Matt Wolf

PEE-WEE AS HIMSELF: a man hidden in his own invention

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Photo caption: Paul Reubens in PEE-WEE AS HIMSELF. Courtesy of HBP Max.

The delightfully wacky character Pee-Wee Herman sprang on the scene, seemingly from nowhere, sweetly celebrating his own weirdness. Pee-Wee was the creation of actor Paul Reubens. Reubens, of course, had a life before Pee-Wee, and he had a very private personal life distinct from his invented persona. Sadly, Reubens lost his privacy in, not one, but two career-killing tabloid scandals.

HBO Max is airing the bio-doc Pee-Wee as Himself, from the acclaimed Silicon Valley native, New York-based documentarian Matt Wolf. Wolf has an uncanny gift for finding compelling stories that everyone else has overlooked: Teenage, Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project, Spaceship Earth and Rustin. Here, Wolf reveals three stories, each in itself worthy of a documentary.

The first is Paul Reubens’ origin story – his childhood, his self-confidence as an avant garde art student and his comfort in an out gay lifestyle. Reubens was failing as an actor, and his overweening drive to be successful as an actor led him to leave his partner and go back in the closet.

The second is Pee-Wee’s creation story – how Reubens joined the famed The Groundlings improv group, working with the likes of Laraine Newman, Phil Hartman and Elvira, and originated several characters, one of which was Pee-Wee. Amazingly, Reubens, as Pee-Wee, was a winning contestant on The Gong Show and even The Dating Game. When Reubens failed to be selected for Saturday Night Live, he determined to produce his own TV show – and the sui generis Pee-Wee’s Playhouse was born. Another helluva story.

Finally, we come to the tabloid scandal, an unexpected comeback and then a second scandal. As Reubens himself ruefully notes, by the time he realized the privacy tradeoffs that come with fame, “the ink had dried on my pact with the devil”. 

Wolf had elicited permission from Reubens to make a film about Reubens’ life, and secured 40 hours of on-camera interview footage. But the mercurial Reubens, highly ambivalent to sharing his personal story, kept pulling the plug on the project. In the interviews, Reubens often brings up that ambivalence and repeatedly jerks Wolf’s chain. When Reubens fell ill, Wolf was in a race against mortality to get Reubens back on board. Fortunately, Wolf succeeded.

We also hear from Reubens’ sister and his longtime personal assistant, along with old pals like Laraine Newman, Elvira and Natasha Lyonne. We see an archival interview of Phil Hartman, reflecting on what he saw as a betrayal by Reubens.

I’m not sure that I’ve seen another biodoc where the subject himself, so wounded and humbled, stiffens his dignity to reflect on his own brilliance and his suffering from both injustices and his own mistakes. Pee-Wee as Himself runs three hours and twenty-five minutes and is airing on two parts on HBO Max.

PEE-WEE AS HIMSELF: a man hidden in his own invention

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Photo caption: Paul Reubens in PEE-WEE AS HIMSELF. Courtesy of HBP Max.

Tomorrow, HBO Max begins airing the bio-doc Pee-Wee as Himself, from the acclaimed Silicon Valley native, New York-based documentarian Matt Wolf. Wolf has an uncanny gift for finding compelling stories that everyone else has overlooked: Teenage, Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project, Spaceship Earth and Rustin.

The delightfully wacky character Pee-Wee Herman sprang on the scene, seemingly from nowhere, sweetly celebrating his own weirdness. Pee-Wee was the creation of actor Paul Reubens. Reubens, of course, had a life before Pee-Wee, and he had a very private personal life distinct from his invented persona. Sadly, Reubens lost his privacy in a career-killing tabloid scandal.

Wolf had elicited permission from Reubens to make a film about Reubens’ life, and secured hours of on-camera interview footage. But the mercurial Reubens, highly ambivalent to sharing his personal story, kept pulling the plug on the project. When Reubens fell ill, Wolf was in a race against mortality to get Reubens back on board. Fortunately, Wolf succeeded.

Pee-Wee as Himself runs three hours and twenty-five minutes and will be aired in two parts on HBO Max, beginning tomorrow.

SPACESHIP EARTH: Last Stand of the Renaissance Man?

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SPACESHIP EARTH, Photo courtesy of NEON.

The latest from Silicon Valley native documentarian Matt Wolf, Spaceship Earth traces an audacious scientific quasi-experiment of the 1990s, the Biosphere 2, perhaps the Last Stand of the Renaissance Man.

A few months ago, Wolf released Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project. He is the son of Cinequest documentary screener Sandy Wolf; in this recent profile of Sandy, I also highlight Matt Wolf’s career (scroll down).

How ambitious was Biosphere 2? (Biosphere 1 is Earth.) It was the construction of an enormous structure – big enough to host a series of ecosystems – jungle, desert, etc. And to fill it, like Noah’s Ark, with an array of plant and animal species. And then sealing a team of eight humans inside for two years to survive (don’t underestimate Job 1 in this experimental artificial environment), tend the agriculture and conduct scores of scientific experiments. The promise was to learn about how humans could survive in future space colonies.

Biosphere 2 in SPACESHIP EARTH.. Courtesy of ecotechnics.edu and Spaceship Earth.

Scientists quibble about how closed and controlled the experiments really were. Ultimately, the experiment itself is not as meaningful a story as who did it and why. Wolf could have made this a procedural, or an expose about a cult or a fiasco.

Instead, Wolf made the inspired choice to begin 25 years earlier, with the San Francisco hippie commune that became the core leadershop of Biosphere 2. Led by the charismatic John Allen and a cadre of very smart and able women, they moved to rural New Mexico, then Berkeley and then around the world. These were unusually highly functioning hippies because they didn’t dive into drugs, and they focused on tangible projects like building a seaworthy ship and a hotel in Nepal – and always experimental theater.

Along the way, billionaire-with-a-B Ed Bass took a shining to Allen and the group and became their benefactor and sponsor. That made it possible for a pipe dream about sustainability to become a real project with a budget in the hundreds of millions.

SPACESHIP EARTH, Courtesy of Spaceship Earth

Here’s what is stunning about this story. If someone, say NASA, had undertaken to create an Earth-like closed environment in preparation for space colonization, these are the LAST people who would have been asked to be involved. None of these hippies had academic or professional credentials or experience that even remotely would qualify them, in an objective sense. But they got there first with the idea and with Ed Bass’ money.

That’s what I found so amazing about the folks behind Biosphere 2 – they weren’t specialists, like the folks who build spaceships. Think of the generalist Renaissance Man who works across disciplines. These folks had a profound commitment to sustainability and said “what if?”, much like Da Vinci designing buildings, bridges and fortification, conceptualizing parachutes, helicopters and deep sea diving bells while painting great art. Or like the 18th Century gentleman inventors/scientists/industrialists/collectors.

The resultant 1990s media circus, certainly enough to scar the participants, seems almost quaint today. With an instantaneous and never ending news cycle, tribal and agenda-driven commentary and viral social media, God help them if they tried this today. It didn’t turn out to be the New Age Garden of Eden that was advertised.

Of course, there was hubris and tone deaf PR from the organizers, and the inevitable personality clashes between any eight nonconformists locked up together in a fish bowl for twp years. And then there was that sudden soaring of the CO2 level, threatening the lives of many species, including the humans.

What happened? In Spaceship Earth, it’s not treated as a catastrophe or a self-immolation or a betrayal, although you could make the argument for any of those characterizations. What’s more important is what these folks aspired to do and how far they got.

This was a genuine quest for sustainability, with some valid scientific experiments embedded in grand performance art.

Just released this weekend, Spaceship Earth can be streamed from iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

RECORDER: THE MARION STOKES PROJECT: it seemed crazy at the time…

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. Marion Stokes in RECORDER: THE MARION STOKES PROJECT, directed by Matt Wolf. Photo credit: Eileen Emond and courtesy of Zeitgeist Films.

The excellent documentary Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project, is about an eccentric woman who did something that seemed crazy, but turned out to be be important. For over 30 years, 24 hours per day, on multiple channels, Marion Stokes everything that was on TV – local news, commercials, network shows – the whole enchilada. She left a collection of 70,000 videotapes, Recorder explains the How and the Why.

It turns out that, before digital technology, TV stations did not preserve what they broadcast. So, what Stokes compiled is essential and irreplaceable – a unique archive of broadcasting and of American culture as it has been reflected by television.

Now, this was – and had to be – the project of an obsessive. Stokes’ son sagely observes that the difference between collecting and hoarding is the perceived value of the objects.

Stokes was one of those people whose cause was so important to them that it is prioritized above, for example, family relationships. I found the testimony from Stokes’ household staff – essentially her chosen family – most insightful and touching.

It’s a fascinating story. Stokes was that rare radical activist who both understood the power of media and had the financial means of recording and storing all of these broadcasts. She was an early adopter (her first tapings were on Betamax!), and became an Apple enthusiast.

Director Matt Wolf unspools this story perfectly. He is the son of Cinequest documentary screener Sandy Wolf; in this recent profile of Sandy, I also highlight Matt Wolf’s career (scroll down).

Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project is streamable on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Cinequest’s Mr. Documentary: Sandy Wolf (part 2)

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SANDY WOLF

Sandy Wolf’s service to Cinequest (Cinequest’s Mr. Documentary: Sandy Wolf: part 1) is only one of his contributions to film culture.

Sandy also publishes the weekly e-newsletter This Week on TCM, in which he reviews the most significant choices on Turner Classic Movies. He doesn’t write about every movie on TCM, but he touches on several each day. And this is not a quick scan of the weekly classic film menu – each email runs to up to 6,000 words.

Every Sunday morning, while The Wife pours over the New York Times, I’m scanning Sandy’s email to see if TCM is featuring a film I had overlooked or need to revisit. For example, I DVRed the 1937 They Won’t Forget, which I had never seen, only because of Sandy’s description of Lana Turner’s entrance. Worth it.

Earlier this year, I finally got around to the 1936 classic Dodsworth, only because Sandy recommended it. Dodsworth rewarded me with remarkable performances from Walter Huston, Mary Astor and Ruth Chatterton. (Familiarity with Dodsworth is also central to understanding the documentary Scandal: The Trial of Mary Astor, because Astor channeled her Dodsworth character during her testimony at the notorious child custody trial.)

Sandy’s regular readers always wait for the weekly use of the word “oeuvre ” and the mention of the “ubiquitous Michael Curtiz”. Sandy is the kind of film writer who can use the word “mendacity” about a movie (All About Eve) OTHER than Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. 

It’s difficult to decide which is the biggest value add in This Week on TCM – Sandy’s usually perfect movie taste or his capsulized commentary, enlivened with Grouchoesque quips. Here’s a taste:

  • Story of Seabiscuit: This does not remotely resemble the true story of Seabiscuit; in fact, it should be entitled Nothing Like the True Story of Seabiscuit.
  • Manchurian Candidate: A ludicrous premise: the Russians want to put a puppet in the White House, whom they can maneuver and control – hey, wait a minute.
  • Gaslight: Joseph Cotton is an old friend who senses something rotten in the state of Denmark (which means he has a strong sense of smell, since this takes place in Victorian era England). 
  • The Searchers: John Ford’s magnum opus and the apogee (or apotheosis if you prefer an even more pretentious “ap” word) of his Western genre films. 
  • Doctor Zhivago : My least favorite of Lean’s well known films, which I find ponderous and unwieldy (or if you prefer, slow and boring). I came to CA to get away from snow, so why spend over 3 hours looking at it. Then again, you can spend all that time looking at Julie Christie, which almost makes it worth it. This film was a huge hit and mine is a minority opinion, but is there anyone in America who isn’t sick of Lara’s Theme? 
  • Detour:   Talk about femme fatales – Ann Savage (no name better fit an actress) is the fataliest of all femmes. Ms. Savage more than makes up for the flimsy sets and if she doesn’t give you nightmares, nobody will (whenever I wake up screaming in the night soaked in sweat, and Harriet asks what’s wrong I just say “Ann Savage”).
  • Ingmar Bergman’s Passion of Anna: Moving and powerful, under no circumstances should you watch this film unless you are prepared to hit the emotional depths of human existence (I’m not sure what that means, but don’t have a bottle of pills nearby when you are watching). 
  • Buffalo Bill and the Indians or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson: (Paul) Newman and director Robert Altman were at the height of their respective powers when they teamed up to make this can’t miss film. But miss it did and by miles.
  • The Window: Young Bobby Driscoll goes out on the fire escape to sleep on a sweltering NYC summer night and through a neighbor’s window witnesses a murder. Bobby is proverbial boy who cried Sandy Wolf (I use that line every time this movie airs and can’t help myself).
  • Scarlet Pimpernel: Whenever I see this title, I think of pumpernickel bread, which you can’t get in Northern CA (at least I have never seen it). 
  • The Longest Day: BTW, an astute and erudite reader correctly informed me that the “D” in D-Day stands for “Day”. How stupid is that – what does Day Day mean?  I would call it T-Day for The Day or even I-Day for Invasion Day.
  • Henry V: All I know about Henry V is that he came after Henry  IV (not sure where O Henry came from – and I’m talking about the candy bar and not the author). 
  • Red Badge of Courage: This was deemed an utter failure upon its release and caused director John Huston grief (or as much grief he could sustain between cavorting and carousing) .
  • Lolita: Shelley Winters, as Lolita’s Mom, is as annoying as ever (which is as annoying as any human being can possibly be) but she is in fact somewhat empathetic and plays her role well (Shelley could do annoying in her sleep and I’m sure she was annoying even when she was asleep).

Sandy’s taste in exceptional, but not perfect. We differ on the fourth and fifth greatest Hitchcock films, and I’m about to set him straight on his under appreciation of Peckinpah’s The Getaway.

Sandy is also the father of filmmaker Matt Wolf, the accomplished documentarian behind:

  • Wild Combination, the critically praised biodoc of the influential musician Arthur Russell. (Included with Amazon Prime.)
  • Teenage, an especially insightful look at the emergence of teenage culture, surprisingly recent in American culture. Teenage aired on PBS. (Included with Amazon Prime.)
  • Bayard and Me, the undertold story of Bayard Russell’s key role in the Civil Rights movement as a gay man in the 50s and 60s.
  • Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project, about a woman who recorded 30 years of TV, 24 hours per day, and left a 70,000 videotape tape-archive of American culture reflected by television. (Streamable on Amazon and iTunes.)
  • Spaceship Earth, the soon to be released 2020 Sundance hit about Biosphere 2, the 1991 scientic and social experiment where a team moved into a model replica of our planet’s ecosystem.

Matt Wolf was already an NYU film school grad when Sandy started his role at Cinequest, but Sandy takes some credit for some of Matt’s love of movies. Back in the VCR era, Sandy recorded classic films one at a time, and then played the collection at family movie nights.

On the red carpet of the Tribeca Film Festival for one of Matt’s premieres, Sandy Wolf heard a publicist summoning “Mr. Wolf, over here, please.” Sandy’s proudest moment came when he realized they were calling Matt.

Cinequest’s Mr. Documentary: Sandy Wolf (part 1)

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SANDY WOLF

How does Cinequest fill its slate of documentary features each year? For the past two decades, Sandy Wolf, a now-retired attorney, has been volunteering to find the documentaries that premiere at Cinequest.

Back in 2002, Wolf’s recommendation got Spellbound into the festival. The story of eight teenagers competing for the national spelling bee championship, Spellbound went on to become a national art house hit, and Wolf earned some major cred.

Each year, Wolf screens the 250 documentary features that have been submitted to Cinequest by filmmakers. Wolf then submits a top ten and a second twenty recommendations, along with his comments, to Cinequest Director of Programming and Associate Director Mike Rabehl. (Rabehl himself screens every Cinequest submission, including documentaries,) Rabehl has the final say, but he agrees with most of Wolf’s recommendations.

“You rarely see a bad documentary,” says Wolf. “Although there are a lot of mediocre ones.”

How does one actually watch 250 movies? From each July though November, Wolf watches movies in the morning, until he takes a break for lunch. After a visit to the neighborhood coffee joint, he resumes until dinnertime. But he reserves the evening for his own movie choices, not festival screeners.

“Mike Rabehl tells me not to make it a job”, but Wolf thinks its goes best with this regimen.

The slate of documentaries at Cinequest is usually quite rich. Here are some of my favorites from recent Cinequests, all of which are are now available to stream:

  • The Brainwashing of My Dad: When TV changes not just opinions, but mood and personality, too. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play.
  • Meet the Hitlers: Wouldn’t you change YOUR name? Amazon, iTunes, Vudu.
  • There Will Be No Stay: In a society with capital punishment, someone must perform the executions. iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play.

Wolf saved me from a big mistake at the 2019 Cinequest. I had decided to pass on screening Clownvets because it looked too sappy for my notoriously jaded taste. But I watched it on Wolf’s recommendation, and I’m very glad that I did. Clownvets turned out to be well-constructed and surprisingly powerful.

This year Wolf tipped me off to The Quicksilver Chronicles, which is also my own favorite of the 2020 Cinequest documentaries.

But the Cinequest slate of documentaries isn’t Wolf’s only contribute to cinema culture, as we’ll learn in Cinequest’s Mr. Documentary: Sandy Wolf (part 2).

Cinequest: Teenage

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teenageThe most important ingredient for a documentary is a good story, and Teenage has just that – the 20th century emergence of a hitherto unknown phenomenon: the teenager. Teenage postulates that through the end of the 1800s, kids – by going to work when they were 12 – transitioned directly from the child’s world to the adult one; the advent of child labor laws gave the 12 to 18-year-olds the leisure time to express all of that hormone-driven energy. Combined with the generational disgust felt by the young for the older generation that had wasted much of their cohort in WWI, that mix of rebelliousness, immaturity and bad judgement we now as the modern teenager was born – and has driven our popular culture ever since.

To make the case for that thesis, filmmaker Matt Wolf has assembled some stunningly evocative file footage and sprinkled in some re-creations.  The re-created characters are read by the likes of Jena Malone and are shot in color.  The problem is that some of the black-and-white footage ALSO has the look of re-creation, so I couldn’t tell what was a historical document and what was the filmmaker’s interpenetration of the period. This was just enough to lose me. I wish Wolf had the faith to let his file footage speak for itself.  Still, it’s a good story, and worth the watch.