17 Blocks, a documentary by Davy Rothbart, was included in my initial Tribeca Film Festival2019 Pick-List because of the compelling and devastating use of a home-video archive. I was interested in archival-themed films, and I probably would not have watched this film otherwise. But once you see this, it’s tough to forget; it’s a family memoir that grabs on tight. The film was created due to a chance meeting, in 1999, of two kids at a Washington D.C. public basketball court and director-producer Davy Rothbart (a frequent contributor to This American Life).
Fifteen-year-old Smurf Sanford and his nine-year-old brother Emmanuel lived in the neighborhood, which is only 17 blocks from the U.S. Capitol building but is a dangerous and decrepit part of the city that outsiders go to great lengths to avoid. Rothbart lived nearby and over time became friends with these boys and then their mother Cheryl and sister Denice. When Emmanuel expressed interest in becoming a filmmaker, Rothbart lent him a video camera.
17 Blocks, documentary at Tribeca Film Festival
The little boy began shooting home movies, a project that continued on and off among the family members for the next 20 years. The resulting footage, disjointed in its storytelling and often rough in its sound and light-quality, is earnestly pieced together by Rothbart and forms an intense portrait of a loving family dealing with life in a neighborhood defined by poverty, drug addiction and gun violence. Its authentic “cinema verite” approach includes filming of a brutal, real-life street beating and other harrowing scenes where the viewing audience will want to intervene, but we cannot. The pain of helplessly observing all the havoc and destruction in this film is part of its point, and its power. It is not surprising that this film won the Tribeca Film Festival Awardfor Best Editing of a Feature Documentary.
“This documentary sticks to its guns, so to speak; it shows what was recorded.”
One of the most memorable scenes in 17 Blocks is shot in a small, local store. The shop specializes in personalized T-shirts — the type that suburban-youth sports teams might wear. But this store’s most frequent order is for shirts honoring people who have recently died, their photos surrounded by messages of remembrance. The span between the printed birth and death dates is almost always terribly short. Watching mourners ordering these cotton tombstones is stunning in its ordinary, everyday nature. We get glimpses of how one person’s death affects others — the siblings, parents, friends, and how it ripples through the community. We watch in awe as broken people rise to take care of those around them.
The film insists on being entirely observational and objective and does not exclude scenes that are grotesque or offensive. Some critics are questioning the rightness of what seems at times like an invasion of privacy or superfluous sensationalism. But this documentary sticks to its guns, so to speak; it shows what was recorded. We do get some interviews and voice-over narration to soften and explain, but the film never looks away. It is a true document, for better or worse.
“Perhaps the most hopeful aspect of this film is that it exists.”
Not all moments are bleak; the film shows us gratifying scenes of family dinners, dancing, celebrations, also Emmanuel’s high school graduation. We see moments of triumph and reasons for optimism — a second chance, a new job, people growing stronger through adversity, a younger generation with a brighter vision, all very personal and very real. The most powerful force in this family is love.
I imagine the filmmaker wanted an uplifting conclusion to his decidedly humanistic movie. But late in the story, when the lightening bolt of tragedy strikes directly into this family that we have come to know so intimately, it’s hard for the film to recover. We are reminded how this decades-long documentary is entirely unscripted, unpredictable and raw. Perhaps the most hopeful aspect of this film is that it exists — that this family, even in their darkest moments, had the wisdom to understand the value in telling their story; they opened up their lives to the rest of us in an unusually courageous way. Viewers are left to draw their own conclusions.
However, before the credits roll, we are presented with a screen graphic that dedicates the film to Washington D.C. homicide victims and then lists all their names from the last decade. It requires very tiny text to fit them all in.
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From the Director’s Notes of 17 Blocks, we learn this:
“In honor of their slain family member, in 2010 the Sanfords and I started an organization called Washington To Washington (WashingtonToWashington.org), bringing groups of kids from their D.C. neighborhood on a week-long camping trip each summer to visit some of America’s most beautiful National Parks and Forests. We hike, swim, canoe, ride horses, play games, build campfires, make S’mores, and trade ghost stories. These trips can’t cure all of the challenges many of these kids face, but offer a chance for them to broaden their perspectives, experience the joys of nature, and discover worlds beyond the block they live on. In recent years, we’ve added groups from Detroit and New Orleans, and over the past 9 years we’ve brought over 500 kids to explore the Great Outdoors; this summer, we’ll celebrate our 10th Annual Trip. The idea of something positive coming out of tragedy has been heartening to us all.”
News: 17 Blocks will go back to where it all started, taking part in AFI Docs Impact Lab in Washington D.C., June 19-23.
News: 17 Blocks will be part of the 2019 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, starting June 28. This is the largest film festival in the Czech Republic and the most prestigious such festival in Central and Eastern Europe.
Walking on Water, directed by Andrey Paounov, is a new documentary about the latest exhibit / production by Christo, the renowned installation artist who transforms environments into experiential artwork, on an epic scale. The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, was acquired by Kino Lorber and is getting a theatrical run in the U.S. this spring (beginning this weekend at Film Forum in NYC). Helen Highly Recommends you see it – in a theater, ideally, on as large a screen as possible. Walking on Water chronicles Christo’s magnificent 2016 project, “Floating Piers,” in which he laid out a three-kilometer-long. buoyant, fabric-wrapped path across Lake Iseo in northern Italy, designed to let people stroll across the gently undulating orange surface. (It is orange, or golden yellow, or “saffron,” as Christo insists.) In the film, we see the artist’s sometimes-cantankerous sometimes-charming personality do battle with technology, bureaucracy, corruption and the elements, resulting in an installation that is spectacularly beautiful and a documentary that captures the chaos of creation.
It’s important to note that, despite what has been reported elsewhere, the film’s title, Walking on Water, does not refer to the floating piers in the project. Director Paounov is the one who named the film, independently from Christo, and he says that it refers to what he learned from his “experience of working with Christo” – Christo’s way of being an artist and handling the work. It’s about the creative endeavor – “the journey.” Paounov says:
“In the film, I tried to translate this experience and invite the audience to walk on water with Christo.”
The Enigma of Christo
I am a Christo fan. I was thrilled to be in New York in February 2005 to see “The Gates” – 7,503 saffron-colored free-hanging-fabric panels installed along 23 miles of pathways in Central Park, which seemed “like a golden river appearing and disappearing through the bare branches of the trees,” if you listen to Christo describe it. Some New Yorkers complained that the flowing drapes of the installation, which bragged of using 2/3 of the amount of steel used to build the Eiffel Tower, was an irritation to bikers. Others said it looked like a Halloween parade and decried the “claptrap” of Christo’s doggedness in describing the fabric as “saffron” when it appeared to the casual observer as clearly orange.
“The Gates,” by Christo, 2005
On the Subject of Saffron: The controversy of Christo naming his often-used orange as saffron has been an ongoing topic of ridicule and point of debate, which came up once again with the installation depicted in this new film. I feel compelled to defend Christo’s use of the word “saffron,” which is both a color and a spice. Appropriately, it is the most precious and most expensive spice in the world. Saffron filaments, or threads, are actually the dried stigmas of the saffron flower, Crocus Sativus Linnaeus. Each flower contains only three stigmas. These threads must be picked from each flower by hand, and more than 75,000 of these flowers are needed to produce just one pound of saffron filaments. But because of the intensity of its aroma and bright orange-yellow color, saffron is typically used sparingly in food. Paradoxically, the flavor of saffron is subtle and difficult to describe; it’s a taste that is hard to pin down, sort of an enigma, similar to Christo himself.
Maybe I’m too easy, but I liked it – “The Gates,” when I saw it in person. And in the back of my head, I can still hear my old MFA directing teacher whining, “I don’t care if you l-i-i-i-ke it or don’t l-i-i-ke it; I want to know what you think about it!” Well, Christo prefers you don’t think; he wants you to only experience. Christo defiantly spurns critics, reveling in his art’s “uselessness.” His accessible approach means you don’t need to read a museum’s explanatory wall panel full of intellectual terminology to understand what you are experiencing (arguments about saffron vs orange aside). It brings people together to engage with their environment, it delights and uplifts and creates a shared emotional bond between observers. One man’s frivolous is another man’s breathtaking.
“The Gates,” by Christo, in NYC
Personally, I found the experience to be the very definition of the word phenomenal – sensational in the sense of wonderful. The almost unfathomable enormity of it all, and the seeming impossibility of its logistical existence, in addition to its outrageously temporal nature – only two weeks in New York for all that tonnage of steel, is part of the dramatic appeal.
“The Gates,” people sharing the experience
Hey, in the old days, before formal theater became popular in America, people used to pack a picnic basket and bring the family to gather with their neighbors and watch public hangings – of people, not fabric. There’s nothing like watching real death to make you feel alive. And people have died due to their participation in Christo’s events, not that it was at all intentional (although perhaps inevitable). His installations are not designed to be dangerous, but his dare-devil personality does lean in that direction. For example, his most recent artistic endeavor had a more-than-mile-long walkway-on-water, which floated atop a lake with an average depth of 400 ft, and it had absolutely no handrails or guardrails whatsoever.
“Umbrellas,” by Christo
During “Umbrellas” (1991), staged in both California and Japan, in which 3.100 yellow umbrellas, each more than 19-ft high, were erected across many miles of land in both countries, a storm caused one of the 448-lb aluminum-framed parasols to topple, and one woman was crushed to death by an umbrella in California. After the event turned fatal, the artist and his wife announced that the project would be closed, which led to a second death, the accidental electrocution of a worker in Japan as he helped take down an umbrella.
But before those tragedies occurred, one woman, whose mobile home overlooked a cluster of the giant umbrellas in CA, declared “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen besides the birth of my daughter.” As beautiful as birth and as horrific as death – these are two of the reasons why Christo’s projects have consistently drawn enormous attention whenever they occur, all over the world.
Christo’s “Umbrellas,” in California
For “Floating Piers,” 1.2 million people showed up in this tiny town in Italy, over 16 days. In 1995, when Christo wrapped the Reichstag, five million people came to see the historic, German parliament building turned into a public art object. And part of this draw is the short-term nature of all Christo’s works; despite years of planning, the installations usually stand for about two or three weeks only.
The ephemeral quality of the projects is an aesthetic decision. Christo has gone on record as saying, “Our works are temporary in order to endow the works of art with a feeling of urgency to be seen, and the love and tenderness brought by the fact that they will not last. Those feelings are usually reserved for other temporary things, such as childhood and our own life. These are valued because we know that they will not last. We want to offer this feeling of love and tenderness to our works, as an added dimension and as an additional aesthetic quality.”
“Wrapped,” by Christo
A Study of Documentary Style
I was a Christo fan long before I saw “The Gates” in New York. Why did I consider myself a fan? How did I even know about his work? I certainly never learned about it in school. The answer is: Film. I had seen several documentaries that had managed to capture and communicate the splendor and grandeur and triumphant nature of the work of this eccentric, Bulgarian-born artist and his partner-wife Jeanne-Claude.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude
What I didn’t realize at the time is that while I was experiencing the work of Christo through those films, and learning about his process, I was also experiencing the talent and very specific insight of the films’ directors – the Maysles brothers. Their documentarian process and philosophy were as much a part of my appreciation as was Christo’s art itself. What has become their box-set of five documentaries about Christo projects is like a history lesson of documentary form by cinema verité pioneers David and Albert Maysles (Gimme Shelter, Salesman, Grey Gardens).
Note: Grey Gardens was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant,” largely due to the direction by the Maysles brothers.
Albert and David Maysles. documentarians
In fact, the Christo films might be as much about the enduring relationship between Christo and the Maysles brothers as they are about the relationship between Christo and his wife, who was both his personal provocateur and argumentative agitator. The films are certainly a collaboration, and Christo has often spoken about the essential part those filmmakers played in bearing witness to and recording the creative impulse, the technical challenges, the political drama, the emotional investment, and the transforming effect of the finished works – all massive-scale temporary installations that illustrate the intersection of art and everyday life. But as brash and bold as Christo’s art is, the Maysles brothers were equally restrained in their unscripted, observing-not-directing style of “direct cinema,” which became their defining legacy. Let it be noted, though, that this style as employed by the Maysles brothers is not any sort of critical analysis; it is more of an affectionate, stand-back-in-awe portrayal, although they never pretend otherwise.
Albert Maysles, Jeanne-Claude, and Christo
Christo and Jeanne-Claude met the Maysles brother in Paris in 1961, and a deeply personal, decades-long friendship was born. For a while, the brothers actually lived with Christo and his wife, following them everywhere and recording everything. The result of this devotion was an academy award nomination for their first collaboration, Christo’s Valley Curtain (1974), which watched as Christo, Jeanne-Claude and their team strung a quarter-mile curtain of nine tons of vibrant orange nylon across a gigantic cleft in a Colorado mountain range. The movie is a permanent record of a project that rocked the artistic community and turned skeptical iron workers into astonished fans.
Christo’s “Valley Curtain”
Following that were four more films that have collectively become historic for their observational approach to filmmaking, in addition to their testament that what matters most in art is the process. That belief is never more true than in the case of Christo.
“Surrounded Islands” (1983) was a three-years-in-the-making project in which eleven islands in Biscayne Bay, Miami were each surrounded by a skirt of pink. The finished project produced one of the most iconic images of 1980s art. At the time, however, the prospect of thousands of hot-pink polypropylene sheets swimming in Miami waters left environment groups aghast. A lengthy and costly legal battle with local wildlife groups was resolved in federal court, after “endless and nerve-racking negotiations.” You can watch it all happen in Islands (1986).
At Amazon.com, where the box-set of DVDs is available for purchase, Jeff Shannon writes, “The Christos are both deliriously self-indulgent and open-heartedly generous about their work and the impressive engineering that goes into creating it. For these and other time-consuming but fleetingly visible endowments of beauty on an epic scale, the Maysles were there with camera and microphone, capturing the impact, controversy, humor, and ultimate glory of Christo’s wondrous vision.” That’s a tough act to follow, but this new documentary is a worthy tribute to all that came before it.
“Surrounded Islands,” by Christo, in Florida
The New Documentary
Walking on Water offers another look at Christo’s process and its staggeringly complicated engineering and political manipulations. More importantly, it’s the first project he’s done without his wife and partner, Jeanne-Claude, who died in 2009. Christo is now collaborating with his nephew, Vladimir Yavachev. And it’s Christo’s first film without the Maysles brothers, who have also died since his last project, David in 2007 and Albert in 2015. In this documentary, Christo returns to his Bulgarian roots to bring in fellow compatriot, director Andrey Paounov (The Boy Who Was a King). If nothing else, those facts alone make this film inherently interesting; how will these new relationships compare to and comment on what came before them?
Christo and director Andrey Paounov
Once again, we get to watch the artist’s bull-headed personality as he, now 83 years old, pushes to complete an audacious project that was conceived decades previously but rejected in both Argentina and Japan. It is finally in Italy that Christo’s floating pathway enables visitors to explore their environment from new perspectives as they meander across the water on foot. But technology has changed over the years, and thanks to digital photography, cameras have never been quite as privileged to such immersive and up-close views of Christo’s craft as they are here.
Walking on Water draws from over 700 hours of footage, a daunting amount of material to sort. Yet Paounov succeeds in delivering a compelling portrait of the fine madness entailed in the pursuit of art – the passion, the devotion, the headaches, the screaming matches, the boredom, the flashes of inspiration.
Large crowd walking on water
Interview with Christo and Andry Paounov
I almost was able to interview Christo and director Andrey Paounov (AP, below) for this film’s release in New York City, but that fell through at the last minute, as I imagine is often the case with much of what they do. So, I am going to liberally quote from previous interviews they have done, primary with POV Magazine and live at Toronto International Film Festival, because I do think their own words are significant in appreciating the value of the new documentary. Note that these are selected snippets only and taken out of context, but they speak to the issues I have discussed so far in this article. I have bolded key statements:
AP: Christo always documents his projects. Documentation is always part of the art.
Ch: Yes, since the ’60s when we met Albert and David Maysles… When Albert and David came to Paris in 1961 to show their films, we became very close friends. I had photographers following me at the time, taking pictures of the project for books, and we [the Maysles and Jeanne-Claude and I] became like a family. It was an incredible chance that they could film my work. I had no films before that. That is how everything started. David died and Albert passed away after The Gates project [2005]. Then I was alone. With my nephew and friends working together, we were very conscious that we had to film this project, and have it covered by many cinematographers.
Christo, working on “Floating Piers”
AP:I got into the project at the end of “The Floating Piers. They had about 10 crews that were following Christo at different moments of the project. There were many crews: some were just doing aerial shots, some just following Christo, underwater cameras—there’s a lot that isn’t in the film… That was the challenge of making the film. There was so much footage that it took me three months just watching it 10 hours a day, every day.
There was no pre-concept or general direction in what the crews shot. We had no idea what was there. I had assistants and we were watching together, exchanging files, and finding out what was there. At one point, I started finding some tracks in the footage and what I was interested in finding — a character piece from all this chaos. Luckily, we live in the digital age, so there were days of cameras rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling. In between all this stuff, there were brilliant little pieces where you could see him and all the relationships with the family behind the Christo project. That’s how we started putting this puzzle together.
We also continued documenting his adventures. The end of the film [which sees Christo embark on a new project, The Mastaba] is something that we shot, but The Floating Piers was the other way around. It was like finding a suitcase of footage on the street.
Christo at work in his studio
Ch: You will see that I am not very technologically inclined. Of course, anyone can film, but the important part of all the films, especially this film, is that we were very conscious of filming a distinct period and the hard work. It’s very important when the physical project no longer exists. We never do the same things again. There will be no more Floating Piers, no more Valley Curtain. We do not know ourselves how the things will look. But we do know something: we know how to do it. All that work is so private and invisible for many people. We were very eager to show people what often isn’t seen by the public: the conflicts, the drama, the soul of the work. It is the reason I do not do commissions. All our projects over fifty years translate this energy when they are realized, not because some mayor of the city or corporate executive gives us some money to make a sculpture.
Young boy watching the floating piers
AP: But with the digital age, what has changed, especially since the previous films were made, is that the films were made in order to experience the project. Nowadays, it’s the opposite. We’re drowning in images. The Floating Piers destroyed Instagram there were so many images. I knew while making the film that I couldn’t just show the project as people had already seen it on TV, the news, and social media. I was also not interested in doing that because I’ve always felt that you have to make films about people and not things.
Christo at night, w/ “Floating Piers”
It [Walking on Water] was the first film I made outside of Eastern Europe. It meant coming to NY and working w Christo. The most fantastic thing about making documentaries is you get to live other people’s lives and dreams, and his world is incredible…
I thought, how can I come after the Maysles? In a way this is an homage to the Maysles brothers and also to direct cinema. [I got to utilize] everything I loved about American cinema from the 60s and cinema verité.
Christo, at opening of “Floating Piers”
HelenHighly: Well, Paounov does indeed offer a sort of homage to the award-winning style that preceded him, but he definitely also leaves his own mark. Starting with creating his own title, rather than taking the same name for the film as Christo used for the art project, Paounov has made a contemporary film that speaks to history and originality and the process of creation. I think it’s time for art-theaters around the country to roll out the orange carpet for Walking on Water.
Helen Highly Vindicated. In the last two days I’ve heard at least two pop-culture references to an ancient play by Aristophanes. As someone who can’t seem to stop writing commentary about popular culture by comparing it to classic theater, it is refreshing to hear someone else finally do it – two people no less!Alyssa Milano and Bill Maher, thank you very much for making me feel less out of touch with the world.
First, Alyssa Milano called for a sex strikeuntil Georgia’s new anti-abortion law is repealed. She didn’t mention the play Lysistrata by name, but I assume (and hope) it was buried in her subconscious and gave her the idea. In famous Greek literature, this character convinces women to refuse sex with their husbands until they end a war. Milano did reference contemporary director Spike Lee, who used the same idea as a remedy for gang violence in his film Chi-Raq.
Then, Bill Maher, on Real Time with Bill Maher, listed a New Rule he called “The Great Wife Hope,” suggesting that two famous ex-models, Melania Trump and Jerry Hall, both married to “super-rich Republican monsters” – Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch, respectively, deny sex to their husbands. Maher specifically mentioned Lysistrata when explaining that getting men to quit their destructive ways by threatening to cut them off in bed is a tale as old as time. He added, “I know they’re rich, but is it worth Western Civilization?” See the clip, below:
So there: I guess American culture is not as disinterested in classic drama as it might seem. I don’t expect this small “win” for intellectual literature to change me from being mostly Helen Highly Irrelevant or to bring more people to my online essays, but I will mention them here nonetheless. I keep writing commentary about pop culture by comparing it to decidedly unhip, old stage plays, or just writing about the most esoteric aspects of culture, I guess. Most people have no idea what I am talking about and the rest don’t care. I am ridiculously irrelevant, and I can’t seem to stop myself.
I know that almost no one wants to see a new, controversial “cinematic memoir” about alleged sex-predator and old Rolling Stone Bill Wyman, much less read an article that compares that film to a vintage Samuel Beckett play – especially not on Mother’s Day! But I posted it anyway. Click here to read my review of The Quiet One, where Helen Highly Suggests that viewers might come for the music but stay for the existential irony. If nothing else, it’s an in-depth discussion of the absurdist nature of reminiscence.
Bill Wyman in “The Quiet One”Bill and Suzanne Wyman at Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall’s wedding
As a not-entirely-irrelevant tie-in, I am going to post a photo I found of the elderly Bill Wyman and his third wife Suzanne at the wedding of the aforementioned Jerry Hall and Rupert Murdoch. I didn’t have space to include the picture in my Quiet One review, but it kinda makes sense here, in a grotesque sort of way. I assume Donald Trump was in attendance as well. I call that triple-down monstrosity.
And before The Quiet One, I wrote about an urgently important advocacy documentary, Slay the Dragon, which discusses the least appealing political topic – gerrymandering, a term most people can’t pronounce, much less understand. Although, people’s disinterest in it only makes it more the symbol of everything that’s wrong with America. I tried to make my film review seem relatable by referencing Game of Thrones, which I did not do nearly as successfully as John Oliver did last night, when making The Green New Deal seem interesting by comparing it to Game of Thrones. But he is more clever than I, alas. Still, the topic of gerrymandering is actually more urgent than climate change, and there are more immediate and concrete actions that we can take. Click here to read my Slay the Dragon review and interview with the filmmakers. Really: this is THE most vital political film of the year, and if I can contribute anything to popular culture, it will be in getting people to see this surprisingly compelling movie, directed by Barak Goodman. (Note: Recent events have brought up correlations between gerrymandering and Alabama’s new, super-restrictive abortion law, which actually out-outrages Alyssa Milano’s Georgia abortion law. I’ve updated my Slay the Dragon article to include these latest events.)
Gerrymandered Dragon“Us” movie poster
Before that, I reviewed the much-anticipated pop-culture phenom Us – the latest horror flick from super-cool Jordan Peele. But I compared it, point by point, to a theatrical adaptation of Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov(in a new play titled Life Sucks).I asked if the two were tethered together like combating doubles of each other. I know; it seems random, but at a time when immigration has become a national emergency in our country, both stories deal with issues of outsiders vs insiders, us vs them (within ourselves and society), and blame vs responsibility, and I thought it was worth discussing. And also, both mix humor into their portrayals of pain, which makes them both meaningful genre-benders. Doesn’t even matter if you’ve seen the film or Chekhov, methinks; it’s all good food for thought. Click here to read that incisive review. – A little scissor humor there. ha. (Hey! Play just got an extended run uptown starting June 4! Go buy tickets!)
Maybe Wikipedia is happy to have me around. I seem to do nothing as much as insert Wikipedia links in an attempt to help people understand what the hell I’m talking about. So it goes. I’m thinking that next I will discuss The Avengers in terms of Henrik Ibsen’s Brand. Just kidding! I promise I won’t. Happy weekend, y ’all!
The Quiet One, a cinematic memoir about bassist Bill Wyman, founding member of The Rolling Stones, directed by Oliver Murray, played at Tribeca Film Festival and is set to start a theatrical run in June. It’s far from the typical music documentary. Based on Wyman’s immense, personal archive of film, photographs and audio, including new voice-over commentary by Wyman himself, Murray (previously a music video director) had the unenviable task of making a documentary that would offer something fresh to fans or insightful to music historians, while working under the employ of the notoriously private man-of-few-words. The film is oddly fascinating for all the reasons it aims not to be – for the things it doesn’t say, for the ways in which it is not penetrating or thoughtful, and how it skims over controversy. It depicts a rather sad and unsatisfying culmination to a long career and mysterious life. It portrays a man searching through the rubble of his memorabilia, still unable to make sense of the emptiness and alienation that defined him as the famously “stone-faced” member of The Stones.
We watch Bill Wyman watch his younger self in “The Quiet One.”
Nonetheless, there is reason to watch, if you are someone who can appreciate the philosophical absurdity and existential pathos of Samuel Beckett-style stories. Watching Wyman watch his younger self and listening to him to comment on his former comments, this documentary becomes a story about the nature of reminiscence and a man struggling with his legacy as much as it is a guided, behind-the-scenes tour of the life of a rock star. Come for the music, stay for the irony.
“It’s what he doesn’t play, what he leaves out..”. — Eric Clapton
Bill Wyman: The stone-faced Rolling Stone
The setting of this movie is bizarrely similar to the setting of Samuel Beckett’s famous play, Krapp’s Last Tape, and the thematic parallels are hard to ignore. In Beckett’s play, the set consists of a desk and a chair with an overhead light, and on the desk is a reel-to-reel tape recorder, microphone and ledger. Around the desk are boxes filled with an archive of recorded tapes. Seated at the desk is an old man with grey hair. Now, take a look at the opening shot of The Quiet One:
Bill Wyman in “The Quiet One” documentary
In the play, the ensuing action discloses that Krapp is a man who has chronicled every aspect of his life since he was 24 years old. He has created annual audio tapes to record his impressions of the previous year’s important events, and then cataloged each tape’s number and contents in a ledger, which he keeps locked in his desk. Each year on his birthday, he listens to one of his former tapes before recording his new one.
Stage production of Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape”
The play depicts Krapp listening to a tape from 30 years ago, which references and derisively comments on a previous tape, and the elderly Krapp replays and comments on them both, in real time, before recording this year’s tape. He is essentially in discussion with his former selves and trying to come to terms with his past.
Krapp’s Last Tape” with Michael Gambon
At the conclusion of the play, the older Krapp sits listening as his younger self ponders the loss of his best years, saying “but I wouldn’t want them back.” And then the tape runs out. The plays ends in silence with Krapp staring blankly into space.
“Krapp’s Last Tape” with John Hurt
The Quiet One opens with Bill Wyman in his basement, present day, sitting at a desk with his back to the camera, light shining down from above him. He speaks to the sound technician beside him, who is holding a mic as Wyman records his backward-looking commentary on his life. There is a computer on his desk, and later a reel-to-reel tape recorder. There is a detailed diary and ledger that he often references. He is surrounded by stacks of old tapes and archival materials from the enormous collection he created over his lifetime. Except for the computer, it’s almost the identical setting to Krapp’s Last Tape (written in 1958).
“Krapp’s Last Tape,” stage production
To help make the point that this is a film about a man and his recorded memories, a montage of old black-and white film footage is intercut with images of stacked film cases, cameras and audio equipment, all played against the dark Stones song, “Paint it Black” (written by Wyman). Cut to silence and a long slow scan of the rows and rows of archival material and memorabilia that fill Bill’s basement. If not such a capacious space, it would look like a hoarder’s house. Finally, we hear Wyman say, “People always ask me why I collected things.”
Bill Wyman always collected things,
This is an odd reminder of a similar moment in another TFF2019 archival-themed documentary, Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project, when Marion’s son says, “People always ask me why she did it. To understand that, you need to know my mother.” And that leads us into the strange story of that hoarder/archivist – an African American ex-librarian who started her compulsive collecting in 1979, amassing over 70,000 VHS tapes over 30 years, and is even more a mystery than Wyman. But the two are perhaps not as different from each other as they might seem.
Bill Wyman with Keith Richards
Both were born poor, had bitter childhoods strongly influenced by World War II, which left them suspicious of the world, with a strong need for privacy. Both felt compelled to keep a record of “the truth.” During the course of this movie, we hear one of Wyman’s bandmates recall that “We argued about what exactly happened, but Bill was probably right because he has all the fuckin’ records.”
Wyman says “I always thought it was important to keep a record of what was going on. It started when I was a little boy, during the war. Whenever I came in contact with something that I could call mine, I wanted to save it – collect it.” His recollections of his childhood during WWII, his combative relationship with his father and his being mostly raised by his grandmother are portrayed through a series of old family photos and provide the most interesting and insightful moments in the film. We learn that Wyman grew up feeling “pushed aside all the time,” lonely and unloved. We hear Wyman tell how he switched from playing guitar to bass because no one else would do it and it was his way into a band, and that he was too poor to buy a new bass, so he made his own. But it’s the older Wyman who tells these childhood stories, and his resentment seems to have festered over the years, rather than subsided.
Wyman playing behind Jagger
Wyman then looks back at himself a bit older, now in his late twenties and trying to perfect his technique on the bass. As if Samuel Beckett had scripted his words, Wyman expresses a disturbing contempt for himself. “Leave space! Don’t be busy! Don’t overdo it! You’re not the fuckin’ lead guitarist!” he barks at himself. Later in the film, Eric Clapton will praise Wyman, saying “something about Bill’s bass… it was so contained and so precise. It’s what he doesn’t play – what he leaves out that marks his brilliance.” I doubt that either Wyman or Murray intended that praise to sound as sad as it felt, but it sure seemed to me like brilliance born of self-loathing – the kind of personal pain that Krapp would be forced to relive on one of his tapes.
“There is one shot in the movie of a pinned butterfly in a frame…”
Wyman says playing with The Rolling Stones was the most exciting time of his life. He also talks about resisting the cult-like mania over The Beatles – how he wanted to be taken seriously and truly appreciated. He says he avoided the press because it was “too show-biz,” and minutes later we see a memorabilia montage that includes a series of newspaper clippings that he’s saved. We hear him talk about the hundreds of women he had – more than Mick Jagger. We hear him talk about the thrill of playing live for half a million people. We see him living a lavish rock-star lifestyle. Later he says he plays for himself and doesn’t like to think of himself as famous. At another point, he speaks of an emptiness he feels that terrifies him.
Clearly, each of these moments are on different “tapes” from his life – experienced at different times. The tapes and multiple selves show us vividly how our identities and self-understanding are constructed through language and narrative, and that those narratives are always changing, which points to the paradox that we are both one person and many persons as we develop across time. The challenge, in terms of modern psychology, is to integrate those multiple selves, those differing attitudes and feelings, as we grow and change. But in this movie, we and Wyman are confronted by his different voices that often feel disconnected from each other.
Wyman playing with The Stones
Yet Murray’s movie seems completely unaware of any sense that the audience is viewing past events through multiple sets of Wyman’s eyes. Murray’s story is strictly chronological and plods ahead with old footage and bland, mostly non-reflective narration by Wyman. Still, it’s hard for viewers not to see the layers of memory and changing perspectives stacking up on each other, whether Wyman or Murray are conscious of it or not. Certainly, the Wyman we see touring the United States for the first time, and reveling in the band’s new-found stardom – the young man who is still insisting that they are a blues band, not a rock band, is a different man than the one who sees his bandmate and close friend, Brian Jones, die from a drug overdose or four fans die at a Stones concert at Altamont. And then there is an entirely different Wyman who left The Stones and went solo with a semi-hit Euro-pop song, “(Si Si) Je Suis un Rock Star.” No mention of any problems between Wyman and the rest of The Stones exists in this film.
Here’s just an odd tidbit that is not at all included in the movie:
Bill Wyman removed from “Rarities” album cover
In 2005, The Rolling Stones released Rarities 1971-2003. The album features a selection of rare and obscure material recorded between 1971 and 2003. The album cover shows Mick Jagger, Ronnie Wood, Keith Richards and Charlie Watts. But the original photo was taken during The Stones’ 1978 music video for the song “Respectable.” And remember that Bill Wyman was part of The Rolling Stones until 1992. Yet, Wyman is missing from the album cover. His image was digitally removed, but you can still see his bass cable hanging between Mick Jagger’s microphone stand and guitar. What’s up with that? And how did or does Wyman feel about that? No telling.
At one point, Wyman admits he “probably had a sex addiction,” but seems to justify it by reminding us that he avoided drugs, unlike his bandmates, reporting that “I felt lonely and the girls offered affection.” Wyman gives small mention to his controversial marriage to Mandy Smith when he was 52 and she was 18 – a scandal so dramatic that it almost prevented this film from being released, due to public outrage. But his nonchalance seems less an evasion and more a genuine lack of appreciation for the significance of the subject. The documentary never does mention that Smith was only 13 years old when the relationship began, and Wyman casually remarks that “it was stupid to think it could work,” because “she was too young.” Stupid.
Bill Wyman and Mandy Smith
If you want to hear raw, self-searching of Wyman’s psyche, you won’t find it here. And you have to wait till later to learn of his next marriage. For the audience, this movie sometimes feels like we’re trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle from all blank pieces.
Once we get deeper into the story of Krapp’s Last Tape, we learn that our solo character had intended to surprise himself with memories kept “fresh” on tape, but there are few surprises to be found. Krapp worked as a professional writer, so he created carefully phrased speeches on his tapes, recorded solely for his own benefit, and they ring hollow across the gulf of time. Much the same can be said of Wyman’s tapes. He basically shot his own fan footage; there is nothing probing or incisive in his archives, and nothing much exciting or truly new either. Wyman was not just the quiet one; he seemed to be the boring one, too. His archive is simply not special. There is one shot in the movie of a pinned butterfly in a frame, from which the camera slowly pulls out to reveal the broader expanse of Wyman’s archives, and that unintentionally eerie moment may be one of the most telling.
So, if not the imagery itself, then this movie needs some excellent narration to make it work, and Wyman is not the guy for that. In fact, it may be most interesting how excessively detached he is from his past experiences. His lack of expression of joy or exhilaration or shock or regret about almost everything is notable. The boy who felt pushed aside as a child seems to still feel disassociated from most of his memories. The main emotion we get from Wyman is weariness.
Elderly Bill Wyman
My favorite part of the film was the Super-8 personal movies that Wyman took during their early concert tours in the U.S. – road trip and highway footage taken from the tour bus. It’s America-on-the-road through the eyes of young Englishmen seeing the landscape for the first time. I mention that because despite my general disappointment, there are actually several bits of nifty unseen footage or photos, especially from the early days of The Stones’ stardom.
Between the archival show-and-tell segments, the documentary repeatedly returns to the Krapp’s Last Tape scene, with Wyman at his desk, personally handling the photos or cassette tapes or film reels. We see him listening to or watching tapes from his earlier life, while he also records a new tape, commenting from his place in time now, as an old man. These breaks in the story continually remind us that there is no consistent narrative tale being told; it’s a scrapbook. And that adds to the self-consciousness of time as it intersects with memory, which when taken together are key elements of absurdism; there is a feeling of futility in Wyman’s efforts to neatly wrap up his life story. He even speaks directly about his need to “sort out my personal life” by going through these archival materials – trying to make sense of it all. He says he wants to “relive what I have experienced and put it in some sort of order.”
Bill Wyman plays brilliant bass.
But here’s the problem, for Krapp and for Wyman: Our sense of identity is our comprehension of our own story, but as time goes by and as personality develops, our self-interpretation of our identity not only expands, but alters in unexpected and, at times, self-contradictory or self-erasing ways. What was once of utmost importance now is forgotten. Who we are now serves as ironic, or comic, or tragic comment on our previous selves. Meanings we have staked our worth on can crumble, and experiences we once dismissed as either irrelevant or alien can come back, against our will, to permeate our consciousness and show how deeply they have defined us. This seems to have happened to Wyman with regard to the love-of-his-life child bride, for starters. But there’s also a lot more that he needs to flesh out and/or dig into from his dim and distant memories – for the sake of a compelling movie and also for his own sake.
From the very first shot, we always see Wyman from the back, in that Beckett-like pose alone at his desk. It’s not till near the end that we see Wyman’s face and he speaks directly to camera, along with his latest wife. We see an 82-year old, grey-haired, pot-bellied man whose face is puffy and has almost no resemblance to the music icon he once was.
He’s looking for a happy ending. And Murray obliges by portraying Wyman as all comfy in his quiet retirement, with his 3rd wife and his country estate, now taking photos of butterflies and birds. But there’s a disconnect.
Here is Wyman still embedded in his assorted collection of memories from his past, lost in his separation of selves, his tapes more confusing than clarifying, while he’s concurrently making what will likely be Wyman’s Last Tape which so far is no better than a glossy music video (sorry, Oliver Murray), and that makes the film feel inherently sad.
“Krapp’s Last Tape” with Chad Jones
The final scene we see Wyman tape is his standing with his wife, telling an old story of his dramatic encounter with his idol, Ray Charles, and how it shook him to his core to hear him play “Georgia,” live. Then we see Wyman actually shed tears as he recalls that Ray Charles said he was a fan of Wyman and invited him to play with him on an album he was recording. But Wyman turned him down – said no to recording music with his hero. “I’m not good enough,” he said, as he choked up. (Yup, that’s the end of that story. It doesn’t get better. Wyman never did record with his hero. And no further commentary is provided.)
I didn’t make notes about exactly how The Quiet One ended. But here is how I will remember the ending: Younger Wyman questions whether it’s worth it to make any effort in life. He wonders if his best years are behind him, but he decides he would not want them back. And then the tape runs out. The movie ends with elderly Wyman staring at nothing while the tape plays only silence.
Click for a review of another documentary about a rock star — Little Girl Blue, about Janis Joplin (as compared to Art Addict, about Peggy Guggenheim.)
Click for another review by Helen Highly Literate (otherwise known as Helen Highly Irrelevant): I compare the new horror movie Usto an adaptation of an old play by Chekhov.
Game of Thrones is ending, and now where will we hide from our disillusionment and despair? Hell, even that doesn’t provide the escapism it promised; we are confronted with a Starbucks cup in the Land of Westeros. It’s not just the crass contemporary brand in our escapist fantasy television that offends. Don’t forget that Starbucks owner Howard Schultz was campaigning for president just a few weeks ago, and the prospect of our upcoming presidential race only reminds us of our collective disgust. That Starbucks cup was like a cruel joke wrapped in a bad dream plopped in some dragon dung. What are we supposed to do with all our alienation and desolation? Well, if watching Jon Snow learn to ride a dragon in Game of Thrones didn’t give you quite the lift you wanted, Helen Highly Suggests you try watching Slay the Dragon,directed by Barak Goodman and Chris Durrance – an earth-shaking documentary that follows a brutal civil war for the prize of Democracy in the land of the United States of America. It’s a movie about gerrymandering, and it doesn’t matter how unappealing the word sounds or how nerdy it seems, it’s THE most important thing to watch right now on any screen. (And really, if you can handle a name like Hizdahr zo Loraq, then you can handle the complexities of gerrymandering.)
Gerrymandered Dragon
If you feel you have been abandoned by your belief in democracy, your sense of justice, your morality, then this is the movie for you. If you feel hopeless and helpless in the face of political power that seems beyond your control, this movie is for you. If the dragon you have is not the dragon you want — whether you aim to slay it or to ride it, this movie might make your fire-breathing wishes come true. But it’s not just big-wing-span enthusiasm on film; it’s a highly timely Call to Action. Strained dragon metaphors aside, and regardless of your party affiliation, this movie is the most significant and vital political film of the year, and perhaps the most empowering. Produced by Participant Media and premiering at Tribeca Film Festival 2019, Slay the Dragon tells the story of a fight for the soul of our country that is real and urgently relevant.
About this Dragon: Gerrymandering, the practice of redrawing electoral maps to serve the party in power, has been around for centuries. It often results in districts that are bizarrely shaped, and this film points to one famous case in which critics said the redrawn district resembled a mythical dragon. So, that’s how we got this gerrymandered dragon. Going further, the film looks at how gerrymandering has been used in the past and what’s so different and dangerous about it now, in our hyper-partisan times. It shows how a secret gerrymandering initiative launched 10 years ago used newly unregulated Dark Money and newly available high-tech analytics that produced Big Data demographics to enact “the most audacious political heist in modern times” – an unprecedented extreme in gerrymandering that effectively negated the will of the majority of voters across the country.
Now we have this beast of a dragon that is threatening American democratic principles by overpowering the will of the people. Late-night comedian Seth Meyers pointed to a recently gerrymandered district in North Carolina and asked, “What do you see in this shape? I don’t know, it’s either a dragon or 300 years of institutional racism.” The real problem, however, is that the “old gerrymandering” was bad, but starting in 2010, the “new gerrymandering” has jumped into the steroid era.
“Voters should choose politicians, not the other way around.” — Katie Fahey
Goodman and Durrance offer a staggeringly thorough investigation into the entrenched and increasingly perilous problem of “dirty redistricting,” which enables politicians to ignore the decisions of the people they govern. Slay the Dragon gives some harrowing examples of what happens when legislators are no longer accountable to the people. It explains how gerrymandering is directly connected to real-life issues such as: the much-publicized and still unresolved water crisis in Flint, Michigan; Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s removal of collective bargaining for public employees; newly extreme voter-ID laws intended to disenfranchise targeted groups; and North Carolina’s bathroom bill.
Goodman says, “I felt very strongly about connecting the dots and showing not that gerrymandering in some abstract way dilutes your vote but how the policies that are passed in these states are so out of step with the people in these states. If you’re a voter, it’s not just a sense that your vote doesn’t count. It’s actual things that affect your everyday life, whether it’s environmental stuff or a union issue or whatever. It’s real-life stuff. It’s not abstract.”
Gerrymandering cartoon from the Florida Sentinel
The film explains why, to so many of us, our democratic representation doesn’t feel representative, at both the state and federal level. Interwoven into those bleak realities, the film also follows ordinary people as they speak up and organize and fight to make their votes matter in a system that has been rigged against them by what can fairly be called one of the greatest political manipulations in American history.
We can pretty reliably count on John Oliver at HBO’s Last Week Tonight to address our nation’s most serious and most complicated issues with wonderfully instructive and hilarious style. See his treatment of gerrymandering, below, where he says, among other things, “Everything about gerrymandering is stupid and wrong.”
Although not as comedic as John Oliver, this documentary wastes no time with unconstructive outrage. While it efficiently functions as a lesson about the recent history of American politics and its dark underbelly, the film is most crucially about activism — why it matters and how it works. It speaks about what is happening in our country right now, last week, next month – who is doing what, and where, and why, and how it’s all affecting you, whether you realize it or not (and how you can participate in ways that will make you less helpless and hopeless). But its aim is not to proselytize; its aim is to educate and motivate – now, before 2020.
The filmmakers have faith that once regular people understand the terrible truths that lie behind the boring word “gerrymander,” those disturbing realities will galvanize them to join with their neighbors and take back the reigns of democracy that has run amok. In fact, the film shows us some daring individuals and grassroots organizations who have already done just that, with amazing results.
With 2020 bringing both elections and another census that will further shape how voting districts are drawn, Goodman and Durance are hoping their film will make people aware of the urgency of the current gerrymandering problem and embolden them to take action.
Chris Durrance. Katie Fahey and Barak Goodman from Slay the Dragon, at TFF
“I feel there’s a lot in common between the two. In both cases, the story is about ordinary people, especially young people who have a different vision of the world, and how they’re taking that into their own hands and making change. In that respect, I find both films totally inspiring, and I’ve immensely enjoyed working on both of them. For old fogies like me, to see that kind of thing – to see how young people can do so much just with passion and vision… it’s inspiring. Working on these films has renewed my faith in America. I see that democracy is still very much alive. And that’s what I wanted to communicate in both documentaries.”
Rat F**ked by David Daley
Shaken by the book Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count, written by veteran journalist David Daley, Barak Goodman initially set out to make a film that would shine a spotlight on the enormous dangers of this little-understood problem.
“It was a complete revelation,” says Goodman of Daley’s book. “I had heard of gerrymandering, of course, but like a lot of us, I didn’t completely understand it. And I certainly didn’t understand the extent to which it had been used as a partisan political weapon in the last eight years, and the threat it posed to some of the bedrock principles of democracy.”
Goodman adds, “I think most Americans – Republicans and Democrats – however much we might disagree with each other on other issues, feel that every person’s vote should count equally and that everyone should have the opportunity to vote.”
Goodman called Daley to ask if the film rights were available for the book and if the author would be interested in participating as a consultant on the project. Happily, the answer to both questions was yes. Goodman then approached frequent collaborator Chris Durrance about co-directing the film.
Modern Gerrymandering Shapes
Durrance was equally shocked by the revelations in the book. It reminded him of his – and many other observers’ – confusion after the 2012 national elections. That year, President Barak Obama won reelection comfortably and Democratic House candidates received 1.4 million more votes than their Republican opponents nationwide, yet Republicans came out of the election with a 234-201 majority in the House. “I remember seeing the gulf between the number of votes and the number of seats they won,” he says. “Some people said it was a matter of geography. I bought that for a long time. But after reading David Haley’s book, it was brought home to me that no, this was orchestrated. What happened was by design.”
Goofy and Donald Duck gerrymandered in PA
As they started trying to explain the complexities of the situation in ways that would translate dramatically to the screen, Durrance says he quickly realized that the film would be far more compelling and relevant if it moved beyond the historical perspective of the book and focused on the people who are leading the fight against gerrymandering today.
“The film really clicked into gear when we came across Katie Fahey, who was running what was then a fledgling online group of political neophytes who had decided to take on gerrymandering in Michigan,” says Durrance. “That’s when we realized this was a film that could live in the present, but a present informed by what had happened in the recent past.”
Fahey, a 20-something with no political experience, is the founder of Voters Not Politicians, a grassroots organization dedicated to wresting redistricting control in Michigan away from political parties and putting it into the hands of a citizens’ commission comprised of people from across the ideological spectrum. The group’s argument that voters should choose politicians, not the other way around, struck a chord with Michigan voters, and with an extraordinary door-to-door effort, despite all the big-money opposing forces, the group managed to get the gerrymandering Initiative Proposal 2 on the 2018 midterm ballot. The film also focuses on similar initiatives in Wisconsin and North Carolina.
Slay the Dragon documentary
The story of the Proposal 2 campaign was so gripping that the filmmakers decided to hold off on completing the film until the fate of the initiative was decided in the November 2018 elections. The proposal passed. But the story didn’t end there.
There is a new term for political neophytes to learn: “weaponized lame-duck legislation.” The Powers That Be do not release their power easily, even after losing an election.
It gets more complicated from here, but I will say that the story continues in ongoing court battles and in different states across the country. (In early May, the Supreme Court ruled on Ohio’s Congressional map, and new actions are being taken almost weekly on cases around the country.) In fact, after the documentary’s final scene of Fahey’s group celebrating their win and drinking champagne, the filmmakers felt the need to place a screen graphic at the end of the film to update viewers. It reads:
WITH A ‘BLUE WAVE,’ DEMOCRATS
RECAPTURED CONGRESS IN 2018.
BUT IN NORTH CAROLINA, MICHIGAN,
AND WISCONSIN THE GERRYMANDERS HELD.
IN ALL THREE STATES, LEGISLATURES QUICKLY
MOVED TO PASS NEW VOTER SUPPRESSION LAWS AND
STRIP INCOMING DEMOCRATIC GOVERNORS OF POWER.
Honestly, when I saw that final graphic, my heart fell. It put me back into the defeatist “even when you win, you lose,” mindset that has felt so overwhelming in recent years. After Goodman spoke so enthusiastically about how both his new documentaries shared a spirit of optimism about democracy, I asked him a hard question. I asked, “Do you say you believe that democracy is alive and well because it’s the thing you want to believe and that you hope can and will be true, if people keep trying despite the setbacks, or do you honestly believe that democracy is alive and well in America – based on your real experiences and what you have seen happen over the past few years? Is functional democracy a wish or reality?”
Katie Fahey, Voters Not Politicians
He did not pause before he answered, emphatically, “The latter. I believe it. I’ve seen it.” He is here to testify. But he adds, “People have to fight for their democracy. They have to get upset and they have to get mad and really make it clear to politicians that they will not stand for it. That’s what happened in Michigan. It’s what is going to happen everywhere.” And Fahey stepped in to add to that answer:
“I spent two years of my life, every single day, seeing what democracy can be, seeing strangers join together and decide to stand up for doing what was right over what was easy – take democracy into their own hands and talk to their neighbors about how to make a better future. And what we did… we changed the course of history. There may be setbacks but there is no turning back. The tide is turning. Change is happening.
Katie Fahey winning, in Slay the Dragon
“And what we’re doing now is… we had so many people reach out to us after hearing about our story on the national news and say that they want to challenge gerrymandering in their states, so now I’m working on creating lessons based on what we did and organizing to help other people do it for themselves too.”
Okay then. This is testimony from people on the front lines of the fight. Helen Highly Persuaded: I will give hope a chance.
This is not an ordinary archive-on-film documentary; it’s not just a history lesson, a story about ideas, or something you put on your to-watch list; it’s a breathing thing, with a life force and a will for justice and hope to offer, but it needs daylight and care to stay alive. The fight is happening right now. The hope the film holds is not just an offer; it’s a plea. I am pleading with you; let’s not give up on everything quite yet. Watch this movie first.
(Slay the Dragon is set to be released later this year, but keep an eye out for updates.)
Fashion films never go out of style, and now you can easily stream them to watch anytime you want. Tribeca Film Festival 2018 offered several films about art and artists, but perhaps the most compelling selection is the list of Fashion Films — three documentaries that profile fascinating characters from the fashion world. Here’s the list: Yellow is Forbidden, about Chinese designer Guo Pei, by director Pietra Brettkelly; The Gospel According to Andre, by director Kate Novack; and McQueen, by directors Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui. And there are more, too.
Recognition from Paris’s Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture is considered the apex of the fashion industry, and Chinese designer Guo Pei is determined to reach it. With a remarkable eye for detail and exquisite blending of visual art forms, veteran documentarian Pietra Brettkelly captures Guo’s drive, artistry and meticulous acumen, from the designer’s emergence on the international scene—when Rihanna wore her hand-embroidered canary yellow gown to the Met Gala in 2015—through her remarkable 2017 show “Legend,” presented at La Conciergerie, in Paris.
Yellow is Forbidden, at Tribeca 2018
Along the way, Brettkelly reveals the myriad opposing forces that confront Guo’s ambitions: those of Chinese tradition versus Western modernity; acceptance versus prejudice; and ensuring a thriving business versus pursuing more expensive and exclusive techniques. Most of all, she highlights the pressures that China’s economic rise places on its individual artisans. As Guo puts it, “I’m a designer, not a nation.” Nevertheless, Guo thrives amid these challenges, establishing herself as a singularly capable and uncompromising warrior for her art. With loving fidelity for Guo’s work, Brettkelly depicts both the process and the fashion itself, resulting in a timely examination of what it takes for an outsider to earn acclaim from one of the West’s most redoubtable institutions.
André Leon Talley—unmistakable in his regal stature, his fiercely original way with words, and his incomparable historical knowledge of couture, has been a fixture of the fashion world for more than 40 years. A mentee of the legendary editor Diana Vreeland, Talley called Vogue home for years: he served as news director; creative director; and finally, editor-at-large, until 2013. As he drifts effortlessly from the front row at fashion weeks across the globe to television appearances and New York Times assignments, one begins to wonder how such an original as Talley came to be.
André Leon Talley, in Gospel According to Andre
In Kate Novack’s film, the viewer is invited back to his childhood in Jim Crow-era North Carolina. His beloved grandmother, Bennie, raised him, schooling him in decorum, religion, and, unsurprisingly, clothes, sparking an early and powerful love for all things fashion. This led him to New York City, where he battled—and continues to battle—both racist and homophobic assumptions about black men in the industry. With great insight, Novack pulls back the curtain on this towering icon, revealing new and beautifully vulnerable moments with Talley—as well as endlessly hilarious ones—as he discusses his storied career and the women who helped him achieve it.
Gospel According to Andre is available for streaming on Hulu and Amazon Prime.
Beginning with his modest upbringing in London, Lee Alexander McQueen quickly ascended the ranks of the international fashion world. After graduating from Central Saint Martins and establishing his eponymous label, McQueen became head designer of Givenchy at age 27 and went on to win the British Fashion Awards’ prize for British Designer of the Year four times. His theatrical runway shows and daring designs existed on the cutting edge of ’90s fashion, while his controversial and confrontational work earned him equal attention from fans and detractors alike. At the same time, he also forged a friendship with the influential stylist Isabella Blow, cultivating an intimate relationship that would last until her death in 2007. As McQueen’s star rose, so did the pressure and accompanying anxiety to constantly strive for ever greater heights of genius.
McQueen, the documentary, at Tribeca
Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui’s documentary tells McQueen’s story through the testimonials from his closest friends and family. Featuring personal archives extending back to the earliest days of his career, as well as dynamic footage of his most boundary-pushing shows and creations, McQueen offers a vivid portrait of the tortured but inspired auteur’s work and persona.
McQueen is available for streaming on Amazon Prime.
Watch the trailer for McQueen below:
More
If you’re hungry for more, check out the fashion films from Tribeca 2017.
Zac Posen has become one the most recognizable faces in modern fashion, with his truly unique aesthetic style. He is a force to be reckoned with whose talent shone through as early as childhood. However, like any journey to great success, it hasn’t come without cost.
Follow the creation of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “China: Through the Looking Glass” exhibition, by curator Andrew Bolton. With unprecedented access, director Andrew Rossi captures the collision of high fashion and celebrity at the Met Gala and dives into the debate about whether fashion should be viewed as art.
First Monday in May is available for streaming on Amazon Prime.
H.G. Wells said, “We all have our time machines. Those that take us back are memories, and those that carry us forward are dreams.” The new documentary film, Our Time Machine, which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival this year, manages to do both, and more. Using a kind of Chinese magic-realism, directors S. Leo Chiang and Yang Sun and editor Bob Lee, along with artist Maleonn, take the viewer to a world that not only interweaves dreams and memories, but also mixes transcendent allegory and deeply-rooted personal reality as part of one amazingly cohesive story, told with both power and grace. The extraordinary work of new director Yang Sun was acknowledged with the TFF Award for Best Cinematography in a Documentary.
Our Time Machine poster
Our Time Machine is a profound and poetic film that is achingly uplifting as it tells a universal tale of father and son, love and loss, and the exquisite sadness and joy of life – with puppets! If that seems like too many concepts or too grandiose an endeavor, I can only say that it likely would be in the hands of any other directors. But the deft artistry and grounded wisdom of these filmmakers treat life’s most abstract paradoxes in a way that feels like the life-blood of this movie is shot straight into your veins, as pure, essential truth.
It seems nearly impossible for an entirely factual documentary to be such a perfectly formed narrative tale. Can it also be a brilliant piece of poetry? It’s a rare thing, but here it is. Through an entirely unconventional use of mechanics (with a fresh take on puppetry and cinematography), these filmmakers have taken society’s collective pain and re-engineered it into beauty.
Shaken by news of his father’s dementia, Chinese artist Maleonn decides to build an intricately-designed time-machine puppet that will unite him and his father as it transports them to the memories his father has forgotten. If you don’t understand how puppetry can be a true art form, this film will show you. Originally conceived to be a collaborative theatrical project between father and son, an idea thwarted by the quickly advancing illness of his father, Maleonn must reimagine his production to be a parting gift to his father, and when even that fails due to his father’s inability to understand, Maleonn is left talking to the puppet he built, as if it were his own son: “Dear son, I want to try something impossible – to love another person. There is no practical purpose, because love is like art. There is no reason. We do it because we can’t help ourselves.”
Our Time Machine rehearsal photo by Maleonn
Maleonn follows in the artistic footsteps of his parents; his mother was an actress and his father, Ma Ke, was a long-time director of the Peking Opera Theater. Through the lens of a father-son relationship, Our Time Machine explores what it means to be an artist in China in the 20th century and today. From the condemnations of the Cultural Revolution to contemporary financial and social challenges of putting on a complex and wholly original hybrid art performance, directors S. Leo Chiang and Yang Sun probe the artistic impulse across generations. Mixing haunting imagery with real-life moments, Our Time Machine conveys the mystery and consolation of art against the ravages of time.
Maleonn in Our Time Machine
There are several puppets in the movie – both people and machines. In addition to the time machine puppet, there is an airplane, which the elderly-father puppet senses circling above him. Director Chiang explained to me that the plane is symbolic of a bird – a crane, and in China there is an ancient belief that when you die, you ride a crane to heaven. In the film, the father puppet repeatedly says he sees or hears an airplane coming, and the grown-son-puppet reassures him, “No, there is no plane.” Even if you don’t know about the Chinese crane metaphor, it is clear this plane represents the thing both father and son want to avoid – death. The time machine not only takes the father back to the lost memories in his past, it becomes the instrument that his son uses to avoid the future he fears for his father and himself. But will it work in real life?
Our Time Machine, Maleonn builds a large puppet
Helen Highly Analytical does not cry easily during movies. And I did not cry in this one. But it was quite a surprise to feel myself tear up when I was only speaking about this movie as I interviewed its filmmakers. I want so much to tell you, my readers, the pair of beautifully symmetrical repetitive sentences that frame this story, but I don’t want to cheat you of the experience of revelation that will come when you hear them in context. And it does feel like a genuine revelation.
Out Time Machine, “Son, can you float on water?”
As the Baby Boomer generation ages, we are met with an increasing number of emotionally grueling stories, told in films and in books, about the horrors of illness, the challenges of eldercare, and the miseries of troubled relationships between adult-children and their flawed or failing parents. At the same time, so many of us are suffering through those experiences in our real lives. The prospect of going to the movies to relive it on the big screen seems to me unappealing at best. I find myself avoiding films on these subjects, despite often being assured they are excellent or insightful. I feel I already have too much insight to bear. But this film is something different.
Especially in America, convention dictates that every story – even the saddest ones – must end with some sort of redemption, something learned, some problem resolved, and that expectation too often results in a contrived happy ending being slapped onto the conclusion of a story. Endings are hard – perhaps the most important and difficult part of any story. And if the writer resists the phony and simplistic happily-ever-after, then we often are left with an unsatisfying bitterness at the end – a bad taste in our mouths. In the film world, I call those “Life Sucks and Then You Die Movies” – not highly recommended.
With true stories, we often hear the justification, “That’s what really happened. You can’t change the facts.” But a real artist, a dedicated artist, will mine that real-life ending for a moment that is as unequivocally accurate and honest as it is transformative. It’s the sign of a true master – to be able to craft a beautiful ending without a whiff of anything artificial or the feel of anything forced. When we see that happen… it’s like a miracle. That’s what this documentary is. It is truth at its best – miraculous.
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Interested in another smart, well-made Asian-American film? (This one is in English.) Winner of the Tribeca Film Institute and AT&T Untold Stories award, Lucky Grandma is a dark comedy about immigrant life, the vulnerabilities of aging, and the primacy of family. Mostly it’s hilarious with a knock-out performance by Tsai Chin. Click here to read about it and another Untold Stories film.
