The Dutch postal service asks for a brand new kind of stamp from KesselsKramer and Corbijn, who directed music videos for Nirvana and Depeche mode.

Anton Corbijn’s latest film is so tiny it fits on a stamp. Literally.

Corbijn, the Dutch director who gave the world Nirvana in a field of dangling baby fetuses, Depeche Mode looking like a bunch of street toughs, and George Clooney as a conflicted assassin, has produced a 1-second hologram that appears on a stamp for Holland’s postal service TNT. The holo-film was produced at the behest of the ad agency KesselsKramer, and it features hottie Carice van Houten — the nation’s most famous actress — in front of a windmill chomping down on some guy’s… finger.

“It’s Anton Corbijn’s finger,” KesselsKramer’s Kyra Müller clarifies. “We asked him to shoot this film, and what happened was a sort of spontaneous interaction between the director and the actress. It was completely on the spot.”

The stamp came about after the postal service enlisted KesselsKramer to deliver “a brand new idea for a stamp,” Müller says. So KesselsKramer turned to Corbijn who reinterpreted a 1951 stamp that shows a sweet little Dutch girl smiling in front of a windmill. Corbijn’s version, which shifts depending on your viewpoint, is, as Müller puts it, “the same stamp with a little bit of a naughty twist.”

The film is made up of 30 stills that run together sort of like a flipbook, in something known as a lenticular print. (Just like those Cracker Jack sticker animations, but a bit more advanced these days.) KesselsKramer calls it “the world’s smallest and shortest film.” That may be a stretch, but then again how many animated holograms have you seen that were created by award-winning directors?

TNT postal service printed 350,000 stamps. They’re for sale at post offices across the country.

Source: Fast Company’s Co.Design

With interviews from Kurt Cobain, Michael Stipe, Samantha Morton, Bono and Dave Gahan, along with insights from Corbijn, the documentary takes a mostly linear and ideological approach to exploring the photographer and director. Bono and Gahan talk about how he constructed their celebrity image, photographing the infamous Joshua Tree cover and directing videos for ‘One,’ ‘Personal Jesus’ and ‘Enjoy the Silence,’ while Michael Stipe praises the genius of much of his work, in particular the ‘I Feel You’ video.

Clips from the many videos, along with lingering shots on his photography, keep things from devolving into a talking head commentary, progressing towards events more recent, such as the helming of the feature film Control, the biopic about Joy Division’s Ian Curtis.

If there is a flaw to this engaging and breezy doc it’s that it’s all praise and no dissection. Sure, it’s cool to talk about Corbijn’s critically praised film and his videos for Henry Rollins and Metallica, but never once do they mention that he also directed videos for Naomi Campbell’s ‘Love & Tears’ and that horrifying Bryan Adams song from Don Juan DeMarco: ‘Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?’

This is typically the case when the subject is involved in the work and the celebrity stakes are high, and it’s fine, but it doesn’t make for particularly insightful or cutting edge viewing. That said, they do manage to articulate just what it is that’s so appealing, funny and deeply sad about his visionary work, which should be enough for those already keen on the subject.

Source: exclaim.ca

Synopsis: Alone among assassins, Jack (played by Mr. Clooney) is a master craftsman. When a job in Sweden ends more harshly than expected for this American abroad, he vows to his contact Larry (Bruce Altman of this fall’s Peter and Vandy) that his next assignment will be his last. Jack reports to the Italian countryside, where he holes up in a small town and relishes being away from death for a spell. The assignment, as specified by a Belgian woman, Mathilde (Thekla Reuten of Focus’ award-winning In Bruges), is in the offing as a weapon is constructed. Surprising himself, Jack seeks out the friendship of local priest Father Benedetto (Italian screen and stage veteran Paolo Bonacelli) and pursues romance with local woman Clara (Italian leading lady Violante Placido). But by stepping out of the shadows, Jack may be tempting fate.

‘Control’-the story of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, who committed suicide at 23 – marks the feature-film directing debut of rock photographer Anton Corbijn and features a star-making performance from British unknown Sam Riley.

The ingredients are familiar-a soupcon of sex, a dash of drugs, a blast of rock ‘n’ roll. But -‘Control’, which opened the film festival’ss Directors’s Fortnight on Thursday, is far from a standard showbiz biopic.

Shot in stark black-and-white and set in gritty, unglamorous 1970s England, it re-creates the life of a singer who died unhappy and almost unknown but has secured a place in rock mythology.

The part came out of the blue for Riley, 27, who had abandoned an acting career to take an unsuccessful shot at fame with his band 10,000 Things.

“I don’t think we ever troubled the charts,” he said drily.

When Riley heard about auditions for the film, “I was working in a warehouse in Leeds, folding shirts.”

If the enthusiastic reception in Cannes is any indication, Riley can give up the day job. He is riveting as Curtis, an intense, charismatic performer who often appeared remote offstage.

Netherlands-born Corbijn, who turns 52 on Sunday, photographed Joy Division for British music magazines and went on to design album covers for Depeche Mode and U2. He said he knew as soon as he met Riley that he was perfect for the part.

When he moved to Britain in 1979, Corbijn said he was shocked by the country’s austerity and poverty.

“A lot of bands I met, including Joy Division, were kind of underdressed-a thin coat on, smoking and shivering in the cold,” he said. “When I met Sam it was also in the winter and he was totally the same.”

Pale and big-eyed, Riley resembles Curtis-but more importantly, said Corbijn, he “had an innocence and a freshness that I was hoping for but never thought I would find.”

Fans of music from the English city of Manchester, especially those who have seen Michael Winterbottom’s ‘24 Hour Party People’, will recognize the film’s milieu. It is set in northern England in the late 1970s, a place of gray skies and grim prospects that produced a slew of original and innovative bands, from the Buzzcocks to The Fall.

One of the most original was Joy Division, which melded guitars and electronica with Curtis’s baritone voice to create striking songs like ‘Transmission’ and ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’. They never hit the big time. Curtis, troubled by a failing marriage and worsening epilepsy, killed himself in 1980, on the eve of the band’s first U.S. tour.

Since then, Joy Division has been cited as an influence by Nine Inch Nails and U2, among others. The surviving band members went on to found ’80s hitmakers New Order.

Adapted from a memoir by Curtis’ widow Deborah-played in the film by Samantha Morton – ‘Control’ is an intense but far from grim experience. Shot through with down-to-earth northern English humor, it features a soundtrack that runs from David Bowie and Roxy Music to the Sex Pistols. Joy Division’s songs were convincingly re-created for the film by the actors, who all played their own instruments.

The other film flying the flag for rock ‘n’ roll at Cannes is the multicolored opposite of ‘Control’. The rockumentary ‘U2 3D’, which premieres Saturday, promises to let audiences see Bono, The Edge and bandmates, not only in color, but in eye-popping 3D.

Corbijn-who captured U2 in black and white for the ‘Joshua Tree’ album cover-said he never considered shooting his Joy Division film in color.

“My whole memory of that period is black and white,” he said. “There is basically no color photography of that band around. So it felt very proper to the project.”

Source: The Associated Press

Williams, in particular, felt it crucial to find a director whom both Deborah and the surviving members of Joy Division could trust. Though Anton Corbijn had yet to direct a full feature film, the Dutchman’s credentials were impeccable. In 1980 he moved from Holland to Britain specifically to photograph the group, his iconic shots for NME launching a career that would see him in the 80’s and beyond become first choice lensman for U2, Depeche Mode and R.E.M.

Indeed it was non other than Bono who told Williams at a party in 2004, “You’ve got to get Anton to direct this movie”.

“Initially, (Corbijn) did not want to make a film about a musician”, explains Williams. “But then he realized it wasn’t a conventional biopic, it was a love story.” Once on board the director’s first stipulation was that the film should be shot in moody black and white. The result, says Williams has an “abstract poetic, epic feel, but it’s not arty, its not a fever dream. Its traditionally mapped out- Antons a big fan of old English movies, he loves David Lean, Truffuant, Jim Jarmush, (Loach’s) Kes.”

Control – part-financed by Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore – has, it seems won some important fans. The surviving members of Joy Division saw a preview on November 28th, reporting to Mojo that they “very much approve of it and will be backing it 100%”. “Initially the group were disinterested in the film, but at the same time were intrigued and wanted to get involved” says Williams. “When we first met them backstage at a gig in Liverpool in 2005, Bernard said ‘Just have some fun with it.’ We did and the finished Movie is amazing.”

Control will be released in spring 2007, for more info go to www.controlthemovie.com

Source: Mojo