“The Master Class series is in keeping with the Museum’s mission to not only show the best moving image works, but also to explore the creative and collaborative process,” said executive director Carl Goodman.
Friedberg will discuss and show how he created the physical environments of films as wide-ranging as The Darjeeling Limited (2007), The Ice Storm (1997), and Pollock (2000). Following the program, at 6:00 p.m., he will introduce a screening of Synecdoche, New York (2008), the dreamlike film written and directed by Charlie Kaufman for which Friedberg designed an elaborate facsimile of New York City within a warehouse.
Synecdoche, New York features Philip Seymour Hoffman as a theater director who attempts to create an alternate-reality New York City within a warehouse, giving Friedberg one of his most challenging projects. For the design of this imaginative film, Friedberg created sets of vast scale as well as intimate spaces that reflect the emotional truth of the film’s characters.
Mark Friedberg has collaborated with directors including Todd Haynes, Wes Anderson, Ang Lee, Julie Taymor, Jim Jarmusch, Mira Nair, Ed Harris and Jodie Foster. Trained as an artist, Friedberg has brought his inventive sensibility to a wide range of independent films.
In this two-hour program, presented with clips, he will discuss how he created the elaborate sets on a moving train in The Darjeeling Limited, represented Depression-era California while filming Mildred Pierce in New York, oversaw the creation of hundreds of paintings for Pollock, and transformed a flood-ruined town for Ride with the Devil.
The Moving Image Master Class series offers media professionals and general audiences alike an insider’s view of working in film, television, and video-game production. The series is organized by collection curator Barbara Miller and moderated by chief curator David Schwartz.
For more information, visit: http://www.movingimage.us/visit/calendar/2012/03/25/detail/moving-image-master-class-with-mark-friedberg
