documentary

Provoking, Undoing, Starting Over

Chet Kozlowski — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 19:49:00 +0000

Provoking, Undoing, Starting Over Chet Kozlowski January 28, 2025 - 14:49

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For sheer cinematic exuberance, you can't do better than Life as a B Movie. From the start, the viewer is bombarded with vintage images of skydivers, gyrating teenagers, and nudes cavorting in a sea of feathers, interspersed between the title credits. A tribute to pulp impresario Piero Vivarelli, this documentary is a "secret history" of how post-war Italy reclaimed its place on the world stage.

A paratrooper in WWII, Vivarelli routinely plunged earthward on reconnaissance missions, and that disregard for danger informed his life. As one testifier puts it, "He wanted a taste of everything. He was an extremist. It was always a game. Provoking, undoing, starting over." Vivarelli had his finger on the pulse of the new generation as a music publisher, lyricist, screenwriter, film director, and producer. He hosted intellectuals and trendsetters in what his first wife Enza Minervini calls "the Live It Up Club," a.k.a. their Rome apartment, at all hours of the day and night.

He exploited trends. In the rush of foreign cinema—during the 1960s-'70s, Italy produced 350 movies a year—he became known for black and white extravaganzas like Howlers of the Dock (1960), I Kiss You Kiss (1961), and Il dio Serpente (1970). Vivarelli's passions are up there on the screen: speed, rock 'n' roll, the high life, and women. He saw the potential in movie musicals or, more precisely, movies about music and stuffed the burgeoning counterculture with new sensations, churning out no-budget flicks. His closest equivalents in the US were Roger Corman (for economy) and Russ Meyer (for the exaltation of the female form).

His producers, directors, ex-wives, and paramours add spice to the mix. Most of the talking heads are of his generation (and the worse for wear for their excesses). Vivarelli often brushed with greatness: he cast jazz trumpeter Chet Baker in Juke Box Kids (1959) {"he slept all the time") and was a contemporary of Fellini and Antonioni ("he couldn't have made Zabriskie Point without my movies"). He brought Aretha Franklin and the then-new Led Zeppelin to Italy, wielding suitcases crammed with cash.

He flirted with fascism and communism and rubbed elbows with Castro in Cuba. His drama East Zone, West Zone (1962) is set at the construction of the Berlin Wall. He was delighted that the power and diversity of the youth culture "scared the Italian political power" and that he was part of it.

At other points in the film, Vivarelli spars with Quentin Tarantino at the Venice Film Festival in 2004. Franco Nero chats about the script development of the Spaghetti Western Django (Vivarelli wrote it, and Sergio Carbucci directed it). His interest in Black culture spawned a particular brand of erotic/exotic exploitation in films like The Black Decameron (1972) and the Emmanuelle series starring Laura Gemser.

Life as a B Movie is a genre film lover's delight, an avalanche of ideas and memories. This feast of sights and sounds culminates in a ballet of folks flying through the air, contending that Vivarelli's joie de vivre can be traced to his paratrooper roots. "Up there in the sky, totally free. He liked the freedom thing," as one testimonial understates.

Piero Vivarelli took a big bite out of life. He died in 2020. In his most autobiographical film, Nella Misura in Cui (1979), Vivarelli's surrogate is asked, "Really, no regrets?"

"No, none at all. I just made some bad choices."

"At least you have the guts to admit it."

"Yeah, but guts are all I have left." ____________________________________________

Life as a B Movie: Piero Vivarelli. Directed by Niccolò Vivarelli and Fabrizio Laurenti. 2019. From Film Movement. 90 minutes. On digital platforms.

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Elie Wiesel Never Forgot Suffering

Gary Lucas — Sat, 25 Jan 2025 11:59:05 +0000

Elie Wiesel Never Forgot Suffering Gary Lucas January 25, 2025 - 06:59

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Director Oren Rudavsky has done a masterful job in his new documentary Soul On Fire, which played the 2025 New York Jewish Film Festival in capturing the inner and outer man that was the great Elie Wiesel (1928-2016). The Romanian-American writer, Nobel Prize laureate, and political activist became the living embodiment worldwide of the compassionate Jewish conscience and consciousness—bearing witness in his many books and personal appearances to the heinous atrocities perpetrated on the Jewish people during the Holocaust.

This new documentary, which is due to be shown as part of PBS's American Masters series, delves deeply into Wiesel's psyche in many interviews and clips of him speaking, as well as filmed conversations with family, friends, and learned commentators on the Holocaust, and strikingly evocative animated footage of the young Wiesel's childhood and student days in a little town in Romania and ultimate removal at the tender age of 16 into the inferno of Auschwitz.

What is fascinating to learn here is that Elie Wiesel, besides being a forceful voice on behalf of Jewish suffering during the Second World War, was also a strong advocate for Human Rights across the board. He stood up repeatedly for victims everywhere, including persecuted Russian and Ethiopian Jews, South Africans under the yoke of apartheid, Muslims in Bosnia under siege, the slaughter of Sudanese, Rwandan, and Armenian people, the victimization of the Kurds, the incredible tragedy of Argentina's "Disappeared," the suffering of the Nicaraguan Miskito people, and on and on. He acknowledged Palestinian suffering in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech and repeatedly tried to foster an open dialogue between Israeli and Palestinian leadership.

When I was a boy, I read Elie Wisel's searing autobiography Night, a first-hand account of the shocking and brutal acts he had witnessed in the hellscape of Auschwitz before being transferred to Buchenwald, where the American army ultimately liberated him—and for years I've been haunted by his eloquent evocation of these vivid and haunting experiences. I recommend this book as a standard text to be taught in schools across the USA, where a shocking number of young people either have never heard of the Holocaust or are actively denying its existence.

Soul On Fire is an important and timely documentary that takes a measured and methodical look into the making of Elie Wiesel. It concentrates on the historical forces that shaped him into the single most eloquent spokesman for Jewish people and victims of oppression everywhere.

He doesn't come off in the film as a cardboard saint but rather as a very human and extremely personable man in full, who heard the call and stood up to be counted.

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Insurrection of a Million Minds

Gary Lucas — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 23:17:13 +0000

Insurrection of a Million Minds Gary Lucas January 10, 2025 - 18:17

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Fidel Castro and Malcom X in the Hotel Theresa in Harlem

Soundtrack To A Coup d'Etat

Certainly, the best film I've seen in 2025 (so far…I know, I know, we're only a week or so in, but I've seen a bunch of them)—now playing at Film Forum NYC and available to stream for 4 or 5 bucks or so on the usual streaming sites. Sure to be on MUBI one of these days soon.

The most cogent, furious, powerfully framed and edited documentary conceivable about the 1960 CIA-backed covert assassination of Patrice Lumumba—the democratically elected president of the Congo—who was murdered in a cynical maneuver to put an end to the burgeoning decolonization movement in Africa. This film has a far-reaching resonance not only in light of the current ongoing mess in the Middle East but in terms of pretty much all human relationships (life as we live it) on Planet Earth. It covers a vast amount of territory in its 2 1/2 hours, which races by in the wink of an eye—it's that sweeping and that good.

Written and directed by Belgian multimedia artist and filmmaker Johan Grimonprez (hitherto unknown to me, but he has a few highly regarded films under his belt), the musical soundtrack herein comprises an urgent dialogue with the film's timely subject matter courtesy of jazz icons Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Abbey Lincoln, Thelonious Monk, Max Roach, Nina Simone, Miriam Makeba, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, Melba Liston, Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus, and Ornette Coleman (several of whom—Armstrong, in particular—were used as fig leaf cultural/musical ambassadors to Africa via the State Department back in the day to mask the CIA's hidden agenda and black-op maneuvers in Africa)—and African artists Le Grand Kallé, Rock-a-Mambo, Dr. Nico, Marie Daulne, and Eddy Wally.

The film boasts memorable turns by Nikita Kruschev ranting about decolonization (with a straight face) and banging his shoe at the UN; Fidel Castro entertaining guests like Malcom X up in his suite in the Hotel Theresa in Harlem while in NYC to speak at the UN, amidst rumors of obtaining a live chicken and plucking and eating it during his stay; a stricken Adlai Stevenson witnessing Abbey Lincoln and Maya Angelou crash and disrupt the General Assembly of the UN with a posse of "Freedom Now!" activists; plus cameos from Dag Hammarskjöld dissembling before the UN; a "Man who speaks with forked tongue" Dwight Eisenhower; jazz producer and Voice of America host Willis Conover; then UN Representative Conor Cruise O’Brien; John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and various CIA apparatchiks; Col. Joseph Mobutu, who morphed into dictator Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, once described by Norman Mailer as resembling "a snake on a stick", who went on to host the Ali /Frasier "Rumble in the Jungle" fight—and other heroes and villains.

This is a jaw-dropping essential documentary that will leave you shaken and stirred—a witness to history in the making as a series of bold individual initiatives, followed by the usual weak compromises, double crosses, and lots and lots of bad faith.

And even if you are only vaguely interested in the subject, you will here be given new eyes to see it all afresh—whatever side of the political divide you might currently find yourself on.

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Musical Mecca Remembered

Chet Kozlowski — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 15:07:22 +0000

Musical Mecca Remembered Chet Kozlowski August 8, 2024 - 11:07

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The space on West 8^th St in Greenwich Village was available. What started out as an experimental nightclub became a world-class recording studio that still bears the trademark of its creator. In 1968, Electric Lady Studios was on the cusp of a revolution.

Jimi Hendrix was at the height of his success and instigated a move into the New York club scene. He had recorded his most commercial (and what would turn out to be his last) LP, Electric Ladyland at a variety of studios. He was seeking sonic perfection to interpret the music in his head. The new documentary Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision chronicles the craziness of the creation of his personal recording workspace.

Those who were there—those who are still alive—reminisce about their time with Hendrix and his quixotic quest. Testimonials by John Storyk (architect), Eddie Kramer (recording engineer), and Shimon Ron (chief technical engineer) are augmented by studio president Jim Marron’s nuts-and-bolts talk about liquor licenses and club curfews.

For fans, there are interviews with Hendrix himself, plus footage of him in concert. The remaining members of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Billy Cox and Mitch Mitchell (Hendrix and Noel Redding both died in 1969), check in, as does rocker Steve Winwood. For audio nerds, there's Eddie Kramer at the console, showing off his back-lit slide faders and isolating vocal tracks. Anecdotes abound, like Stevie Wonder's polite meticulousness and the simultaneous recording of music in one studio while an audiobook version of The Joy of Sex goes on in the other. Plus the tale of flooding when the crew hit a tributary of the Minetta Creek, halting construction.

The film's music is all by Hendrix (including "Freedom," "Angel," and "Dolly Dagger"). It is part of a release that features raw takes and archival tracks in a multi-disk set by the same name.

Electric Lady Studios wasn't just a convenience for its star and owner but a viable business known for unparalleled quality, which continues to this day. Besides vintage acts like Carly Simon and Lena Horne, current clients include Clairo, Zach Bryan, and Sabrina Carpenter.

Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision is a trip down a trippy memory lane that fills in much information about an enduring rock icon.

____________________________________________________

Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision. Directed by John McDermott. 2024. From Experience Hendrix and Abramorama. In theaters and VOD. 90 minutes.

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British Busker Blues

Chet Kozlowski — Fri, 24 May 2024 10:54:40 +0000

British Busker Blues Chet Kozlowski May 24, 2024 - 06:54

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American Mileage

Cam Cole is a feisty young busker, a street musician from London. He's a one-man band, riffing Blues on a fuzzy guitar while stomping out the beat on a drum he's rigged with pedals. His streetcorner act attracts tourists and passersby who post videos that have gone viral. This has made Cam a social media celebrity. Now he’s taken that and run with it, all the way to America.

American Mileage is a lively road trip in a gypsy RV. Less a documentary than a celebration of self, Cam arrives on American shores and sticks to the South—and the spirit of Highway 49—hitting important Blues landmarks along the way. Remember how, in Lost in America, Albert Brooks wanted to "touch Indians"? Cam Cole wants to touch Bluesmen.

He and his cohort, director Tim Hardiman, blow into a town, looking to jam. Cam just wants to play, mate, and that playfulness and energy endear us to him. He’s fun to watch, especially when bashing away on his guitar and wailing.

Cam shows up at places like the legendary Muscle Shoals Studios (Alabama), Stovall Farm (Louisiana), and The Riverside Hotel (Mississippi). Iconic names are evoked: John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Sam Cooke, Mavis Staples, and Alan Lomax. He sits in with some of the best and holds his own: at Wild Bill’s in Tennessee, guitarist Chloe Lavender and Cam blow the roof off. He plays in the building where once stood the site where Robert Johnson recorded.

Others have been down American Mileage's road before: U2 made some of the same stops in 1988's Rattle and Hum. In the '70s, a Brit named Mark Bristow toured in a van with Mark's America, a multimedia show shot on Super 8 as he drove.

Tim Hardiman shoots Cam in the frenetic style of an infomercial, with a roaming camera, jump cuts, and snappy graphics. Mr. Hardiman's kitchen-sink style revels in messy moments, like when Cam's Street show is stopped by a freak thunderstorm or when he, Cam, interrupts an interview to take a piss.

For all the miles and all the history, American Mileage all comes back to Cam. Cam jamming. Cam getting a tattoo. Cam sharing wisdom. Cam eating soul food. Cam is front and center the whole time. He gets goofed on. At Greg's Guess House, MS, a guy offers Cam what he tells him is a barbecued raccoon but is actually a cat he hit with his car. "Hmm," Cam says, chewing. "It's very good, mate, very tender."

Cam does some direct narration (i.e., cautioning the viewer that sometimes he'll have a beard and in others be clean-shaven because, you know, shaving), and his soliloquies are shot as if he’s talking to an off-camera interviewer, making us witnesses. It's a popular technique for building credibility. If someone else is listening to him, what he’s saying must be important.

How is Cam received by the Bluesmen? Is he seen as a peer or an upstart? Singer Bobby Rush, who appeared in Martin Scorsese's 2003 doc The Road to Memphis, invites Cam into his home. "You're looking at the Blues," Bobby tells him. "I'm a Black man in Mississippi." Bobby’s cordial and full of stories, some of them horrific, like the car accident he got into while playing with Ike Turner's band. He invites Cam to play with him. He's genuinely pleased to be remembered and respected.

Other guys, not so much. In Bentonia, MS (population 319), Cam inserts himself into a gathering of authentic Bluesmen. These guys are poor and old and still playing. R.L. Boyce slurs and swaggers, then sing like an angel. He tells Cam, "The style I got, you ain’t never gonna get it." Jimmy "Duck" Holmes, owner of the Blue Front Café and a renowned musician, is suspicious and defensive. When Cam extols his own unique style, Jimmy snaps, "Blues is Blues." He accuses Cam of trying to show him up.

These guys have paid their dues. They're still paying their dues. (Has Cam Cole? His backstory is dispensed with quickly; he claims to have not pursued a traditional recording career because the industry is full of "wankers.") Cam purposely placing himself in the midst of the Blues' origins brings up interesting questions.

He asks and answers: "Have white people stolen black people's music? Can a set of chords be owned by a race of people? I don't have an answer to that. I think claiming ownership of anything based on race is starting off on the wrong foot as nothing good can come from that." His predecessors, the Stones and Led Zeppelin, took flack for this, too. They were considered cultural appropriators during the "British Invasion" of rock music. See Keith Richards' spirited dispute with Chuck Berry in 1987's Hail! Hail! Rock n Roll.

But that's the way of the Blues, mate. It’s a continuum. American Mileage is Cam Cole making myth. If he deserves a place at the table, seats will be open soon enough. Maybe he can wedge his way in there after all.

_____________________________________________________
American Mileage. Directed by Tim Hardiman. 2024. Produced by 7^th Floor Films, Nomad Films LLC, and Black 22 Productions. On digital platforms. 81 minutes.

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Play With Fire

Gary Lucas — Fri, 17 May 2024 17:35:53 +0000

Play With Fire Gary Lucas May 17, 2024 - 13:35

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I went to see the new Anita Pallenberg doc Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg last week shortly after it opened at the IFC Center here on 6th Avenue, the first show of the day at the ungodly hour of 11:50 am. About five souls only collected in the lobby before the management opened the doors to the main theater—obvious hardcore fans of the Rolling Stones, more or less from my g-g-g-g-generation, knowledge brothers and sisters. Fellow old souls, we cast a commiserating glance at each other, waiting to go into the main theater when one of them whispered conspiratorially across to me: "Only people of a certain age know who Anita Pallenberg is" (was)—historical memory if not yr basic continuum of knowledge post-iPhone having been fucked into a cocked hat/relegated to the slag heap of history ("Do you remember your President Nixon?" sang David Bowie circa '75, only a year after Nixon resigned. Indeed. Do you remember what you even had for lunch yesterday?).

Then it was time to bear witness to the blazing trajectory of Anita Pallenberg, Rock Chick Uber Alles, in a league of her own you could say, a powerful female shaman in her own right, a Lilith-figure who had Brian and then Keith with a side order of Mick, who even out-did Marianne Faithfull in the Ultimate Stones Bad Girl pantheon, a (dis)Honor Roll whose ranks stretch back to the early '60s and roll on to the last syllable of recorded time and include chanteuse Nico (knocked up and abandoned by Brian), singer/actress Marsha Hunt (knocked up and abandoned by Mick), German tv presenter/left-wing poster girl Uschi Obermaier (who had the signal pleasure of tearing Keith's earring out of his ear with her teeth during wild sex, leaving him and his bloody earlobe glued to the pillow when he came to next morning)—with special mention going to Mandy Smith who began an affair with Bill "Perks" Wyman at age 13—Bill enjoyed his perks!—and finally wed him 5 years later when she came of legal age in a marriage that lasted only 23 months.

This is a very long and comprehensive documentary skillfully assembled by Alexis Bloom and Svetlana Zill, and it's worth a look, especially if you're a fan of the Stones. If not, you may come to gawk and stay. It has a copious amount of (to me) never-before-seen footage of the home movie variety, which looks pretty damned good considering its source, no doubt courtesy of Keith's two kids by Anita—Marlon and Angela Richards. Both come off as very well-spoken, sensitive, and sympathetic people who experienced a real amount of damage growing up in the wake of the Stones juggernaut and their absentee parents's antics and came out the other side intact (phew!).

Now, the Stones have always been my favorites ever since the immortal opening bluesy guitar riff of The Last Time (composed and played by Brian Jones) came wafting over the airwaves and cast its hypnotic spell—and having seen them live in 1965 in my little town of Syracuse I became a stone zealot. Over the years, I've read almost every book about them, beginning with the 1965 Bantam paperback Our Own Story by the Rolling Stones as We Told It to Pete Goodman (UK music journalist Peter Jones in real life). I also sat through myriad HBO live specials and theatrical concert docs, including rarities like British Pathe's 1964 short subject Rolling Stones Gather Moss (I saw it in a movie theater). So yeah, eventually, I kinda knew the whole extended Anita episode pretty well, all the highs and lows. You could do worse by starting here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Pallenberg

PHOTO BY MICHAEL COOPER

Here, her story is fleshed out to the nth degree and—clocking in as it does for nearly one hour and fifty minutes, but it feels like three—they easily could have trimmed twenty minutes from it. Still, I am happy Anita is given her due here at last because she comes off on the face of the available evidence as an even stronger, more willful, and forceful Personality than Messrs. Jones, Richards, and Jagger combined. Certainly, none of the Stones radiate anything resembling real Star Power on the big screen when caught off stage, going back to Peter Whitehead and Andrew Loog Oldham's 1966 live-in-Ireland documentary, Charlie is My Darling, where they come off as lumpen proles in the interview sections (as opposed to The Beatles' individual charismatic sparkle throughout A Hard Day's Night ). The Anti-Beatles, eh? But Anita shines in all her film forays. A real-life force of nature, for my money, she is the best thing about Nicholas Roeg and Donald Cammell's 1970 Performance—she absolutely steals the show from Mick.

The narration here is by Scarlett Johanson, who reads chunks from Anita's posthumously discovered autobiographical manuscript entitled (what else?) Black Magic. Her low-key (some would say flat) American accent doesn't work for me, sorry to say—she sounds way too nice. I would have vastly preferred the dulcet accented tones of Eva Green or the husky vocables of Emma Stone on the soundtrack—or better yet, going for true Bad Girl glory, the voice of Asia Argento or Paz de la Huerta—but you can't always get what you want.

Fun Fact/Most Impressive Takeaway: Anita was the great-granddaughter of Swiss symbolist painter Arnold Böcklin, whose canvases contain as much colorful Sturm und Drang as Anita's own storied life. Böcklin specialized in mythological portraits of centaurs, satyrs, and nubile nymphs at play; some of his tableau seem to predict (or at least are not that far afield of) central episodes in Anita's saga. (I actually discovered a knockoff of Böcklin's 1883 masterpiece Playing in the Waves in a smoky pub in Prague some years ago, which on close inspection, has a horned demonic visage Goat Head's Soup-style painted under the top layer of pigment courtesy of the anonymous forger (see below, right under the centaur's outstretched left arm, this painting now hangs in Studio Faust just across the road from the pub in Prague, an excellent recording facility operated by my old friend Richard "Faust" Mader).

PHOTO BY GARY LUCAS, A KNOCKOFF OF ARNOLD Böcklin'S "PLAYING IN THE WAVES"

True confession: I am kind of burned out on the Stones and their wicked wicked ways at this point in time. I'm told they are still capable of churning out the occasional banger. But I couldn't name one. And I have no desire to sit in a stadium to see them—or anyone, for that matter (well, Paolo Conte—maybe). Can holographic AI performances of the band a la Abba be all that far off?

Basically, "I don't find this stuff amusing anymore" (Paul Simon). I still enjoy their early recordings, particularly the Andrew Oldham-era Stones—but I've stopped actively listening to them. They have become (for me anyway) a tired fossilized cliche, aging poster boys for a decadent rock 'n' roll lifestyle that flourished in what looks now like the Jurassic era, with scant relevance in the current world-historical climate other than as mere entertainment fodder (albeit on a Brobdinagian scale). A nostalgia act, in other words. They're not dangerous anymore. Were they ever, really?? Yes. So dangerous that the UK establishment contrived to try and shut them down by busting 3 of them repeatedly when their influence on youth culture became a perceived subversive threat to authority and the way people thought about things like "petty morals" (to quote Keith in the dock of the Old Bailey in 1967). When their very presence on stages (particularly in Eastern Europe) could provoke riots.

The beginning of the end of my fascination with the Stones began with the Altamont debacle—which, along with Kent State, heralded the death knell of the '60s—and picked up speed right around the time they brought Truman Capote and Lee Radziwill into their entourage on the road with them in '73, when the whole thing became a mega-commodified spectacle—you can get a strong whiff of this sorry-ass rawk 'n' roll circus up close and personal in parts of the suppressed-for-years Robert Frank doc, Cocksucker Blues. Their music stayed strong for a few more albums post-Exile. They could still pump out the occasional world-shaking anthem—but their whole Outlaw persona began to ring hollow. Keith's Life autobiography signaled the end of my Stones infatuation: too many casualties surrounding the group, too much collateral damage, too much bad behavior and by-the-numbers debauchery over too many years. Not impressed. "What else can you show me?" (Dylan).

Still, this documentary is a good start towards shining a light on a powerful female artist in her own right in the Stones menage who was seemingly under nobody's thumb but that of King Heroin—a nasty habit she managed to kick before joining "the choir invisible" (George Eliot). It restores an overall sense of agency (to invoke a current big buzzword) to the "Voodoo Priestess" and "seductive enchantress," as she is referred to in the doc—but it is not exactly a "pretty pretty" (Barbarella) story.

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Mourning in America

Chet Kozlowski — Sat, 11 May 2024 14:54:32 +0000

Mourning in America Chet Kozlowski May 11, 2024 - 10:54

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Our divided nation is the topic of Mitch McCabe’s harrowing new documentary 23 Mile. Set firmly in America’s heartland, the film is a video diary of a perfect storm of events in 2020: the Presidential election in the midst of the Covid pandemic.

The scene is Michigan, from Detroit to Kalamazoo and stops in between. While the state has “long been a hotbed of militia activity,” as one observer puts it, 23 Mile spreads a wide net, documenting tourists, activists and extremists. What emerges is a disquieting portrait of a disillusioned and confused populace.

23 Mile offers no narration or commentary. Its technique is simplicity itself, purely point-and-shoot: press conferences, rallies, protests, fundraisers. It’s a verité collage of the breadth of involvement (and dissatisfaction) that emerges from behind masks and disinfectant. Bleak scenes—bare trees (it’s fall), red MAGA caps, puffer jackets—are punctuated by radio show call-ins, ghostly voices out of the ether, against shots of waves lapping at a tanker, or media microphones awaiting a speaker.

Mitch McCabe is the director/producer of other topical shorts and features, including You Have Been Lied To (2023), Civil War Surveillance Poems, Part 1 (2020), and the 2009 HBO documentary Youthh Knows No Pain.

Though the time for both sides-ism has passed, the film employs it to great effect. The people just speak. Their affiliations are not readily revealed. It’s a canny device: all the complaints sound alike: something’s got to change in our basic political and social structure. One man who hosts an unpopular Biden display on his front lawn says, “Policies are the same. I just want to vote for decency.”

The media is a pariah, called out as “the most effective devil in America.” Most of the dissent is bull-horned or glad-handed. “I cannot do anything unless it’s defensive,” says a middle-aged man in paramilitary garb, as if that justifies his assault weapon. He knows that whoever fires the first shot potentially sets off a barrage. Yet they carry, concealed or right out there.

To watch 23 Mile is to witness the groundswell and experience the monotony of lives left behind. These people take to the streets, waving the flag and mouthing the mantra “We the people/liberty for all” while marching under the shadow of disinformation. In the span of time covered by the film, the plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer is exposed. One interviewee is happy to see her unharmed but stung by her criticism of Trump, as if the two acts weren’t related.

It's no spoiler to say that 23 Mile ends first with the election—a lone walker holds up a hand scrawled sign that reads “You lost,” which could be intended for any of us—and then with the first shipment of the Pfizer vaccine from the plant in Kalamazoo. Then the chilling caption “24 days till Jan. 6.”

23 Mile is a searing snapshot of a prophetic time in our history.

_____________________________________________________

23 Mile. Directed by Mitch McCabe. On VOD, DVD, and Blu Ray. 78 Minutes.

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Quest of Ire

Webmaster — Wed, 01 May 2024 21:04:16 +0000

Quest of Ire Webmaster May 1, 2024 - 17:04

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Fun fact: there are two kinds of primed lions in South Africa. Primed for what? Primed to be hunted.

"Canned" lions are bred for it and regulated by the state. "Wild" lions are, well, wild. They live free in the plains. The hunts for them are popular because they promise adventure, illicit thrills, and validation. These are run by essentially outlaw outfits. Guides are free agents and unsanctioned. These wild hunts are highly profitable, the first link in a chain of exploiters that includes everyone from taxidermists to international financiers.

These are the guys Rogue Rubin is after.

Rogue (né Joni) Rubin is a South African photographer who specializes in big game in its natural habitat. She's attractive, spirited, and on a crusade: to end the extinction-in-progress of wild African lions. Lion Spy is her stirring documentary about that issue.

She's also the "spy" of the title. Ms. Rubin knows that powerful forces—shadowy individuals and corporations—are at work here. There’s big money to be made, and they would be unhappy with her attempts to stop it. So she's taken on a fake identity and gone undercover, posing as a "trophy intern," an assistant, and a general gofer on these safaris. She uses small, covert cameras to record what transpires.

Most trophy hunters are white, male, rich, and living the fantasy of the bold adventurer triumphing over the savage predator. Back home, the mounted head of a lion or other feral beast is a great story and a display of cojones. These are the clients wild lion guides cater to. The reality isn't quite as risky: the guides who take them out are heavily armed and poised to take over in case the client is a poor shot, or the quarry turns on them.

But that's rarely the case. For the most part, according to the film, wild lions are docile in their home environment and avoid contact with humans. These outings are a setup: the guides spot a lion, pursue it, and just when it relaxes, the client shoots it from a safe distance. The animal doesn't stand a chance. This practice enrages Ms. Rubin. "This wasn't a chase," she hisses into her hidden camera. "This was an execution."

And it's not limited to lions. Unassuming antelopes and zebras are felled by long-range rifles while strolling or foraging. When a majestic giraffe goes down, the hunters gloat over it, and a guide casually remarks that the gigantic animal's hide will make a great rug, running right up the client's stairs.

Ms. Rubin casts a wide net in Lion Spy. Besides the in-country episodes, she infiltrates a PHASA conference (the Professional Hunting Association of South Africa), where one speaker warns that "public opinion will kill this business." At a convention in Las Vegas, we get an animal-by-animal kill price list (getting a hippo will cost you the most).

One of Lion Spy's more jaw-dropping episodes concerns a father and daughter duo. Dad has returned to Africa and the site of his "triumph" over the wild lion—the carcass now mounted and displayed proudly in his home--this time with his teenage daughter in tow. "It's her turn," he explains. The girl is eager and has a good shot and gets hers right away. Wait, will they see this on Instagram?

As film art, Lion Spy is competent. It documents what many of us may never experience, a safari, using the techniques of modern documentaries: testimonials, rapid-fire editing, and a rousing soundtrack worthy of an action film.

As propaganda, Lion Spy is more effective, especially when tracing the path of money generated by the trade (its sponsors may surprise you). Ms. Rubin has a lot of footage to work with, from her hidden cameras and those used by hunters themselves to immortalize the event.

The "spy" part is gimmicky as a framing device. Ms. Rubin wants Lion Spy to be seen as a "thriller," but it's a pointed one: she prods opinions for sound bites (like the daughter-hunter who sees a lion cub and says she "wants one." Who wouldn't, until it's grown up? Yet Ms. Rubin uses the remark as evidence of the girl's insensitivity).

Lion Spy isn't made to play in theaters but on flatscreens at fundraisers. Of course, the jig is up once audiences (and her subjects) see the film and its true agenda is revealed. But in the final account, the movie works because it's persuasive, and Rogue Rubin is so passionate about preserving the lions.

After all, as Debby Thomson of Bushveld Connections, one of Ms. Rubin's supporters, says in the film, "What is Africa without wild animals?"

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Lion Spy. Directed by Joni “Rogue” Rubin. 2021. On digital platforms. 76 minutes.

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Labor of Love

Chet Kozlowski — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 01:29:37 +0000

Labor of Love Chet Kozlowski April 17, 2024 - 21:29

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The Outside Circle: a Movie of the Modern West is director Craig Rullman's dusty Valentine to the Cowboy Life. It's a documentary, his first film, and may be his only one. But he cares so deeply about his subject that it’s hard to imagine any other one quite measuring up.

Originally conceived as a profile of Len Babb, a painter who emulates the style of turn-of-the-century artist Charlie Russell, Mr. Rullman expanded it to include folks like the Murphy family, fifth generation Oregon ranchers, and Victoria Jackson, a Paiute-Shoshone rodeo champion whose family legacy reaches back 14,000 years.

The word "romantic" is bandied about quite a bit. Also said often: "pride," "ornate," and "where I’m meant to be."

In the 1940s and 50s, the Cowboy Myth thrived: American popular culture was all Stetsons, six-shooters, and spurs. When cinema was born, cowboys came off the prairie, went to Hollywood and exploited their adventures. They gave us heroic figures real and invented, from Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers to Gene Autry and Wyatt Earp. In the early days of TV, cowboys were ubiquitous. Their presence was so strong, it felt as if they would never ride off into the sunset. These days, of course, Westerns in any form are few and far between.

Mr. Rullman, with the able assistance of cinematographer Samuel Pyke, fills The Outside Circle with languorous, quasi-ghostly images: vague silhouettes glimpsed through the haze kicked up by horses, indistinct as in a dream. To be a cowboy is grimier and harder than those fancy Hollywood types would suggest—one talking head reminds us that they were "common laborers," members of the working class. Troublemakers. One wag even refers to them as "Hell's Angels on horseback."

Mr. Rullman and the subjects of his interviews mourn the passing of this "honest, humble" period, but as a film The Outside Circle is lightweight. It’s redundant and superficial. Images and voices say it, then say it again, going in circles, like a ranch hand guiding his herd. With all the public domain material out there, it relies on a few old photos and grainy home movies to take us into the past. We're left with vestiges, and a sense of the "obligation to represent an American ideal" these folks feel.

But The Outside Circle is genuine. Give him that. Mr. Rullman's sincerity is his strength. We care because he does.

The Outside Circle is big skies, sun dappled dreams, and cherished bygones. It's a noble project, heartfelt and worth seeing.

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The Outside Circle, a Movie of the Modern West. Written and directed by Craig Rullman. 2023. On digital platforms. 77 minutes.

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Is the Reverend Ready For His Close-Up?

Chet Kozlowski — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 02:46:54 +0000

Is the Reverend Ready For His Close-Up? Chet Kozlowski February 14, 2024 - 21:46

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Was it Andy Warhol who said that in the future, everybody will have a 90-minute documentary produced about them? Or am I mixing up my quotes?

The Reverend is a film record of Vince Anderson, a big bearded guy with a distinctly Dr. John vibe. He holds weekly rave-ups at a bar called Black Betty in Brooklyn and has done this for twenty years. He sings and beats the hell out of his keyboard, bringing crowds to their feet. His credo is “Get outta my way” because “anything that’s in the way if you hang onto it, it will be destroyed.”

Mr. Anderson claims to have experienced divine inspiration after bucking picket lines to see Martin Scorsese’s 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ. Not long after, he experienced convulsions, which he took to be the music trying to get out.

He has devoted his life to what he calls “this reverend journey,” bringing gospel music to bars, playing first on the accordion, then piano and electric keyboards. His band, The Love Choir, rocks out his original music—and covers of Tom T. Hall and Daniel Johnston—and keeps the crowd dancing. Recently, Mr. Anderson was the subject of an NPR segment. Questlove and members of TV On The Radio appear in the film.

During The Reverend, ably directed by Nick Canfield, Mr. Anderson talks about falling in love with his girlfriend Millicent, getting married, honeymooning in Coney Island, buying a used accordion at a music shop, and visiting the site of the 2019 El Paso Walmart shooting as one of several invited faith leaders.

All of this feels like the start of something, but it still needs to be the stuff of a feature film. Mr. Anderson brings an undeniable energy to his performances (there is much concert footage), but singing his praises seems premature. Has he done the Lord’s work in remarkable ways? Has he gathered a flock? Not that I can tell. The audience at Black Betty ain’t exactly swooning with religiosity and looks to be on more of a lark, as hipsters will. Even at the Walmart shooting memorial, Mr. Anderson is well-meaning but peripheral.

That’s not to say the film isn’t well made. This is director Nick Canfield’s first full-length feature, and it’s solid. He places cameras well and captures the action of the moment. He, along with editor Paul Lovelace and co-cinematographer Nelson Walker, tells a visual story well. That is until you realize how little you’ve been shown.

There may be a film here, and one understands the lure of a lively music scene. Maybe put The Reverend aside and let it marinate. Let Mr. Anderson get outta the way and follow his own advice: “Live the life you’re supposed to be living. Just don’t talk about it.”

Maybe the Reverend has to sit tight a little longer to see what reward waits for him.

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The Reverend. Directed by Nick Canfield. 2021. An Observant Films production. 96 minutes.