Alexandre O. Philippe is a Swiss American film director whose films include the documentaries Doc of the Dead, The People vs. George Lucas, and 78/52.[1][2] Philippe is Creative Director and co-owner of Denver-based Cinema Vertige and his most recent commissioned work for the City of Denver garnered four Heartland Emmy Awards.[3]
Alexandre O. Philippe | |
|---|---|
 Philippe in 2012 | |
| Born | Geneva, Switzerland |
| Nationality | Swiss |
| Citizenship | Swiss |
| Education | MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts |
| Alma mater | New York University |
| Occupation | Director |
| Years active | 2000–present |
Career
editPhillippe received a MFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.[3] He has directed several narrative and documentary shorts, including Left, the Spot and Inside, which screened at over 70 international film festivals, and won several awards. Left was the first film to have been recorded, edited and mixed at 192 kHz/24-bit for Dolby’s process of lossless encoding in TrueHD 5.1 surround sound technology, and was honoured by the Akira Kurosawa Foundation in Japan. The People vs. George Lucas was his third feature documentary, after Chick Flick (about Mike the Headless Chicken) and Earthlings, an examination of the Klingon language phenomenon. He was also Second Unit Director on Dirk Simon’s When the Dragon Swallowed the Sun ), which premiered at the 2010 Santa Barbara International Film Festival, won three Movie Maverick Awards.
Phillippe's 2017 documentary 78/52 deconstructs the infamous shower scene from director Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.[4] Film critic Owen Gleiberman of Variety remarked "78/52 centers on an up-close analysis of the shower scene that’s at once delirious and definitive; the movie is also a cinematic meditation that features a wealth of terrific anecdotes about the creation of Hitchcock’s masterpiece."[5] The documentary features interviews with actors Elijah Wood and Jamie Lee Curtis (daughter of star Janet Leigh), Osgood Perkins (son of Anthony Perkins), directors Peter Bogdanovich, Guillermo del Toro, Eli Roth, Karyn Kusama, film editors Walter Murch, Chris Innis, Bob Murawski, and Marli Renfro (body double for Janet Leigh). The title refers to the number of set ups in the scene and the number of cuts, each one dissected and analyzed by film historians and enthusiasts.[2] Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times reviewed the film, expressing that it is "obsessive but accessible, the deepest dive imaginable into one of the most celebrated scenes in movie history, the documentary 78/52 looks at a brief three minutes of cinema the way it's never been looked at before."[6]
Film
edit- 2003: Chick Flick: The Miracle Mike Story (Documentary)
- 2004: Earthlings: Ugly Bags of Mostly Water (Documentary)
- 2006: Left (Short)
- 2008: The Spot (Documentary short)
- 2009: Inside (Short)
- 2010: The People vs. George Lucas (Documentary)
- 2011: The Right to Breathe (Documentary short)
- 2012: The Life and Times of Paul the Psychic Octopus (Documentary)
- 2014: Doc of the Dead (Documentary)
- 2017: 78/52 (Documentary) - Distributed by IFC[2]
- 2019: Memory: The Origins of Alien (Documentary)[7]
- 2020: Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist (Documentary)[8]
- 2021: The Taking[9]
- 2022: Lynch/Oz (Documentary)[10]
- 2023: William Shatner: You Can Call Me Bill (Documentary)[11]
- 2024: Chain Reactions (Documentary)
References
edit- ^ Filmmaker Magazine - Alexandre O. Phillipe
- ^ a b c Fleming, Mike Jr. (2017-01-28). "IFC Midnight Grabs '78/52′, Dissection Of 'Psycho' Shower Scene – Sundance". Deadline. Retrieved 2017-10-20.
- ^ a b "Alexandre O. Philippe". peoplevsgeorge.com The People Vs. George Lucas official web site. Retrieved 2017-10-20.
- ^ RogerEbert.com "Hot Docs Interview 2017: Alexandre O. Philippe on '78/52'" by Matt Fagerholm May 5, 2017
- ^ Variety Film Review: "78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene’ A hypnotic film-geek doc about the 'Psycho' shower scene digs deep into the mystique of the Hitchcock film that shook the world" by Owen Gleiberman January 24, 2017
- ^ Turan, Kenneth. "'78/52' brilliantly, obsessively breaks down shower scene in 'Psycho'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2017-10-20.
- ^ Patches, Matt (January 29, 2019). "An elaborate, new Alien documentary reminds us that video essays are a legitimate art". Polygon. Retrieved February 3, 2019.
- ^ "'Leap of Faith' Takes a Deep Dive into 'The Exorcist'". 20 November 2020.
- ^ DeFore, John (30 September 2021). "'The Taking': Film Review | Fantastic Fest 2021". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 26 March 2023.
- ^ DeFore, John (9 June 2022). "'Lynch/Oz': Film Review | Tribeca 2022". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 26 March 2023.
- ^ Fienberg, Daniel (17 March 2023). "'You Can Call Me Bill' Review: Pensive Doc Shows a Different Side of William Shatner". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 26 March 2023.