Despite last year’s exploit into the most successful, epic space opera film franchise of all time, Adam Driver remains without doubt the poster boy for the independent film industry. Rising to prominence as Adam Sackler in Lena Dunham’s HBO show Girls, for which he received three consecutive nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series, Driver’s stock has done nothing but rise, scoring roles in Scorsese’s epic-scale drama Silence, sci-fi winner Midnight Special and this year’s hungrily anticipated Star Wars: The Last Jedi. And yet despite these ventures into heavily produced Hollywood blockbusters, Driver remains heavily entrenched in the indie genre, delivering scene-stealing performances in now classic indie dramas Frances Ha, While We’re Young and Inside Llewyn Davies. The latest to add to that list is the titular, lead role in the beautiful celebration of small-time life, Paterson, which thankfully arrived on the BFI Player this week and can be viewed here. And so, what better time to explore the other Adam Driver indie gems that can be discovered on the BFI Player…

Paterson (2016)

Adam Driver is a bus driver named Paterson who lives in the town of Paterson, New Jersey in this new drama from renowned American indie auteur Jim Jarmusch. Golshifteh Farahani is Laura, a freelance artist, baker and homemaker. They live together in a small house with their bulldog Marvin. Married life has its rhythms and routines, with Paterson’s days taken up crisscrossing the city, overhearing snippets of passengers’ conversations, while evenings find him enjoying a post-dinner walk with his dog and a trip to the neighbourhood bar. Throughout, Paterson mulls over words, observing fragments of life and constructing verse for a series of poems he writes in a notebook in this tender, provocative portrait.

Driver hits a career high as our quiet everyman with a military past whose journeys are both physical and existential. Paterson is constantly attuned to the extraordinary and poetic, even in the smallest of gestures, offering a charming depiction of how lovers can co-exist and support each other’s creativity. The poems, by real-life poet Ron Padgett, are damn fine too.

Can be found in which BFI Player Collections? AMERICAN INDIE

http://player.bfi.org.uk/film/watch-paterson-2016/

Movie stunts are a main source of on-set movie magic that always leave the audience in awe. It’s no secret that stunt performers need to be flawless in their approach so they can jump into action on cue for an authentic, impressive performance. But even some of the most common stunts require hours of planning and careful attention to detail. Here’s how common stunts like high falls, stunt driving and martial arts are carefully constructed and performed by the professionals:

High Falls

High falls are a basic building block for stunt performers. Stuntmen must meet a minimum height of three stories before they can be hired. This dangerous stunt requires careful attention to set up and many additional precautions. Basic fall maneuvers include headers, a face off, back fall and suicide. For all these falls, a stuntman needs an airbag, spotter and box catchers. To perform a back fall, the key is to land safely on your back meaning every part of your body, from your head to your toes, at the same time.

If you land unevenly, you’re bound to get whiplash. The stuntman must provide a count to alert their spotter when they will fall and lunge off the three-story platform toward the mat mark. Stunts are most likely to go wrong if a stuntman experiences any sense of hesitation. But once the stunt can be performed in its most basic manner, stuntmen can add acting gestures with the fall, though they must always make sure they’re in proper position for a safe landing.

Stunt Driving

Stunt driving is one of the most thrilling stunts that takes into account the functional capacities of both the stuntman and an automobile. A good stuntman must design their car for high performance and safety. In fact, reliable tires are an essential component for safe stunt driving, as they are a major factor of the car’s ability to maneuver accurately at fast speeds. Different car stunts include fast driving maneuvers, accelerated weaving, car flips, high jumps, long jumps and car spins.

For a car spin maneuver on a front-wheel drive car to go smoothly, the driver must start at a speed of 30 mph on pavement. If the driver is on dirt, the speed should be around 15 mph. The driver should remove their right foot from the throttle quickly, gently touching the brake with the left foot. When drivers touch the brake, they must make sure their right foot is still positioned over the throttle. They can then turn the steering wheel sharply and pull the handbrake. As soon as the tail slides, you step your right foot back down on the gas.

Next, straighten the wheel and release the handbrake; then, turn the steering wheel in the desired direction, shift into first gear and apply full throttle. When drivers want to end the spin, they must take their foot off the gas and straighten the steering wheel. While the steps of this stunt seem simple, one shouldn’t attempt any car stunts until they’ve received training. There are specialty training schools that will teach and provide you certification to safely and effectively perform car stunts.

Martial Arts

Fight scenes are high action and high impact and are usually performed by martial arts professionals. Martial arts stunts require a lot of conditioning and care, as multiple bodies are in play. One of the most common martial arts movie stunts is the breakfall, which looks like a big slap and controlled leg position that takes down the opponent. Some of the most important safety points to keep in mind for this stunt are the chin tuck and maximizing surface area.

The stunt performer who is the falling opponent must make sure their chin is tucked so their head isn’t impacted when they are slammed into the ground. However, if the stuntman falls on their front side, they shouldn’t tuck their chin. They should, however, turn their face away from the ground. Surface area maximization has to do with body distribution, meaning your body should fall evenly on the surface so one area doesn’t take an disproportionate amount of weight during impact.

To sell the stunt, performers often do an exaggerated slap with their arms, take notice of their body language and control their facial expressions. The stunt requires little gear, as those who perform this martial arts stunt simply need low profile pads that will soften the surface. Martial arts and fighting stunts should always be taken up at a professional training center to minimize risk of injury and equip the aspiring stuntman with refined skills.

By Marti Dols Roca.

Ephialtes is the real name of the Greek citizen that betrayed the Spartans and revealed the secret path that led to the Thermopylae; however, he wasn’t a Spartan himself and he definitely wasn’t a hunchback. On the other hand, his betrayal did jeopardize indeed Leonidas’ plan and it almost cost the whole Greece and, as a consequence, the western world as we know it a massive defeat.

That being said, the 300 Spartan soldiers’ achievement did happen pretty much as it’s portrayed in Zack Snyder’s movie. The personal guard of the king of Sparta, alongside 7.000 free Greek men, managed to contain a 200.000 soldier army using the Thermopylae narrow path. Once Ephialtes did what he did and managed to get his name in the history books, the Greeks retreated to try reassembling and mustering a force that could resist against Xerxes massive army. However, the 300 Spartans stayed and stood to: A-make a point that every Greek citizen would never forget; B-give the Greek army time to reorganize; and C-get their own version of the Marathon battle (a clash in which the Athenians spectacularly beat a contingency of the Persian army down at the Marathon valley).

Much to a big part of the movie’s audience disappointment, the Hoplites, the Spartan warriors, didn’t fight bare chest. They would wear a copper armor that’d cover their, most definitely, perfectly defined abs, as well as a helmet and the big shield, spears and swords we see in the film. The way they fought though, it is pretty much as Snyder portrayed it; for it was a matter of getting the best fighters in the front lines while the ones behind would push and replace any fallen men. Actually, the Spartans invented the military formation, discipline and training as we know it nowadays. Armies around the world still teach, train and practice most of the tactics and techniques the Spartans created.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WorI5HPWbpg

Even though Xerxes wasn’t bald, there were no mythical creatures in his army and he didn’t have Batman’s voice, his army was the largest the ancient world had ever seen and he indeed had a personal guard called the Immortals. Who, by the way, got undeniably beaten by the Spartans once they were sent to the battle by the infuriated king of Persia. Moreover, the Spartan steel, armor and weaponry in general were way better than the Persian soldiers’ equipment which contributed to the massacre that took place at the Thermopylae.

Which bring us to another interesting point: remember that cool line “Spartans, what’s your profession?” Even though it’s obviously impossible to tell if that dialogue between Leonidas and a Greek soldier actually happened, the truth is that the Spartans were a race of soldiers. That’s what they were trained for and that’s what they did; nothing else. The Spartan society was organized as a pyramid: at the bottom there were the Helots, slaves that worked the land and basically served for one of the most famous and infamous introductory rites into adulthood of the Spartans: to murder someone in cold blood. After them came the Periokoi: laborers who made sure everything was taken care of so the Spartans wouldn’t have to worry about anything but training, fighting and reproducing. At the top of the pyramid were the true Spartans; individuals that had to be ready to fight and die for their nation at any point. But there were hierarchies amongst them too: first off, there were two kings (in the 300 day and time, those were Leonidas and Demaratus who was exiled in Persia and who, by the way, like Ephialtes would ally with Sparta’s biggest enemy, Athens aside of course); below the kings there was a council of a few Spartans who would take the most important decisions in society acting as a council; and after them a variable number of “free” men: soldiers.

In this case, the term free is relative so, as we see in the movie, it wasn’t easy to make it to adulthood in Sparta during those days. The first test took place right after being born: only the strongest were allowed to live. After that, you would spend seven years living with your mother and being an actual kid. Though at the age of seven you’d start a training that would last until the age of twenty during which you were supposed to survive by your own means, i.e. stealing and what not, defend yourself from the older students, and finally killing a Helot. At the age of twenty, the students were officially part of the army and were ready to defend their land should the time come.

Speaking of cool lines: “This is Sparta” Leonidas yells to a Persian ambassador before throwing him in the pit. Well, actually, according to a rune from that time, Leonidas did have a badass answer to Xerxe’s ambassador once this one tried to convince the Spartans surrender their weapons. According to that rune, Leonidas answered: “come get them yourself”. Which, to be honest, is pretty cool too, right? However, Leonida’s wife message right before his departure to a certain death: “come back with your shield or on it” doesn’t seem to be quite true; since apparently, what Leonidas told her was to marry another man, have children and be happy. He knew he would not come back alive. Furthermore, Leonidas was making a statement; the most memorable statement of all times. It is true that there was reluctance amongst the Spartans to fight during a particular festivity and it is also true that Leonidas bribed the oracle (as it was usual) before getting a negative premonition from her, since she foresaw a Persian victory. What is not true though, is that Leonidas decided to disobey the oracle and “take a stroll” with his personal guard knowing that he had to do it for Greece’s sake. Leonidas did what he did because he needed to make a point. He needed to tell Greece a tale, to bring the whole country together and to show that if you are united, have a good plan and know the ground you’re fighting on, you can face any kind of army; including one that’s literally fifty times yours.

“Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here obedient to our laws we lie”. Now this one, one of the coolest lines of the movie (which is quite an achievement considering the film we are talking about), it actually is true. The sentence can be read in a humble plaque that can still be visited nowadays in the Thermopylae. Finally, the Greek nation decided to remember and honor the Spartans for, most likely, one of the bravest, most epic and heroic episodes of the story of civilizations. And, exactly as the Spartans, the plaque is austere, simple and effective.