2010 DOC NYC: Robert Greene's Kati with an I

Posted by Melissa Silvestri on Nov 05, 2010
Source: IONCINEMA.com Festival Coverage

Kati with an I, directed by Robert Greene, is an introspective documentary about an Alabama teenage girl named Kati who is two days away from graduating high school and engaged to her high school boyfriend. Her parents live in North Carolina for work reasons, and her graduation spells the end for her years of adolescence, getting ready to enter adulthood. Kati, who is Greene’s half-sister, is a bright and lovely young woman; however, the film’s slow and meandering pace does not provide enough interest in what is a rather dull story.

Kati spends her last days before graduation living it up with her friends: having a pool party, taking long drives, and getting dressed up for a party. It’s as if they’re trying to hold onto their sisterhood before they inevitably part, possibly drifting apart while they attend college. Their sisterhood is beautifully captured by cinematographer Sean Williams (Beetle Queen of Tokyo), and despite being on the brink of 18, they seem more like cherubic young girls.

Kati’s relationship with her fiancé is fraught. James, while he wants to be a meteorologist, is still very childish and apathetic at his age. He is watched over closely by his mother, and doesn’t seem like an intellectual equal for Kati, who speaks with an astute awareness of the world around her. He hesitates to follow her to North Carolina to spend the summer with her and her parents, and for all of their talk of “I love yous,” it never rings as particularly genuine, more of what a teenage couple says to each other out of infatuation or puppy love. James doesn’t seem quite all there, and when the end of the film reveals their future, it looks like a hard road ahead of them.

Kati with an I attempts to document the coming-of-age of a young woman growing into adulthood (and even interjects scenes with home video footage of a child Kati talking about her life and emotions) and shedding her teenage skin. But it plays like a home movie mixed with a teen drama, and isn’t compelling enough of a watch. Greene obviously has personal attachment to Kati, through blood and her experience in front of his camera as well as his ex-girlfriend’s photo work. But it rambles along, and by the end of the film, there isn’t a solid, much-needed resolution.

2010 DOC NYC: Ryan Kerrison's MindFLUX

Posted by Melissa Silvestri on Nov 04, 2010
Source: IONCINEMA.com Festival Coverage

His name may not be as well-known as Stephen Sondheim, but Richard Foreman is a legendary freak of a genius. A playwright whose abstract plays defy definition, his shows of absolute madness and confusion have both turned on and weirded out audiences since the 1960s. Ryan Kerrison’s documentary mindFLUX examines the life of this strange and unusual artist, who has touched the lives of many of the most celebrated theater artists in New York City.

Richard Foreman debuted his theater the Ontological-Hysteric Theater in 1968, a venue where he could give a stage to the out-there performers who didn’t belong anywhere near Broadway. Ontology is the study of the nature of being, and Foreman’s theater is dedicated to balance the primitive with the absolute mad, taking the perplexity of life and throwing it onstage for extensional understanding. Foreman’s work is anti-commercial, hilarious in a sick way, and is not performed to please the audience, but rather to challenge them.

Foreman’s work has touched the lives of many theater professionals who have either worked with him or been influenced by his eccentricity. Amongst the interview subjects are James Cromwell, Willem Dafoe, Lili Taylor, Suzan-Lori Parks, Yoko Ono, Lou Reed, and Eric Bogosian. As actor T. Ryder Smith tells a long and strange tale of his audition for Foreman, his story is presented in an animated sequence, turning Foreman into a grizzly ogre and his apartment building a dank and smelly fortress, heightening the auditioner’s sense of insecurity and hesitation over giving themselves up for critique by this enigmatic individual.

Foreman’s work stayed underground for years, until he gets the opportunity to stage Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera at Lincoln Center in 1976, starring Raul Julia, a gifted Shakespearean actor who got Foreman’s macabre side to deliver a stunning performance as Macheath. While Foreman himself is not an accessibly likable character, and his shows that are abstract for the sake of being that way can be frustrating to watch and verge on pretentiousness, his willingness to forgo mainstream acceptance is to be admired. Foreman himself would say of aspiring artists that he is “hungry for your uniqueness.” Anybody who shakes up audience’s expectations and opens their minds to the reawakening of life is to be commended.

2010 DOC NYC: Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Posted by Melissa Silvestri on Nov 03, 2010
Source: IONCINEMA.com Festival Coverage

It's business as usual for legendary Werner Herzog -- the prolific documentary and narrative filmmaker (My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans) utilizes a technology that we would normally associate with fiction films, and applies it to the soulful and mesmerizing 3-D documentary. With the help of archeologists in the south of France, Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams visits the Chauvet Cave, which is populated with not only a damp and quiet eeriness, but cave drawings of long-extinct animals and pictorial depictions of ancient mankind.

Herzog’s camera combined with stunning 3-D technology truly draws the audience into the cave, listening to the dripping off of stalagmites and practically touching the etchings of human figures and wild animals, including extinct creatures like the cave lion and the cave bear. Aside from Herzog’s narration, the film is dominated by the archaeologists’ insightful commentary on the way that man once lived, and the stories that they told through their drawings. The cave’s ground is so fragile that the people can only walk on a two-foot wide walkway, and at times, cannot get close enough to the walls to truly observe the drawings.

Herzog allows the audience to see the drawings for themselves, sans commentary or interviews, in a quiet segment near the end of the film, where the camera just pans over intricately detailed drawings like two large beasts locked in horns, their legs braced for action, or the multiple legs of a man meant to portray him walking, as if he was being animated via flipbook. The peace of the cave combined with the visual effects brings serenity into the theater, a hushed silence, as if the audience is all on this rare journey together.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams is a breathtaking film to highlight the wonders of this cave, which, due to toxic levels of radon and carbon dioxide as well as fragile ground, is not open to the general public. Herzog does a great service in bringing this natural beauty to the big screen.

NYC DOC screening times.

2010 DOC NYC: Josef Birdman Astor's Lost Bohemia

Posted by Melissa Silvestri on Nov 04, 2010
Source: IONCINEMA.com Festival Coverage

Carnegie Hall has not only been the place where great classical music is performed. It has housed 165 studios above the theaters since 1895, where artists live and work to create dance, music, art, photography, and act. The artists who live there taught students in these very studios, and many 20th century luminaries graced these illustrious halls, including Isadora Duncan, George Balanchine, Elia Kazan, Marlon Brando, and Martha Graham. But in the past few years, Carnegie Hall has decided to tear down the studios to replace them with offices and music studios, leaving many of its elderly residents out in the cold, many who were instrumental in the mid 20th century art scenes of New York City. With studios full of fifty years’ worth of their life’s work, it seems hypocritical that an institution devoted to the arts would throw out many of the people who are living works of art. Lost Bohemia, directed by photographer and longtime resident Josef “Birdman” Astor, pays tribute to these singular individuals losing their livelihood to big business.

Lost Bohemia takes the audience on a trip through time, exploring the vast studios of a select group of individuals who have been living in the studios for decades, their lives intertwined with their immense contributions to the cultural arts of New York City. Many of these people were instrumental in saving Carnegie Hall in 1960 when it was in danger of demolition. A pianist who has been recording since the 1950s is at home at his large piano. A dancer in her eighties, named Star, still stretches diligently with remarkable flexibility in the stairwells. Robert Modica, an acting teacher, has taught at the studio for nearly 50 years. Editta Sherman, at age 98, has been the public face of the fight to save the studios, a former model and muse for many designers and artists. Her home, like the others, is furnished with grand photographs of past stars like Grace Kelly and Leonard Bernstein, with an innumerable amount of books, music, and irreplaceable historical memorabilia.

When watching Lost Bohemia, you might feel like you're in mid-20th-century New York City, when artists lived on the cheap, roomed with one another, ate at local delis, and the work they put their sweat into revitalized the local arts scenes with thought-provoking youthful energy. Be it Kazan and Tennessee Williams collaborating to bring uncomfortable truths to the theater, Jerome Robbins developing the street ballet of West Side Story, or the indie film actors of the 1980s honing their craft with Modica, the Carnegie Hall studios provided an exceptional channel for the greatest artists of the 20th century.

The artists did not win their battle, but their stories and contributions to the arts of New York City will never be forgotten or be unappreciated.

2010 DOC NYC: Paul Clarke's Mother of Rock: Lillian Roxon

Posted by Melissa Silvestri on Nov 05, 2010
Source: IONCINEMA.com Festival Coverage

Lillian Roxon was a pioneering music journalist in the hedonistic rock ‘n’ roll world of the 1960s. A transplant from Australia, she made her mark in the boho scene of Manhattan, hanging out with the likes of Bob Dylan, The Velvet Underground, and Andy Warhol. She had a sixth sense for predicting who was going to be culturally significant, and her charm and enthusiasm was infectious. Paul Clarke profiles her brief but incredible story in Mother of Rock: Lillian Roxon.

Roxon was raised in Australia after her family emigrated from Italy in the 1930s to escape fascism. She was a free spirit who preferred to live as a single and adventurous woman in 1950s Sydney rather than wait at home to be married. Wherever there was a party, she was there. Getting started in tabloid journalism, she moved to NYC in 1959 and became the correspondent for several Australian women’s magazines. There, she served as ambassador for other Australian visitors, soaked up the nightlife, and was drawn like a magnet to the electrifying world of rock ‘n’ roll.

Roxon stood out as a freak, both as a foreigner and as a female writer in the burgeoning world of rock journalism. Iggy Pop, whose punk rock stage antics Roxon was blown away by, pointed out that she was attracted to the reckless dark side of rock ‘n’ roll, knowing everyone at Max’s Kansas City. She was a singular force who was an early promoter of punk rock before it had a name, the glam rock scene, and anything that was wild and weird and unusual. Her life burned out at age 41 due to an asthmatic condition, but while she was here, the world was a little brighter with her in it.

Lillian Roxon paved the way for seminal female rock music journalists like Ann Powers and Jancee Dunn. No inhibitions, no regrets, just a woman who, with the power of her pen, brought the freak side of New York City’s rock scene to many rock music fans and lonely outcasts, detailing the underground scene of music, art, sex, and theater that was just exploding with raw and vibrant power.

Interview: David Soll (Puppet)

Posted by Melissa Silvestri on Nov 05, 2010
Source: IONCINEMA.com Festival Coverage

When we think of puppets, a few things come to mind. Jim Henson. Ventriloquism. Sock puppets. Puppet takes the chance to challenge the misconception of what is normally perceived as merely children’s entertainment. Puppetry has been a creative art of storytelling for centuries, to tell many stories through lifelike figures. Director David Soll intertwines the history of puppetry with the staging of the show Disfarmer, by puppeteer Dan Hurlin, about the nearly-obscure Depression-era portrait photographer Mike Disfarmer. Puppet captures a uncanny parallel between the photographer whose work was nearly forgotten and the puppeteer who struggles to make a show that resonates with audiences and shines a spotlight on the ingenious craft of puppetry. I spoke to David Soll via phone.

Melissa Silvestri: How did you get involved in Puppet?
David Soll: Pretty simply actually. I saw the show. I read David Rakoff’s article in the New York Times previewing Hiroshima Maiden [Dan Hurlin’s previous show]. I went to see that show, not knowing what to expect. It had never occurred to me that puppetry could be for adults. My only reference point was The Muppets and Sesame Street. I had no idea that in every other country in the world, puppetry was either high art or religion or folk craft, and it was only in America that this had been marginalized as children’s theatre. So this was completely new to me. And [it was] the unexpectedness of seeing such a moving piece, done with subtly and nuance as a puppet piece, combined with Dan’s exquisite aesthetic. [It] just really inspired me and thrilled me. And I didn’t do anything about it, until I met Dan by chance. And I told him how much I loved Hiroshima Maiden. And he told me about his upcoming piece, Disfarmer. And he told me the story of Disfarmer, and I said to him, “It seems to me that there should be a much larger audience for this work than there is,” and I would come up to his church where he was having his first rehearsal residency. He would bring these puppeteers up from New York City to work with him in this church. And once I saw them operating the puppet, looking at it through the camera, I couldn’t really resist. It was such a compelling image to see a close-up of the puppet being operated by these three extremely talented puppeteers.

Silvestri: There is a way that these puppeteers bring life to these creations that make the puppets very lifelike and emotions are projected onto them, despite their fixed expressions.
Soll: That’s absolutely right. I’ve spoken to the puppeteers, [and] they describe their role as facilitating a connection between the audience and the puppet. So while they are performers, and they recognize that they are performers, there’s a certain immediate connection that people have with the inanimate object, that once it has just the slightest amount of life breathed into it, [it] captivates, and really inspires an audience to connect, and bring all of their own emotions into the scene. So the puppeteers just see themselves as really enabling that primordial connection.

Silvestri: Audiences may be turned off to puppetry because of a fear of puppets, of something inanimate being given human emotions and feelings, and almost coming to life.
Soll: There are definitely people who find puppets creepy. But I think it’s the robotics theory, from the late 70s, [that] has become really popular, as with 3-D animation, the uncanny valley, this notion that a human simulacra, [like] an animated figure or a puppet, as it approaches lifelike, it reaches a point where it’s almost human, but not quite, and it goes from being amusing and engaging to uncanny and terrifying. And that was the theory behind why The Polar Express as a film did really badly at the box office, because they were too lifelike but not quite lifelike enough. As something gets too close to being lifelike, the audience starts to focus on the ways that it’s not alive, and get revolted, rather on the ways that it is alive, and be delighted. So I think puppets, when they’re done well, exist right on the edge of the uncanny valley where they’re completely compelling, but not quite uncanny.

Silvestri: The slow acceptance of a puppet as an lifelike creature reminds me of Todd Haynes’ Superstar, which allows the audience to initially get past the absurdity of Barbie and Ken dolls acting out a story and feel emotions for the story via the voice acting and music, projecting their own emotional responses onto the plastic faces.
Soll: I think that’s right. It’s really a tricky line between being boring, because they’re just dolls, and being completely captivating, and being revolting. The difference between those three categories is really pretty subtle, I think. And you’re not really sure how or why that line gets crossed.

Silvestri: I had seen an exhibit of Disfarmer’s work at a Manhattan gallery [Steven Kasher Gallery], I was curious to know if Dan related to Disfarmer in being a misunderstood artist?
Soll: I don’t think Dan was entirely sure why he wanted to make a piece about Disfarmer at the beginning. He thought he was fascinating, but I don’t think he started out seeing himself in this puppet. That’s something that evolved for him over time. And I don’t think it’s necessarily about feeling unappreciated it was more about connecting to someone for whom issues of legacy and mortality were really salient. So for Dan, it’s more like the life in his show. He spent three years making this project with collaborators, investing with enormous personal, emotional and creative resources into it, and when it’s over, it’s just gone forever. And that to me, just in terms of any performance art or theater, is really terrifying. As a filmmaker, I want to make things that will last. That’s just something that I’m attached to, and I don’t know how people like Dan Hurlin do it, and invest so much time and energy into something that when it’s over, it’s really gone. So the least that he’s hoping for is a really significant run where he gets to feel like a lot of people saw it, that it made its mark on theater, that it did something. That it had a life in the world.

So he chose as his project this story about a man who had done incredible work, completely outside the New York art world, completely unknown to the art world, and then passed away completely in obscurity. And only thirty years later did his work find its own new life, completely separate from him as a human being. There was something about that overlap and intention.

Silvestri: Disfarmer’s photographs show people who have strong, stoic expressions, and whose backgrounds are completely mysteries, that you can project whatever kind of background you want onto them.
Soll: Absolutely, and that was Dan’s first epiphany when making his piece, that was he was drawn to these photographs the same reason that he was drawn to these puppets, and the same reason that he was drawn to Disfarmer, that they all invite that kind of interpretation. And they also feel like they just barely exist. They’re there enough to captivate your imagination, but you don’t know anything about them. We don’t know anything about Disfarmer. We just know that he was an eccentric guy who took amazing photographs, so he’s just there enough to inspire an evening performance, but not enough to tell you the whole story. The Wikipedia entry on Disfarmer’s life is pretty short [laughs]. There’s just not much there.

Silvestri: The documentary gives audiences a wider view of the art of puppetry, beyond children’s theater or hand puppets. The puppetry in work like The Lion King expands an awareness that puppetry can be more alive and one with the performer or work as a support to an artist rather than being the star itself. And that puppetry is more respected in other countries as a legitimate art form rather than the U.S., where it is demoted to only being for children, and not high art enough for adults.
Soll: I’m glad to hear that that comes across. And what I was hoping to do was not just make it a lot of context for this guy [Hurlin], but have Mike Disfarmer, Dan Hurlin, and the form of puppetry as three intertwining threads, which have these overlapping themes of disappearance and revival. All three experience issues of disappearance and legacy and marginalization, and I was hoping to find a way to put those three in dialogue with each other.

Click here for festival dates for David Soll's Puppet.

Review of Errol Morris' Tabloid

This review originally appeared on IONCinema.

2010 DOC NYC: Errol Morris' Tabloid

Posted by Melissa Silvestri on Nov 02, 2010

Prominently featured in the inaugural edition of the DOC NYC Film Festival, documentarian Errol Morris brings his TIFF-premiered title that reminds us of the filmmaker's curiosity for the fringe characters that populate this world. Joyce McKinney is better known in England as a 1970s tabloid fixture for her bizarre involvement in kidnapping her fiancé from Mormon missionaries, and tying him to her bed to have a “proper” honeymoon. Her mixture of naiveté with a sordid past made her a juicy target for religious zealots to use her as the “devil” woman that tempts man with sin. In Tabloid, Morris looks at the strange and absurd tale of a former beauty pageant winner who broke the law all in the name of love.

Joyce McKinney had been Miss Wyoming in the 1970s, moved to Utah, and became engaged to a pleasant young man named Kirk Anderson, who was a young Mormon planning on becoming a missionary. He disappeared without a trace in 1977, and McKinney, with the help of a private detective, found out he was in England completing the orientation of his faith into missionary work. McKinney, convinced the church was brainwashing him, set up a crack team of herself, a pilot, her friend Keith May, and bodyguards to rescue Anderson. The plan was falling apart, so McKinney resorted to May kidnapping Anderson at the church, holding him against his will in Devon, and convincing herself that she was “saving” him. Anderson escaped, and McKinney and May were arrested on kidnapping charges.

McKinney is a strange and captivating individual. On one hand, she seems completely delusional that what she did was a savior gesture, and that she and Anderson had a “romantic” weekend together while he was held against his will. She doesn’t seem completely in touch with reality, and her life afterwards was hindered by agoraphobia and an inability to have a romantic relationship with someone else after Anderson. But, she is still visibly hurt by the tabloid accusations of her being called “crazy” or demeaned for her sexy appearance, and is an intelligent woman who is vulnerable to being mocked or misunderstood. She can be unintentionally funny, referring to Morris as “Mr. Filmmaker” with a sweet charm.

The title perfectly captures the chopped-up editing of the film. Names are displayed in large, L.A. Confidential-style captions, the subjects are interviewed against blank gray walls, and news clips puncture the film constantly, giving Tabloid a speedy pace of breaking news. Tabloid never demeans its subject to the point of humiliation. Rather, it gives McKinney proper respect, while remaining objective in its view of her. Whether she can be seen as an innocent victim who thought she was saving her fiancé, or a sexpot who flouted the law in pursuit of her own delusions, remains up to the audience to decide.