As you may have seen us talking about on previous occasions, Danny Sangra has been posting his monthly film diary on his Instagram – #dannysfilmdiary – for a while now. You can see the latest – for January 2021 – here now. In them he lists his viewing for the month, including both films and TV shows, with the occasional comment or exclamation alongside them, if something’s made a strong impression.
We’d noticed plenty of films that had clearly made an impression on Danny, and quite a few of them we’d never heard of. So, it seemed an obvious move to ask Danny whether he’d like to tell us something about one of the films from his list each month. He like liked the idea and we’re very pleased to present the premiere of Danny’s Found Footage.
This month’s film: Living in Oblivion (1995)
What attracted you to it?
I’ve seen it before, but last month I tried to only watch films with Steve Buscemi in them. So I went back through his filmography.
How did you know about this film?
Years ago a friend told me about it because I’m always making films with limited budgets. It’s pretty much perfectly suited for me.
Who’s the director?
Tom DiCillo.
What’s it about?
It’s about the making of a low budget independent film in New York.
Does it feature anyone we should know about?
Steve Buscemi (obviously), the great Catherine Keener, Peter Dinklage plus a few others you’ll recognise. Buscemi plays one of the most on point portrayals of an independent film director ever.
Any key scenes?
There’s a scene that depicts the moment you wrap the last shot. Someone yells ‘that’s a wrap’ and there’s always a little cheer and applause for everyone. Every time this happens, the sound guy kills the cheers by asking for 30 seconds of ‘room tone’. Everyone just stands there in silence.They nail this moment. Every single time this happens on one of my sets, I think of this one particular scene.
What have you taken from it?
The majority of people making films with limited resources are all fairly similar.
Where can we see it?
You can probably stream it online, like most things. I have it on DVD in one of those DVD case folders that nobody uses anymore.
