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This story originally ran in an April 1974 issue of Rolling Stone.

In Peru, one kept a daily journal; now Kristofferson bends grinning over its pages, on which, in the winter of ’70, Andes mud spilled and dried like blood spots. “Hell,” he offers rurally, “wouldn’t surprise me none you said it was blood.”

One had gone there to write about the making, or rather, wresting from the soil, of Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie; Kris, totally unknown then, was doing the film’s score. Rain hung over the Andes...

Rusty Golden, the son of The Oak Ridge Boys’ William Lee Golden who went on to his own successful career as a country and gospel music songwriter and instrumentalist, died July 1, at his home in Hendersonville, Tennessee. He was 65.

A cause of death was not disclosed.

“This is the hardest thing ever for a father to have to face,” said William Lee Golden in a statement announcing his son’s death. “I love my family more than anything. Rusty was a great musician, a talented songwriter, and a wonderful son. We appreciate your thoughts and prayers for the days ahead. I love you, son.”

Born William Lee Golden Jr., on January 3, 1959, in Brewton, Al, Golden was called Rusty while still a baby, and the name stuck. By age 12 he already was a proficient drummer and at 13 began playing professionally as a member of The Rambos, featuring the songwriter Dottie Rambo.

Exclusive: Price Productions has wrapped production on Mad Props, a new feature documentary featuring iconic actors Robert Englund (A Nightmare on Elm Street), Lance Henriksen (Aliens), Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler) and more.

The film from director Juan Pablo Reinoso is said to follow a handsome nerd as he journeys the globe to turn the conventional art world on its head, proving to historians and critics alike that movie props are as important an art form as the greatest paintings and sculptures in history.

Keli Price produced for Price Productions, along with Reinoso and LookBook Films’ Melanie Sweeney, with Tom Biolchini and Colin Tucker serving as EPs. Englund is repped by Third Hill Entertainment, Jr Talent Group and Miloknay Weiner; Henriksen by APA and Henriksen Talent Management; Rourke by APA, Framework Entertainment and Edelstein, Laird & Sobel; and Price by Revenant Entertainment and Yorn, Levine, Barnes.

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Exclusive: Quiver Distribution has acquired North...

Twenty years ago, Marty Stuart found himself at a creative crossroads. Having straddled the lines of bluegrass, traditional country, rock, and even gospel music, Stuart shifted his priorities at the end of the decade and millenium, focusing his efforts on a project that would lead him, in his words, “to the outer edge of the awakenings of my true musical heart and soul.” The Pilgrim was a concept record based on the real life of Norman, a man in Stuart’s hometown of Philadelphia, Mississippi, and the tangled romantic tale...

As the 1990s were coming to a close, musician Marty Stuart was newly married – to fellow Grand Ole Opry member Connie Smith – and looking back on a 10-year period that would afford him his greatest commercial success. His final record of the decade, The Pilgrim, while among his poorest selling at the time, has since become one of the country music Renaissance man’s most significant contributions to the genre, changing the trajectory of Stuart’s musical output and growing in stature since its release 20 years ago. A sweeping, yet...

Marty Stuart has lined up three all-star evenings with entirely different themes for his stint as the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s Artist-in-Residence, which begins September 11th in Nashville. Joining the singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist throughout the series of intimate shows are fellow performers including Chris and Morgan Stapleton, Old Crow Medicine Show, John Prine, and Emmylou Harris.

The first of the three evenings, titled “The Pilgrim,” will take place September 11th and celebrate the 20th anniversary of Stuart’s album The Pilgrim. Joining him for the evening...

Marty Stuart’s dedication as one of greatest ambassadors and preservationists has earned him the honor of being named the latest artist-in-residence at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Stuart, the 16th performer to participate in the museum’s prestigious program, will curate a series of three shows, producing and performing in them with his band, the Fabulous Superlatives, and musical guests. Set for September 11th, 18th and 25th, each show will carry a specific theme.

On September 11th, Stuart will celebrate the re-release of his 10th studio album,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSCharlie Chaplin in The Pilgrim (1923).Happy New Year! Thanks to the Sonny Bono Copyright Act, all copyrighted American works from 1923 have entered the public domain, legally allowing for re-publication and re-use. This includes Cecil B. DeMille's silent version of The Ten Commandments, and Charlie Chaplin's The Pilgrim.Two legends, directors Ringo Lam and Mrinal Sen, have passed away past week. Lam was a trailblazing member of the Hong Kong New Wave in the 1980s, while Mrinal Sen helped to usher in a new wave of filmmaking in India alongside Satyajit Ray. Recommended VIEWINGActor-comedian turned auteur Jordan Peele has swiftly produced his followup horror film to his unanimously celebrated Get Out. Here's the ambiguous yet stirring first trailer for Us.Janus Films have gracefully restored Jackie Chan's death defying Police Story films, in which he brilliantly stars,...

Films by Charlie Chaplin, Cecil B. DeMille, and Buster Keaton are among the “hundreds of thousands” of books, musical scores, and motion pictures that will enter the public domain on January 1, according to The Atlantic. All of the works were first made available to audiences in 1923, four years before the introduction of talkies. Due to changed copyright laws, this will be the largest collection of material to lose its copyright protections since 1998.

Artists looking to incorporate black-and-white era throwbacks into their modern creations will have lots of new options. The Atlantic consulted unpublished research from Duke University School of Law’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain, which shared with IndieWire a list of 35 films that will soon become available to all.

“Our list is therefore only a partial one; many more works are entering the public domain as well, but the relevant information to confirm this may...

CA Lejeune on Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and the art of slapstick comedy

It is one of the kinema’s little ironies that among all the makers of comic films there is not to be found a single man who works with comedy as his touchstone. I am not forgetting Chaplin. “The Pilgrim” is indeed my immediate text. But Chaplin, who alone can raise laughter at his will, who is the only complete pantomimist on the screen to-day, and hence the only master of his art, has done what he has simply because he is not what he seems to be. The comic artist is not the ultimate Chaplin. If it were so his universality would localise. We might admire the comedian Chaplin - must admire him for his delicate craftsmanship, - but we should not cherish him. Enthusiasts have called him a tragedian, but neither is he this, his...

By Mireille Latil-Le-Dantec. Originally published in Cinématographe, no. 35, February 1978 in an issue with a Chaplin dossier.

Translation by Ted Fendt. Thanks to Marie-Pierre Duhamel.

The Chaplinesque Quest

The overbearing weight of interpretative studies devoted to Chaplin makes any pretension to some "fresh look" at a universe already studied from every angle seem absurd from the outset. At least, on the occasion of the homages currently being made in theaters to the little man who would become so big, a few fragmentary re-viewings more modestly allow for the rediscovery of the thematic unity of this body of work and the inanity of any artificial divide between the "excellent" Charlie films and the "mediocre" Chaplin films – a divide corresponding, of course, to the event which his art was not supposed to have survived: the appearance of those talkies that – in the excellent company of Eisenstein, Pudovkin, René Clair and many others – he...

Director Robert Altman.

Robert Altman: Eclectic Maverick

By

Alex Simon

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the April 1999 issue of Venice Magazine.

It's the Fall of 1977 and I'm a bored and rebellious ten year old in search of a new movie to occupy my underworked and creativity-starved brain, feeling far too mature for previous favorites Wily Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) and Return of the Pink Panther (1975), and wanting something more up-to-date and edgy than Chaplin's City Lights (1931). I needed a movie to call my favorite that would be symbolic of my own new-found manhood (and something that would really piss off my parents and teachers). Mom and Dad were going out for the evening, leaving me with whatever unfortunate baby-sitter happened to need the $10 badly enough to play mother hen to an obnoxiously precocious only child like myself. I scanned the TV Guide for what...

Clara Bow, known as the "It" Girl, stars in the appropriately titled It Part III of Moguls & Movie Stars, A History of Hollywood, "The Dream Merchants," narrated by Christopher Plummer, continues today (a rerun of Monday's presentation) on Turner Classic Movies. Accompanying features and shorts focus on 1920s comedies. Charles Chaplin's The Pilgrim is on right now. Following "The Dream Merchants," TCM will show two Buster Keaton comedies: the short One Week and the feature Steamboat Bill Jr.; Harold Lloyd's best-remembered effort, Safety Last!; the Marion Davies vehicle Show People; the Clara Bow vehicle It (in which Gary Cooper has a bit part); and the Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle short Fools' Luck. I'm usually not a silent-comedy fan. I've seen nearly all of the movies listed above, and my favorite by far — despite its dragged-out last third — is King Vidor's Show People, in which Marion Davies does a...

This past May, the Criterion Collection e-mail newsletter announced that Janus Films had acquired the rights to distribute the works of Charlie Chaplin theatrically. We all celebrated in the notion that we would be able to hopefully see new clean prints of his incredible body of work, as well as the idea that these titles would inevitably make their way into the Criterion Collection.

Whether these titles would be available individually, in box sets (either in Criterion proper, or in the Eclipse Series), or some combination of the two, we still have not heard a definitive statement from Criterion. It is highly likely that we’ll get an announcement for either November or December, as many would love a complete Charlie Chaplin box set to find it’s way onto their holiday wish list.

Last month, Janus unveiled a poster image, as a placeholder on their website for an upcoming Charlie Chaplin sub-site,...

In the May e-mail newsletter from Criterion, they announced that Janus had acquired the rights to the entire Charlie Chaplin catalog, causing cinephiles everywhere to collectively hold their breath at the prospect of adding the film legend into the Collection.

On June 19th, the American Cinematheque will be screening The Gold Rush along with several other Chaplin short films, courtesy of Janus Films. This past week, we saw another piece of Chaplin news, in that the film A Thief Catcher was discovered in an Antique Sale. The film features an extended cameo from Chaplin. It is unknown at this point where the rights to this film lie, and it is doubtful that it is part of the licensing deal that Janus has with the Chaplin catalog. A Thief Catcher represents the 82 film in his official filmography, which spanned from 1914 through 1967.

To celebrate Janus’ upcoming screening run, and eventual release in the Criterion Collection,...

...this moment in Modern Times is near perfection. For those that don't know what's going on in the scene, he had the lyrics to the song he was supposed to sing on his cuffs, which you will notice fly off almost immediately. One thing interesting about the song Chaplin sings is that it is the first time you hear the Tramp's voice as he sings "Je cherche apres Titine" in French/Italian gibberish but his actions lead the audience to understand what he is supposed to be singing about entirely. If you are yet to familiarize yourself with Chaplin or are looking for a refresher course on April 16 TCM is set to run 10 Chaplin films in a row including Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914), A Dog's Life (1918), A Day's Pleasure (1919), The Kid (1921), Pay Day (1922), A Woman of Paris (1923), The Gold Rush (1925), Modern Times (1936), The Great Dictator (1940), A King in New York (1957) and...