrives without warning and unfolds with a heightened sense of anguish.

"Manos Sucias" culminates with a singularly harsh act that takes its characters into much darker territory. Nevertheless, it's not much of a surprise when the movie gets there, given the limited range of possibilities for this minor drama. The lasting impression is one of several powerful moments strung together rather than a fully developed plot. Yet it's exactly that stripped down element that imbues "Manos Sucias" with a ragged feel not unlike the uncertain world inhabited by its leading men.

Tribeca Film Festival 2014: Best New Narrative Director — Josef Wladyka, director of ‘Manos Sucias’

“We have chosen a filmmaker whose journey should truly be an (is an) example to all of us about the commitment to the process of researching and developing a film. Not only did this director spend several years immersed in a marginalized community in order to tell the story in the most truthful way possible, he impacted and contributed to that community. We felt this film was an eye and mind opener, that transported us to a different place, stimulating our thinking, allowing us to meditate on the relationship between violence and circumstance.”

‘Transcendence’: Johnny Depp in a bold, beautiful flight of futuristic speculation

“By mid-century, it could become commonplace to interact with computers directly with the mind. … We may simply give mental commands and our wishes will be silently carried out by tiny chips hidden in the environment.” — Michio Kaku, “The Future of the Mind.

When we meet the scientists Will and Evelyn Caster, they’re the greatest couple maybe ever.

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“By mid-century, it could become commonplace to interact with computers directly with the mind. … We may simply give mental commands and our wishes will be silently carried out by tiny chips hidden in the environment.” — Michio Kaku, “The Future of the Mind.

When we meet the scientists Will and Evelyn Caster, they’re the greatest couple maybe ever.

They’re a brilliant team, in the laboratory and at home. Will and Evelyn are on the verge of achieving revolutionary breakthroughs in the field of artificial intelligence — AND they’re the kind of effortlessly charismatic couple with a perfectly appointed home, a great wine always breathing on the dining-room table and perfect music wafting from an old-fashioned turntable stereo. Plus they’re played by Johnny Depp and Rebecca Hall, so they’re beautiful to boot.

And then one evening something terrible and sudden and shocking and tragic happens, and suddenly Will has only a few weeks to live, and that’s when “Transcendence” begins morphing into a thriller of the mind and soul with echoes of everything from “A.I.” to “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” to “2001: A Space Odyssey” to “Blade Runner” to “The Matrix.”

Directed by Wally Pfister, the cinematographer extraordinaire who lensed a half dozen films for Christopher Nolan (including all three “Dark Knight” movies), “Transcendence” is a bold, beautiful, sometimes confounding flight of futuristic speculation firmly rooted in the potential of today’s technology.

It’s the kind of movie that will have some viewers laughing at the audacious turns and twists. It’s a movie that had me thinking, “Wait, how did THAT just happen?,” on more than one occasion. The ending was underwhelming, and it raised at least as many questions as it answered.

And yet. What a stunning piece of work.

It’s hardly a spoiler alert when the trailer and the very poster for the film tell you what’s in store, but still, I urge you to proceed with caution and I pledge not to give away too much.

Depp is perfectly cast as Will, a slightly mad scientist, the kind of guy who probably considers Albert Einstein a fashion role model as well as a scientific role model, but can’t help but command every room he enters. Will’s the reigning rock star of his field. When he gives speeches, young men and women ask for his autograph.

“Imagine a machine with the full range of human emotion,” says Will in a presentation to a jam-packed auditorium. “Its analytical power will be greater than the collective intelligence of every person in the history of the world. Some scientists refer to this as the singularity. I call it transcendence.”

Shortly after Will utters those mind-boggling, awe-inspiring and slightly frightening words, a radical anti-technology terrorist group unleashes a series of attacks on labs across the country, killing a number of prominent geniuses and effectively erasing decades of research.

Will is shot. The bullet only grazes him, but it’s coated with a deadly toxin that will end his life within weeks. It’s a perfectly convenient plot device that gives Will, Evelyn and their best friend Max (Paul Bettany, who has nearly as much screen time as Depp) enough time to rig up a secret lab where they will attempt to upload every single thought, memory and personality trait of Will in an effort to keep the essence of Will alive after Will’s body gives out.

“Transcendence” doesn’t spend a lot of time on the spiritual ethics of such an experiment. There’s no discussion of any religion, so one assumes Will and Evelyn are not people of faith. (I was also left wondering why two of the greatest minds on the planet didn’t reproduce. Maybe they were afraid their kid would turn out to be an actual superhero.)

There is, however, much consternation about the ethics of this experiment, mostly on the part of Max. Evelyn’s love for Will is so strong she loses all sense of perspective when he appears to have returned. Sure, it’s beyond creepy that Will exists only as a voice and a moving image on a flat screen, like the next version of the Scarlett Johansson character in “Her.”

And when Will starts talking about acquiring bank codes and amassing tremendous wealth and building a secret underground bunker in New Mexico, you’d think Evelyn would get worried, but no. She’s just thrilled to have her honey back, especially when he can “remember” how they first met and he says “welcome home” every time she returns from that bunker.

Weird stuff. Morgan Freeman (who else?) plays Joseph Tagger, a mentor to Evelyn and Will who can’t believe his eyes when he first encounters Will 2.0. Cillian Murphy is the FBI agent convinced the A.I. version of Will is going to accumulate so much power and intelligence he’ll become the greatest threat to freedom the world has ever known. Kate Mara, all eyeliner and intensity, is Bree, the leader of the anti-technology group that seems less and less crazed as the story unfolds.

The screenplay for “Transcendence” from first-timer Jack Paglen is dense and fast and wildly imaginative and sometimes baffling. We get that Will is rapidly absorbing every bit of data available on the Internet and he’s using his ever-increasing intelligence to cure the sick and heal the planet, but then he starts developing skills that make him seem more like Loki from the “Thor” movies than a half-human, half-computer creation. You either go with it or you don’t. I went with it, even when multiple characters begin to sound exactly like Will.

Deep gives one of his most interesting performances, in part because he’s not wearing an elaborate costume or affecting some crazy accent. In fact he uses only his voice and his face for much of the performance. Rebecca Hall is the heart and soul of the film as Evelyn. Bettany and Freeman and a half-dozen other familiar faces are solid.

It’s little wonder the man who photographed “Inception” was intrigued by such a challenging puzzle of a thriller. This is the best kind of science fiction. I’ll bet Ray Bradbury and Rod Serling would have applauded this material.

Review: ‘Transcendence’ rises above the sci-fi genre

The focus on artificial intelligence in ‘Transcendence’ with Johnny Depp is brilliant because it lets the audience decide questions of good and evil.

Though its plot and premise are pure science fiction, “Transcendence” goes pleasingly against the genre grain.

A story of the possible perils and pleasures of artificial intelligence that stars Johnny Depp, “Transcendence’s” ideas are at least as involving as its images, if not more so. And as written by Jack Paglen and directed by Wally Pfister, this film is intent on not limiting itself to simplistic questions of pure good and evil.

As “Transcendence’s” narrative of the battle between pro and anti-technology forces unfolds, justice is done to the complicated factors at play here. Determining with certainty whom the heroes and villains of this narrative are is not so easily done.

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The focus on artificial intelligence in 'Transcendence' with Johnny Depp is brilliant because it lets the audience decide questions of good and evil.

Though its plot and premise are pure science fiction, "Transcendence" goes pleasingly against the genre grain.

A story of the possible perils and pleasures of artificial intelligence that stars Johnny Depp, "Transcendence's" ideas are at least as involving as its images, if not more so. And as written by Jack Paglen and directed by Wally Pfister, this film is intent on not limiting itself to simplistic questions of pure good and evil.

As "Transcendence's" narrative of the battle between pro and anti-technology forces unfolds, justice is done to the complicated factors at play here. Determining with certainty whom the heroes and villains of this narrative are is not so easily done.

Though Pfister is well-known as Christopher Nolan's longtime cinematographer (nominated for four Oscars, a winner for "Inception"), both he and screenwriter Paglen are first-timers in their respective chairs, and there are times when that shows. "Transcendence's" exposition is not always sharp, emotional connections (with the exception of Depp's outstanding costar, Rebecca Hall) are not its strength, and it does not make memorable use of its Imax format.

But because the underlying ideas are involving, those problems fade from view, leaving us with an ambitious and provocative piece of work that is intriguingly balanced between being a warning and a celebration.

Certainly the boon-or-bane question of artificial intelligence has been a movie staple at least since the days of HAL 9000 in Stanley Kubrick's "2001." (In fact, a purely negative example of some of this film's ideas appears in the current "Captain America: Winter Soldier.")

"Transcendence" begins in the near future, maybe as close as tomorrow. Narrator Max Waters (an excellent Paul Bettany) walks through the streets of a Berkeley patrolled by armed soldiers. The city —- and every other city, we soon learn — is in the grip of some kind of worldwide power blackout.

Max walks to a classic wood shingle Berkeley house, now in ruins but once the home of Dr. Will Caster (Depp) and his wife, Evelyn (Hall). Max knew them better than anyone, he says, and he is prepared to vouch for the fact that they wanted nothing but the best for humanity.

Back we go five years, to the bulk of "Transcendence's" story. Depp's Will is a brilliant scientist, distracted in a Disney Gyro Gearloose kind of way but enough of a celebrated futurist to have people asking for signatures on his Wired magazine cover story.

Evelyn is the more focused half of the couple, eager to raise money for the practical applications of Will's ideas, which means attendance at an Evolve the Future conference where the good doctor talks about the lure of what he calls transcendence.

"Once online, a sentient machine will quickly overcome the limits of biology," he says. "Its analytical power will be greater than the collective intelligence of every person born in the history of the world. Imagine such an entity with the full range of emotions, even self-awareness."

For some people in the audience, that is not a dream but a nightmare. These are the members of RIFT (Revolutionary Independence From Technology, if you must know), "Unplug" tattoos on their forearms and anarchic mayhem in their hearts. In fact their leader, Bree (Kate Mara), looks so clearly deranged it's amazing she was even allowed in the auditorium.

RIFT soon does its worst, and as an end result Will ends up with only a few weeks to live. Though the couple's best friend, Max, expresses doubts, Rebecca sees only one way out, a scenario that involves yet another acronym, PINN.

That would be the Physically Independent Neural Network artificial intelligence system Will has created. Rebecca decides to upload her husband's mind to PINN's core. "We can save him," she insists to Max's dismay, and though the experiment appears to succeed, the much more complex question becomes: at what cost to humanity.

Once Will is fully inside the machine, "Transcendence's" main action begins and the film becomes more involving. Because Depp's mechanical performance is nothing to write home about, the film counts on Hall's great ability to join intelligence with empathy. (Those who haven't seen her and "Spider-Man" Andrew Garfield co-star in the first part of 2009's "Red Riding Trilogy" should catch up now.)

Initially, what we see is all the things this smartest-entity-ever puts into motion, how it keeps itself alive and how it works to increase its range and power. Just as interesting, however, are the conflicts, doubts and fears that Will's transformation causes, not the least of them being Max's worry about whether that it is really Will inside the machine and not some bizarre iteration with a mind of its own.

Most pointed is the resistance many of "Transcendence's" characters feel to Will's evolution into what they call "an unnatural abomination and a threat to humanity." Are their qualms justified, or is it a question that, as someone says, "people fear what they don't understand." These are very difficult questions, and the best thing about "Transcendence" is that it refuses to pretend otherwise.

I Am My Own Monster (Technology Rules!)

Johnny Depp Stars in ‘Transcendence’

Johnny Depp, who’s built a brilliant career despite many of his lamentable film choices, may not be the first actor you think of to play a genius — much less humanity’s destroyer or savior. But he’s weirdly perfect in “Transcendence,” an inelegant, no doubt implausible (maybe not) science-fiction film about a futurist whose consciousness is uploaded onto the Internet. There, he (or a mysterious vestige of his being) expands like the universe, growing larger and mutating into a being who is godlike and yet far from divine, sort of like a star at the apex of his popularity.

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Johnny Depp Stars in ‘Transcendence’

Johnny Depp, who’s built a brilliant career despite many of his lamentable film choices, may not be the first actor you think of to play a genius — much less humanity’s destroyer or savior. But he’s weirdly perfect in “Transcendence,” an inelegant, no doubt implausible (maybe not) science-fiction film about a futurist whose consciousness is uploaded onto the Internet. There, he (or a mysterious vestige of his being) expands like the universe, growing larger and mutating into a being who is godlike and yet far from divine, sort of like a star at the apex of his popularity.

Directed by Wally Pfister, a cinematographer making his feature directing debut, “Transcendence” is a dark, lurchingly entertaining pastiche of age-old worries, future-shock jolts, hot-button topics and old-fashioned genre thrills. It was written by Jack Paglen, who, while researching, probably thumbed through Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus,” along with some Isaac Asimov and William Gibson. The scientist here is Will Caster (Mr. Depp), whose work in artificial intelligence has landed him on the cover of Wired magazine. (Even in a brave new world, old media remains useful shorthand.) With his wife, Evelyn (Rebecca Hall), a computer scientist, Will has created PINN, one of those supermachines with sleek surfaces, blinking lights and pulsating menace.

The twist in “Transcendence” is that the scientist becomes the monster of his own creation or so it seems. Shortly after the film opens, Will is shot by an extremist during a series of coordinated attacks on high-tech targets. He survives the initial assault only to succumb to the radiation that laced the bullet.

As he lies dying, Evelyn, in one of those eureka moments that implies her brain is as infinite as her husband’s, initially uploads Will’s consciousness into PINN, a clever bit of business she manages with their friend Max Waters (a solid Paul Bettany), a neurobiologist. One minute Will looks like a tortured lab monkey; the next, he’s the ghost in everybody’s machine. Well, it sounds plausible or at least Mr. Pfister moves fast enough that you don’t have time to puzzle over niceties like logic.

Like some other notable machine-based intelligences — including the ship’s computer in the original “Star Trek,” CORA in the television series “Battlestar Galactica” and Samantha in Spike Jonze’s recent film “Her” — PINN has a female voice. It may be that the enduringly creepy legacy of HAL 9000, the mutinous computer from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” has made it tougher for male voices to fill in these disembodied characters. Whatever the case, while artificial intelligences with any kind of human voice seem at once familiar and uncanny, further blurring the line between makers and their machines, those with female voices also suggest another creation story, that of Adam (the origin) and Eve (the product). “Transcendence” plays with this idea, and it’s not for nothing that its heroine is named Evelyn.

Once Will’s consciousness is uploaded, his voice supplants PINN’s. In its initial poetic fragmentation, the voice emanating from Evelyn’s reconfigured supercomputer sounds amusingly like Marlon Brando’s tape-recorded ramblings as Colonel Kurtz in “Apocalypse Now.” (Mr. Depp and Brando were friends.) After some throat clearing, though, Will starts to sound like himself and the movie gets its crazy on.

His image pops up on screen, like some holographic specter, a kind of rebirth that thrills Evelyn and freaks out most everyone else, including, naturally enough, the extremists. Implausibly led by a scowling half-pint, Bree (Kate Mara), they try to stop Will and Evelyn, in a chase that also pulls in other scientists and government agents played by the likes of Morgan Freeman and Cillian Murphy.

Mr. Pfister, shooting on film and working with the cinematographer Jess Hall, gives “Transcendence” the dark, gleaming surfaces that gloss up a lot of contemporary thrillers and which can’t help evoking Christopher Nolan’s work. Mr. Pfister has been the director of photography on most of Mr. Nolan’s films, including the “Dark Knight” trilogy, and Mr. Nolan has given “Transcendence” his blessing by signing on as an executive producer. So it’s no surprise that the depthless blacks and glowing whites in “Transcendence” and Mr. Pfister’s use of negative space suggest Mr. Nolan’s influence, notably in the high-tech complex where Evelyn and Will set up a compound. When Evelyn walks down one of its luminous white halls, she looks as if she’s headed right for one of Bruce Wayne’s lairs.

These visual echoes don’t hurt “Transcendence,” and they soon recede amid the escalating narrative noise. Mr. Pfister handles the predictable third-act action booms adequately — it must be contractual that every director who makes a thriller these days must blow his sets to smithereens — but he’s better when the story scales down.

When Evelyn appears in that white hallway, Mr. Pfister is showing off the production design, but he’s also bringing you close to a woman who, as Will’s power expands, is becoming progressively more isolated. One of those actresses who always seem smart even in dumb roles, Ms. Hall is very sympathetic as a woman in love and then in fear who, scene by scene and with palpable tenderness, takes over the film as Will gobbles up the world.

To an extent, “Transcendence” can be filed alongside other movies about fanaticism that have emerged since Sept. 11. Yet, for all its topical gloss and technobabble, it also draws from older, familiar preoccupations about the nature of being, which, along with Mr. Pfister’s eye and largely smooth handling of his actors, accounts for its modest pleasures.

However predictable and ridiculous, the film raises the question of what — as the machines rise — makes us human and why, which certainly gives you more to chew on at the multiplex than is customary these days. In “Frankenstein,” the monster tells his creator, “I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel.” This is the warning that pulses through many dystopian fictions and which here finds another beat.

“Transcendence” is rated PG-13. (Parents strongly cautioned.) Dystopian violence.

‘Transcendence’ ponders as it propels

Wally Pfister’s sci-fi thriller ‘Transcendence,’ starring Rebecca Hall, Johnny Depp and Paul Bettany, consulted neuroscience and nanotechnology experts to tell its artificial-intelligence tale.


Shortly before he began shooting his new artificial-intelligence thriller “Transcendence” last year, filmmaker Wally Pfister flew Jose Carmena and Michel Maharbiz, a pair of UC Berkeley scientists, to his office in Los Angeles. Professional consultants are common on Hollywood movies, but they’re not usually this advanced — Carmena studies neuroscience and Maharbiz is a nanotechnology specialist — and even fewer go deep into the weeds with directors.

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Wally Pfister's sci-fi thriller 'Transcendence,' starring Rebecca Hall, Johnny Depp and Paul Bettany, consulted neuroscience and nanotechnology experts to tell its artificial-intelligence tale.


Shortly before he began shooting his new artificial-intelligence thriller "Transcendence" last year, filmmaker Wally Pfister flew Jose Carmena and Michel Maharbiz, a pair of UC Berkeley scientists, to his office in Los Angeles. Professional consultants are common on Hollywood movies, but they're not usually this advanced — Carmena studies neuroscience and Maharbiz is a nanotechnology specialist — and even fewer go deep into the weeds with directors.

For ‎10 hours, the men pored over the script with the intensity of lab researchers on the verge of a major discovery. They discussed the density of brain signals, the limits of nanotechnology and the vexing problem of defining consciousness scientifically.

"We went through line by line, hitting on a technical topic and just going through it with Wally and his team," said Maharbiz, whose journal articles come with titles such as "Can We Build Synthetic, Multicellular Systems By Controlling Developmental Signaling in Space and Time?" "I've almost never seen people want to understand it at that level," he added.

Science-fiction movies have looked at the possibility and peril of artificial intelligence since HAL sought to destroy Dave Bowman in "2001: A Space Odyssey" back in 1968. Sarah Connor would of course later try to beat back the malicious plans of Skynet in the Terminator" franchise, and Hugo Weaving's coolly robotic Agent Smith proved a slippery foe for Neo and friends in "The Matrix."

But few in this subgenre have examined the theme with the level of scientific rigor — or, for that matter, the emotionally inflected story line — of "Transcendence." Thanks to the emerging intelligence of digital creations, Pfister and screenwriter Jack Paglen are able to indulge in a science fiction that, while fantastical, is both plausible and plausibly human.

Written by first-timer Paglen and marking the directorial debut of Pfister, the Oscar-winning cinematographer and longtime Christopher Nolan collaborator, "Transcendence" concerns an artificial-intelligence researcher named Evelyn Caster (Rebecca Hall) who uploads the consciousness of her husband and professional partner Will (Johnny Depp) just before he dies from a gunshot wound inflicted by an anti-technology radical. She is hardly engaging in disinterested science: Will is the love of her life, and the possibility that a digital replica can keep him with her is too powerful to resist, no matter the consequences.

In the ensuing weeks, the entity voiced and embodied by Will not only gains consciousness but evolves past the point of mere human abilities, engaging in superhuman activity in the interest of bettering society (he says). In the process, the digital Will provoke fear — maybe justified, maybe not — on the part of the couple's close friend, the fellow researcher Max (Paul Bettany), as well as a swelling cadre of government authorities fearful of a force they can't control.

With its action set pieces and propulsive plot, the $100-million-budget "Transcendence" is an unmistakably Hollywood confection. Yet with its slowed-down moments hashing out questions of digital consciousness and human evolution, it also puts complex philosophical issues at the fore.‎ ‎The film essentially offers the man-vs.-machine tension of "The Matrix" — only this time there's a decent chance we should be rooting for the machine.

This is not 'point the laser and zap the guy to death.' These are real human beings faced with something large," Depp said. "It's something the audience is really meant to ponder."

At a moment when sophisticated computer assistants like Siri are a part of everyday life, the movie poses timely questions. Can technology be harnessed to improve our lives or is it a force, once unleashed, that can't be controlled? Is our current, human-centric form of existence one that future generations will see as idyllic or primitive?

In a culture of big-budget moviemaking that tends to investigate socially relevant issues years after the fact, if it does so at all, "Transcendence" looks forward, asking questions we will soon be forced to think about — and, for all the movie's entertainment value, implicitly urges us to start thinking about them now.

Despite the theoretical premise, the movie is also set in a world that looks like the one we inhabit today. "I wanted it to feel like science fiction but contemporary science fiction, with as few leaps as possible," Paglen said. "The root question is how far would you go to save your loved one, and that's going to be more pressing if it looks and feels like our world."

Or as Hall put it, "This is set in a world I know. This isn't tinfoil helmets and spaceships."

Real considerations

Some may have yet to become intimately familiar with concepts like the singularity or a transhumanist future. Chances are, though, that our great-grandchildren will. Or perhaps our great-grandbots.

The idea of the singularity — investigated by scientists such as San Diego State's Vernor Vinge and popularized by the author and Google futurist Ray Kurzweil — argues that computer technology is evolving so fast it will eventually enhance or combine with human consciousness.

How this great meld will happen is a matter of debate. Humans may incorporate digital technology into their cognitive processes as a Darwinian hedge, says one school of thought. Or consciousness could be uploaded ‎to machines. But whatever the method, the questions are rich. At bottom, they ask both how they will change our lives and what it will mean to be human.

Carmena and Maharbiz are skeptical of anything too radical happening quickly — though they admire the brio of the film they worked on and visited the set for ("It does a great job of exploring the tension between the ground truth of science and what could be the science-fiction consequences," Marhabiz said)-- ultimately Carmena articulates their belief that "No one knows what consciousness is, and that's what makes this all so difficult."

 

‘Transcendence’: From the Camera to the Big Chair

Top cinematographer Wally Pfister moves to directing.

By the time he won an Academy Award in 2011 for his eye­popping photography in the Christopher Nolan film “Inception,” Wally Pfister already was one of Hollywood’s pre­eminent cinematographers—and he was already preparing to give up the job forever.

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Top cinematographer Wally Pfister moves to directing.

By the time he won an Academy Award in 2011 for his eye­popping photography in the Christopher Nolan film "Inception," Wally Pfister already was one of Hollywood's pre­eminent cinematographers—and he was already preparing to give up the job forever.

After 20 years of focusing camera lenses, framing shots and lighting scenery for other directors, he wanted to see if he could direct a movie of his own. Mr. Pfister recently had finished filming "Moneyball" for director Bennett Miller, and he still needed to shoot "The Dark Knight Rises" for Mr. Nolan, their third Batman film and seventh collaboration since they first got together to make the daring "Memento" in 2000. But he was ready for a change. Mr. Pfister hired a new agent to help him secure directing gigs, and he was reading potential scripts.

"I was really looking for something that I thought was worth quitting the day job for," says Mr. Pfister, now 52. "There were only two scripts that I really, really loved. One was 'The Fighter' and one was 'Captain Phillips,' neither of which were within my reach as a first­time director. And then this script came along."

The script he chose, to transform himself from director of photography to simply director, was called, maybe fittingly, "Transcendence." The film, which opens on April 18, is a science­fiction thriller starring Johnny Depp as a super­genius artificial­intelligence programmer. The story is inspired by futurist Ray Kurzweil's forecasts of a coming moment called "the singularity," when human intelligence will transcend the primitive biological limits of the brain by merging with computer power and data.

"It was a bigger­size picture than I thought I wanted to do," Mr. Pfister says. "But I really was taken by the material and felt it was timely and I could handle it."

Directors come to the top job from various directions. Many direct right out of film school. Plenty of actors and screenwriters have moved into the director's chair. Surprisingly few cinematographers have. Filmmakers are hard­pressed to name more than a few, like Nicolas Roeg and Barry Sonnenfeld. The feeling is that cinematographers might be so focused on capturing imagery that they might not see the bigger picture of a movie's narrative and pacing.

"We're less editorial," says Matthew Libatique, cinematographer for films including "Noah" and "Black Swan" (he's not involved with "Transcendence"). "A cinematographer approaches a film in a way that is image­oriented, so we would naturally tell a story with less shots, letting the shot in the frame tell more of the story. Directors have an editorial mind. They may tell the story by cutting. If they don't get quite what they want in performance, they'll cut that performance together."

Mr. Pfister's father was a TV news producer, and after high school, Wally got a job as TV news production assistant, then cameraman. He was on the job in Washington, D.C., in 1988 when the director Robert Altman came to make the political mockumentary series "Tanner '88," and Pfister did some camera work

for the show.

"I got the bug for dramatic stuff," Mr. Pfister says. Still, he was trained in using the camera to explain what's happening: "Even as a news cameraman, we'd say, how can we best tell the story? Oh, there's a train wreck, and the police have responded. But how big is this train wreck? So you step back and get a wide shot to show it's 16 cars long. It's storytelling in images."

Mr. Pfister went to Los Angeles, then worked for producer Roger Corman, whose low­budget films have served as basic­training camp for so many filmmakers.

"They were cranking out so much product. You did a little bit of everything. I worked as a grip, as an

electrician, and then finally got my chance to shoot," Mr. Pfister says.

His first job as director of photography, aka cinematographer, was on "The Unborn" (1991), a B­movie about a murderous fetus.

He stepped down to work as a camera operator, then won a cinematographer job on an independent film which wound up at the Sundance Film Festival in 1999. That's how he met Christopher Nolan, whose noirish first film, "Following," was playing nearby at Slamdance. Not long after, Mr. Nolan hired Mr. Pfister to shoot "Memento."

"I think he probably liked the fact that I felt strongly that cinematography had to serve the story and shouldn't grandstand," Mr. Pfister says. They also shared a passion for shooting movies on real 35mm film (they're among the last holdouts who shun digital cameras) and for "naturalistic" film photography, avoiding the look of artificial lighting and stylized light effects. This often means natural sunshine but also can get very dark, using table lamps or overhead lights that would exist in a real place to light actors. Mr. Pfister adores the frequently dark work of Gordon Willis, who filmed many 1970s classics.

"The story goes that Willis was shooting 'The Godfather' for Francis Coppola, and Paramount wanted to fire him when they saw dailies, because they couldn't believe that this cinematographer was not lighting

Marlon Brando's eyes," Mr. Pfister says, calling it "painting with light, our 20th century version of a Rembrandt or a Vermeer." He loves that "All The President's Men" partly tells its story with lighting: "The bright, endless florescent environment in the newsroom, juxtaposed with the dark, shadowy space of the car park where he's meeting Deep Throat," he marvels.

"Memento," like "Inception," is a mind­bending story and Mr. Pfister's camera work is called upon to help. "Memento" is about a man (Guy Pearce) who can't form new memories and is forced to rely on notes, photos and daily routines to solve a murder. Many scenes are presented in reverse order. Every shot requires the viewer to observe details and sequences of events along with Mr. Pearce: a motel key with a room number, a Polaroid of a motel sign, a car parking in the motel lot.

When Mr. Pfister saw the script for"Transcendence," it reminded him of thought­provoking science fiction movies of the 1970s like "Westworld," "Solyent Green,""The Andromeda Strain" and others. "They would scare you and shock you, and you'd walk out of the theater wondering if this could really happen."

One of Mr. Pfister's most careful decisions was bringing in a cinematographer to work for him.

"He didn't want to be the cinematographer, but he wanted an organic extension of himself," says Kate Cohen, one of the film's producers. Mr. Pfister saw the cinematography of Jess Hall while watching the Charles Darwin story "Creation" in checking out actor Paul Bettany, and decided he'd found the right guy, another filmmaker devoted to storytelling and naturalism.

Mr. Hall admits: "When I first heard about the possibility of meeting him on this, I was a little bit apprehensive, because we've all heard the stories about DPs who become directors who sort of torture their cinematographers."

Mr. Pfister did his best to not meddle. "There were times I noticed that he had to tweak the lights, because he couldn't help himself," recalls Morgan Freeman, who worked on three Batman films with Mr. Pfister as cinematographer and now on "Transcendence."

"I probably did throw in a few suggestions here and there," Mr. Pfister admits. "And occasionally picked up the camera and put it on my shoulder for shots."

Mr. Hall says it didn't bother him too much. "There was input. If you've had a 20­year career as a cinematographer, your brain is programmed to react to things," he says. "But we had an amazing shorthand. I could say, I'm thinking of exposing this scene like this, and he'd say that's perfect, or you might want to think about that, because this is a real performance moment and I need to be lighting the actor's eyes."

One sequence, when they are uploading the brain of Mr. Depp' s scientist character onto a computer, kept Mr. Pfister awake at night. The emotion was tricky for Mr. Betanny and Rebecca Hall, who play the scientist's best buddy and wife, respectively.

"I'm telling the audience, OK, they've taken this man's brain, they've uploaded the data to hard drives. And now we've gotta make him come back as Johnny Depp? It was a very intimidating bit of storytelling," Mr. Pfister says. "As a director in those particular scenes "I really didn't care what the camera was doing."