documentary

THE BRINK: craving relevance

by
Steve Bannon in THE BRINK, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

The Brink is documentarian Alison Klayman’s up-close-and-personal portrait of Steve Bannon, the outsized personality who founded Breitbart as a “platform for the alt right” and who encouraged Donald Trump’s race-baiting right into the White House.

But even Trump is not shameless enough to keep Bannon around – as The Brink opens, Bannon has just been fired from the Trump Administration in the wake of the wake of the Charlottesville disgrace (“very fine people on both sides“).  Bannon is now embarking on a campaign of uniting the European populist Right around a common racist/ white supremicist/anti-immigration message.

Bannon, of course, is a genius at political messaging, and his major outcome was the once unthinkable re-emergence of public white supremicism – voicing those who lived under the dark, damp underside of rocks and logs with the other creepy-crawlies, and making them feel like they can walk the earth erect like other vertebrates.

Bannon is a major ham, and all too happy to let the world watch him in action.  Bannon, of all people, is savvy enough to understand that Klayman is hostile to his beliefs and career,yet he granted her intimate access.  His ego must not have allowed him to resist a movie about himself – or he learned from Trump that no publicity is bad publicity.

For her part, Alison Klayman (Ai Wei-wei: Never Sorry) is clever enough to let Bannon himself reveal his flaws.   As he thinks he is showing us his skills, he is also showing himself to be an attention-craving blowhard.  The horror isn’t that Bannon is some invincible evil mastermind but it’s in the masses (only glimpsed) that are so consumed by the fear and hatred that he peddles.

In the riveting opening sequence, Bannon describes how German technocrats designed the Birkenau death camp to be masterfully efficient.  The banality of evil is not an original thought, but Bannon’s insights are more than a little scary (and his appreciation of Nazi efficiency is uncomfortable).

I found The Brink to be irresistible and watched with fascination.  To those who have had their fill of the propagandists of the Right in Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes and Get Me Roger Stone (with Paul Manafort as bonus, I say that The Brink still offers insights – and more satisfaction.  Bannon wants his political skill to be validated, but The Brink reveals how pathetically he craves relevance.

TRE MAISON DASAN: sins of the father…

by
A scene from Denali Tiller’s TRE MAISON DASAN, playing at the 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival, April 4 – 17, 2018. Courtesy of SFFILM.

The unwavering and emotionally powerful documentary Tre Maison Dasan was my top pick from the World Premieres at the 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM) – and you can finally watch on TV this weekend.  The title reflects the names of three Rhode Island boys with incarcerated parents.  Unfettered by talking heads, Tre Maison Dasan invites us along with these kids as they interact with their families – both on the outside and the inside.  It’s all about the kids, all of the time – an effective choice by writer-director Denali Tiller In her feature debut.

One of the parents is released from prison early in the film; the other two are going to stay there during critical developmental periods in their children’s lives. Tre, Maison and Dasan are each taking different paths.  One kid is getting wonderful nurturing and guidance from a released parent, and lots of support from the community; we sense that he’s going to be OK.  That’s not the case with all of the kids.

Tiller doesn’t get academic or partisan.  By simply showing the impact on these children of having a parent incarcerated, she gets our attention and sympathy.  Tre Maison Dasan may not be a call to action in itself, but it’s an essential predicate.   PBS is airing Tre Maison Dasan on its Independent Lens series on April 1; you’ll also be able to stream it on PBS.

WBCN AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION: inventing a medium

by
WBCN AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

There was a time before FM radio was a big deal, and a time when someone had to imagine it. A fairly conventional-appearing lawyer named Ray Rieman did just that in Boston, and started by assembling a team of colorful misfits.  Mirroring the counter-culture, these guys invented just about every aspect of the album-oriented FM radio that became ubiquitous in American cities within just a few years.The documentary WBCN and the American Revolution tells this story.

Rieman was an iconoclastic genius who faced new challenges daily.  For example, what happens if you run a radio station and your news director learns from the new wire that he has just been indicted for terrorism?

One of the less remembered aspects to hippie culture was that it was pretty sexist. That’s how WBCN started out, but these guys were very open to change, especially after local women listeners delivered a pointed gift of live baby chicks to the station.

We see WBCN’s impressive set of firsts – the first alternative radio news show, the first female rock DJs, the first gay radio show, and the first time that Bruce Springsteen was live on the radio, along with Patti Smith’s obscenity-laced poetry.

Of course, WBCN and the American Revolution is a time capsule, rekindling vivid memories for Baby Boomer and serving as an excellent cultural history for those younger,

Cinequest is hosting the world premiere of WBCN and the American Revolution.

TRAVEL BAN: MAKING AMERICA LAUGH AGAIN: using comedy to explore the uncomfortable

by
Comic Aron Kader in TRAVEL BAN: MAKE AMERICA LAUGH AGAIN

Since medieval court jesters tweaked royal courts, we’ve used comedy to explore difficult conversations.  In the documentary Travel Ban: Making America Laugh Again, comedians confront the misunderstanding, bigotry and hatred faced by Americans who are Muslim and by Americans whose families come from the Middle East.

One unfortunate aspect of our culture is the impatience with and resistance to accepting nuance and complication.  Many Americans are content to accept a world in which “the Middle East” is a nation – one entity that is ever-hostile to the United States and ever evil-intentioned to all Americans.

Muslims and Middle Easterners have always endured negative stereotypes, made worse by 9/11.  But, this has worsened in the Trump Era because Trump empowers and licenses the open spewing of hate speech into our national discourse.

In response, Comics Aron Kader, Raz Jobrani and Ahmed Ahmed, who performed on the Arabian Knights and Axis of Evil comedy tours, mobilized even more stand-up comics for the Travel Ban tour.

Travel Ban includes the on-stage and off-stage banter of over a dozen American comics of Middle Eastern heritage or Muslim religion.  As one would expect, some are far funnier than others. My favorite is Feraz Ozel, who also has the movie’s funniest line in response to “Why don’t the good Muslims get together and fight the bad Muslims?”  (You’ll have to watch the movie for to get the devastating punchline.

Travel Ban is NOT purely a concert film; we do see performances, but the comics also discuss their experiences off-stage.  For context, there are some bracing videos of actual hate crimes and hateful rants by ignorant “real Americans”.  And Travel Ban brings in some key factual tidbits; for example, zero Americans have been killed by anyone from any of the countries targeted by Trump’s travel ban.

This is a serious film with some hilarious comedy.   As one of the comics says off-stage, “a good comedian makes people laugh, a great comedian makes them think”.

Cinequest hosts the world premiere of Travel Ban: Making America Laugh Again.

https://vimeo.com/292645468

tonight on TV: SAMMY DAVIS, JR.: I’VE GOTTA BE ME: a needy talent through complicated times

by
Still from SAMMY DAVIS JR.: I’VE GOTTA BE ME. Photo courtesy JFI.

Tonight, PBS airs Sammy Davis Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me on its American Masters series.  As a Baby Boomer who had dismissed Sammy Davis Jr. from the moment he publicly hugged Richard Nixon, I found this to be the most surprising doc (and my favorite) at last year’s San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. I learned that Sammy’s 61-year career as a professional entertainer began at age three (with his first movie credit at age 7), a working childhood that  left emotional needs  It turns out that Sammy was a very, very talented but needy artist,, an uncomplicated man navigating several very complicated times.

Sammy’s life of entertainment began at 3.  We get to see a clip of him in the 1933 Rufus Jones for President.  All that professional work took away his childhood and engraved upon him a need to please.  That and his generation produced the 50s showbiz style that seemed so insincere to us Baby Boomers.  And, of course that embrace of Nixon seemed to be the ultimate sell-out moment.

Sammy Davis Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me also poses whether he was demeaned by Rat Pack humor? Were Frank and Dino laughing at Sammy, or with him?

But this was  an immensely talented man, a masterful dancer with a remarkable crooner’s voice and a gift for mimicry.  He was the first American entertainer of color to do impersonations of white celebrities.   BTW there is some unbelievable dancing in Sammy Davis Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me.  We get to see Sammy’s 60th anniversary in showbiz celebrated among a host of celebrities – he still had his dancing chops.

Sammy Davis Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me is the story of a man whose success condemned him to a career that spanned generations – none of which fit him comfortably.  It’s a fine and insightful film.

[Random note: This film title may contain the most different punctuation marks of any movie: a comma, a period, a colon and an apostrophe.]

coming up on TV – WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?: gentleness from ferocity

by
Fred Rogers with his Daniel Tiger in WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?

On Saturday night, PBS will broadcast Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, the surprisingly moving biodoc of Fred Rogers, the originator and host of the PBS children’s program Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. In theaters, this movie submerged audiences in their hankies.

Of course, Won’t You Be My Neighbor? tells the story of the show. But, more than that, it relates Rogers’ fierce passion for the plight of small children, and his need to protect them and help their emotional development.

What is so surprising is that Rogers’ sometimes laughably gentle affect sprang from such internal ferocity. It turns that Rogers was a man who hated, hated, hated the moral emptiness and materialism of commercial children’s television.

His need to help children through difficult times drove him to explain the word “assassination” the day after RFK was killed. And to demystify, clarify and normalize divorce and a host of other potentially child-traumatizing topics. Utterly unafraid of (most) controversy in a timid medium, he was first and foremost the champion for small children, a cardigan-clad champion.

I am immune to Mr. Rogers nostalgia because I am too old to have watched the show as a kid, and it was no longer a first-run show when my own kid came of age. So I was surprised to find myself choked with emotion when Fred Rogers explained to a very skeptical Senator John Pastore the need to “make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable”. As Rogers recited the lyrics of his song about having feelings and staying in control, Pastore visibly melted (and so did I).

In Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Rogers’ family and his TV crew reveal their insider views of Rogers and his show. The origins of the characters, the puppets, the songs and themes are explained. But the core of Won’t You Be My Neighbor? is that Fred Rogers resolutely believed that every small child is deserving of love and has value, a view which has sadly become controversial among some.

THEY SHALL NOT GROW OLD: technology transforms film and resurrects a generation

by
THEY SHALL NOT GROW OLD

In They Shall Not Grow Old, Lord of the Rings filmmaker Peter Jackson has, for the first time, layered humanity over our understanding of World War I. By slowing down the speed of the jerky WWI film footage and adding sound and color, Jackson has allowed us to relate to the real people in the Great War.   All of the narration is from the recorded oral histories of actual WW I soldiers.

Jackson started with 100 hours of archived film and 600 hours of oral histories.  Removing the jerkiness by changing the film speed makes the biggest difference, but adding the sound of what we’re seeing through the work of Foley artists and even forensic lipreaders (who knew?) is also magically impactful.  Jackson was meticulous in newly recording the sounds of actual WWI equipment and artillery.

Stuff that we thought we knew is made real for the first time.  For example, we hear story after story of underage boys being accepted by military recruiters.  The non-battle relations between the Brit and German grunts seems new. And there are new tidbits, like the “sit on the rail” sanitary technique.   The soldiers’ reactions to the Armistice is unexpected – “too exhausted to enjoy it” and “the flattest feeling”.  I counted 94 individual oral histories in the end credits.

They Shall Not Grow Old is about 90-minutes long and is accompanied by a fascinating 30-minute “making of” documentary.  Jackson points out that soldiers had seen movies, but movie cameras were a novelty, so many soldiers are filmed staring at the camera agape and trying to hold still (as for a still camera).  Jackson also takes us to see a sunken road in the film today – and explains that most of the soldiers in the archived footage were in the final 30 minutes of their lives.

As he explains in the “making of ” documentary, Jackson chose to focus on the experience of the ordinary soldier, so he does not depict the naval or air wars, the roles of women and colonial troops or the home front.  It’s all-infantry all of the time.  That distillation is a sound choice and  allows the audience to immerse ourselves into that particular experience.

This is a generational achievement that should not be missed.

DIVIDE AND CONQUER: THE STORY OF ROGER AILES: the American political apocalypse

by
DIVIDE AND CONQUER: THE STORY ROGER AILES

The biodoc Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes provides insight into the life of the man who, by founding Fox News, created what was once entirely unthinkable, the defiling of the American body politic and our venerable nation’s descent into Trump’s America. Fox News has stripped from American civil society our shared acceptance of fact. You just can’t debate the goals and means of governing with people who devoutly believe things that just are not empirically accurate – that Obama founded Isis, that Hilary murdered Vince Foster and the like. That is the legacy and stain of Ailes and his Fox News.

Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes tells that story, and precedes it with some nuggets about Ailes’ childhood (including a significant medical condition), his ambitious clambering up the career ladder and his worship of Richard Nixon. The most surprising talking head (in terms of the content of his remarks) is Glenn Beck.

Of course, Ailes met his downfall when his decades-long sexual harassment was exposed. The disgustingly naked quid pro quo character of his serial sexual predation is startling – even among the worst we’ve seen in this #MeToo period.

Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes opens this week in Bay Area theaters.

THE GREAT BUSTER: A CELEBRATION: comic genius unleashed and then squandered

by
Buster Keaton’s THE GENERAL in THE GREAT BUSTER: A CELEBRATION. Courtesy of Cohen Media Group.

The documentary The Great Buster: A Celebration traces the life and career of the filmmaking genius Buster Keaton.  Every chance I get, I recommend Keaton’s silent masterpieces Seven Chances and The General. But The Great Buster puts Keaton’s work in helpful context.

First, director/film historian Peter Bogdanovich introduces us to Keaton’s upbringing as the child star in his parent’s vaudeville act. This is a CRAZY story, about Keaton working one-night performances from the age of FOUR in an act where he was essentially a guided missile in a fake leprechaun beard.

Next we learn about the young adult Keaton being introduced to the movie business by San Jose’s own, Fatty Arbuckle, and then moving on to creating his own two-reelers. Then The Great Buster focuses on the ten great features on which Buster had complete creative control. And then Bogdanovich takes us through MGM’s mishandling of Keaton’s career and the resultant decline. I thought that I had a good handle on Keaton’s body of work, but The Great Buster is essential to understanding it.

The Great Buster gives us many cool tidbits from his work in TV commercials through his final happy marriage. And 100-year-old actor Norman Lloyd relates an anecdote about performing a scene in Limelight with Keaton and Charlie Chaplin.

Peter Bogdanovich in THE GREAT BUSTER: A CELEBRATION. Courtesy of Cohen Media Group.

The Great Buster: A Celebration opens this weekend in the Bay Area.

MONROVIA, INDIANA: not much happens, except life itself

by
MONROVIA, INDIANA

Master documentarian Frederic Wiseman peels back our prejudices and reveals the humanity and beauty – even in Fly-over America  – in Monrovia, Indiana.  His static camera and patient editing give us unadulterated doses of life in Monrovia, a 1,000-person hamlet amid the cornfields and pig farms of central Indiana.  In a 2 hour, 23 minute tour, we visit the barber shop, the high school, pig farm, the grocery store, the coffee shop, the town council, the hair salon, a livestock auction, the liquor store, the grain silo and the town’s annual festival.

Not much happens, except life.

We do see a Masonic Lodge ritual (a first for me) and the entire sermon at a funeral.

This is deeply Red State territory and a land of bad haircuts.  But people care about what they do and about each other. Wiseman introduces us to Monrovia as a reflection upon humanity and upon life itself. There has never been a more fascinating documentary about a more boring subject. Surprisingly, this is a mesmerizing film.