Photo caption: Will Ferrell and Harper Steele in WILL & HARPER. Courtesy of Netflix.
The Netflix doc Will & Harper features a road trip by Will Farrell and his longtime friend, former SNL writer Harper Steele, who has transitioned. Steele, who has recently transitioned, has always relished auto journeys across the back roads and small towns of America, and wonders if this pleasure is still open to her as a trans woman; Ferrell is going along for support.
The two start at Steele’s home outside New York City and end up on the beach in LA. As they stop in Indiana, Steele’s hometown in Iowa, Oklahoma and Texas, The Wife and I found ourselves cringing and holding our breaths. There are both sweet moments of acceptance and ugly moments of hostility.
The specific case of Steele and Ferrell is used to flesh out why and how one transitions, and how friends can be both curious and supportive.
Ferrell’s celebrity is a subtext here; he clearly enjoys (and maybe needs to be) recognized. Steele is cognizant of how she is treated (or even acknowledged) in or out of Ferrell’s presence.
I have not been a fan of Ferrell’s brand of comedy, but I have to commend Ferrell for his loyalty to a friend and his generosity in spending over two weeks on this cross-country road trip. Ferrell casts his vanity aside to show one episode where he badly misjudges a situation and worsens Steele’s discomfort.
Of course, Ferrell and Steele are both comedy professionals, and they are funny people, as are their SNL pals, about ten of whom show up from time to time. When Will & Harper wants to be funny, it’s funny. When it wants to be emotional, it’s genuinely emotional.
Photo caption: a scene from THE RED SHOES in MADE IN ENGLAND: THE FILMS OF POWELL AND PRESSBERGER. Courtesy of Cohen Media Group.
Martin Scorsese was immensely impacted by the work of British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressberger, and, in his documentary Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressberger, he explains how and why. It’s like a guest presentation in film school.
The screenwriter Pressberger wrote director Powell’s 49th Parallel, one of the very best WW II propaganda films. They found themselves to be each other’s muse. The two co-directed One of Our Airplanes Is Missing in 1942 and continued to co-direct 16 films through 1959’s Night Ambush. Their oeuvre includes several films generally acknowledged as classics of cinema: Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, A Matter of Life and Death, and one of my personal favorites, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. The creative partnership wore itself out in 1959, but the two remained close friends, and were unashamed to describe their partnership as based on love.
Along the way, they routinely discarded cinematic conventions to make risky innovations:
Pausing the story in The Red Shoes to mount an original ballet in its entirety.
Using one actress to play three different roles in Colonel Blimp.
Building the drama to the pivotal duel in Colonel Blimp and then audaciously NOT showing the actual fight.
The humorous use of hunting trophies to mark the time passages in Colonel Blimp.
Using filmed music in Black Narcissus.
Evoking the set and production design of Fritz Lang’s iconic Metropolis in A Matter of Life and Death.
Switching between black-and-white and color in A Matter of Life and Death.
Creating Tales of Hoffman as a “composed film”, a marriage of cinematic imagery with operatic music.
A scene from A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH in MADE IN ENGLAND: THE FILMS OF POWELL AND PRESSBERGER. Courtesy of Cohen Media Group.
After his association with Pressberger, Powell made what I consider his best film, Peeping Tom, which was released in the same year as Hitchcock’s Psycho; I find Peeping Tom to be the better film, and more shocking and disturbing..
Made in England makes a passing reference to Powell’s last film, Age of Consent, but doesn’t mention that it features a voluptuous, nubile 24-year-old Helen Mirren naked.
Here’s another random thought sparked by Made in England – Anton Walbrook, who is not in the pantheon of famous actors from the Golden Age, was a really excellent actor.
Now you might NOT want to go to film class, and, in that case, this is an Eat Your Broccoli movie. But if you’re a hardcore cinephile and/or a Scorsese fan like me, this film is for you.
Photo caption: Norman Mailer in HOW TO COME ALIVE. Courtesy of Zeitgeist Films.
The superbly crafted biodoc How to Come Alive with Norman Mailer reveals a generational literary talent who managed to be immensely successful, all while addicted to turmoil of his own making.
Of course, How to Come Alive reminds us Mailer’s prodigious talent. This was a writer who published his first best seller, the definitive WW II novel, at age 25. He won a Pulitizer Prize for a novel he published at age 45 and another Pulitzer for an even more groundbreaking work at age 56. Yet that rare gift of being recognized in his own time as America’s greatest novelist wasn’t enough for Mailer.
Mailer both wondered at and crassly exploited his own celebrity. He picked public fights of all kinds whenever he could – the feuds of a public intellectual and the fisticuffs of a barroom bully. He drank immense quantites of alcohol and used uppers and downers simultaneously. His interior demons were so intense that, drunk and raging at a humiliation, he stabbed his wife. No wonder the film is taglined a cautionary tale.
Mailer went through six wives and produced nine children. This brilliantly sourced doc draws from interviews with Mailer’s sister and from at least six of his kids, who tell us about Mailer and about their mothers. And we hear lots about Mailer from Mailer himself, who seemingly never passed a microphone or a camera without discussing himself, his ideas and his behavior. “I am a narcissist…I love shocking people.”
While chronicling Mailer’s life more or less in chronological sequence, director Jeff Zimbalist and co-writer Victoria Marquette ingeniously structured How to Come Alive around Mailer’s own guiding principles. These topical chapters effectively introduce us to the paradoxical aspects of Mailer’s persona. Zimbalist and his editor Alannah Byrnes deliver one of the best edited films of any genre this year; they present their talking heads without lingering on any of them and keep us mesmerized with a firehose barrage of images and clips.
Mailer’s boorish and conceited behavior would be tiresome if not rooted in so many diverse aspects of his character. Sometimes he was genuine, throwing down on one of his intellectual principles. Sometimes he was posing to get attention. And sometimes, he was just out of control (as in wife-stabbing).
Certainly, his running for Mayor of New York, his organizing an anti-war march on the Pentagon, his running for Mayor again and his producing, directing and starring in a film about his own fantsy alter ego, were all vanity projects. If he were serious about his purported outcomes, he wouldn’t have put himself at the forefront.
Why is someone a serial provocateur and constantly oppositional? Is there pleasure in goading a reaction from others? Is it about defying conventions, discomfiting the comfortable? Is it about positioning himself as superior to others?
Mailer was one helluva piece of work, which How to Come Alive makes clear:
Mailer’s ambition in declaring, “I want to write the great novel of WW II” BEFORE he saw any combat, let alone wrote about it. Who does that?
The notorious “feminist debate” in which Mailer squared off against the leading feminist thinkers and leaders of his time. I didn’t expect the mutual respect between Mailer and the feminists. It’s pretty funny, and there’s one howling moment at Mailer’s expense.
And then there’s the most stunning sequence in How to Come Alive – while filming Mailer’s self-indulgent art film Maidstone, a demented Rip Torn, in the ultimate method acting, decides that the story demands that he assassinate Mailer’s character; Torn then tries to kill Mailer (really kill him) with a hammer as the camera rolls, all in front of Mailer’s real life family. Torn’s visage is maniacal, and some serious drugs had to be involved here. The video is disturbing, as are the recollections of Mailer’s traumatized children.
Mailer was a person who, above all, rejected safety; that turned his life into a high wire act without a net, and, in How to Come Alive, Jeff Zimbalist unspools it into a thoughtful, entertaining and engrossing 100 minutes.
Photo caption: Guy Clark holds his favorite photo of Susanna Clark in WITHOUT GETTING KILLED OR CAUGHT. Courtesy of Indie Rights.
The lyrical documentary Without Getting Killed or Caught is centered on the life of seminal singer-songwriter Guy Clark, a poetic giant of Americana and folk music. That would be enough grist for a fine doc, but Without Getting Killed or Caught also focuses on Clark’s wife, Susanna Clark, a talented painter (album covers for Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris) and songwriter herself (#1 hit I’ll Be Your San Antone Rose). What’s more, Guy’s best friend, the troubled songwriter Townes Van Zandt, and Susanna revered each other. Van Zandt periodically lived with the Clarks – that’s a lot of creativity in that house – and a lots of strong feelings.
Susanna Clark said it thus, “one is my soul and the other is my heart.”
The three held a salon in their Nashville home, and mentored the likes of Rodney Crowell and Steve Earle. You can the flavor of the salon in the 1976 documentary Heartworn Highways (AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube). It features Townes Van Zandt’s rendition of his Waitin’ Round to Die. (Susanna was also a muse for Rodney Crowell, who, after her death, wrote the angry song Life Without Susanna.)
Documentarians Tamara Saviano and Paul Whitfield, have unearthed a great story, primarily sourced by Susanna’s diaries; Sissy Spacek voices Susanna’s words. These were artsy folks so there are plenty of exquisite photos of the subjects, too. It all adds up to a beautiful film, spinning the story of these storytellers.
Guy and Susanna Clark in WITHOUT GETTING KILLED OR CAUGHT. Courtesy of Indie Rights.
I loved this movie, but I’m having trouble projecting its appeal to a general audience, because I am so emotionally engaged with the subject material. I’m guessing that the unusual web of relationships and the exploration of the creative process is universal enough for any audience, even if you’re not a fanboy like me.
The title comes from Guy’s song LA Freeway, a hit for Jerry Jeff Walker:
I can just get off of this L.A. freeway
Without gettin’ killed or caught
There is plenty for us Guy Clarkophiles:
the back story for Desperados Waiting for a Train;
the identity of LA Freeway’s Skinny Dennis;
Guy’s final return from touring, with the declaration “let’s recap”.
There’s also the story of Guy’s ashes; the final resolution is not explicit in the movie but you can figure it out; here’s the story.
Without Getting Killed or Caught had a very limited theatrical run in 2021, but it’s now available to stream from Amazon and YouTube.
Photo caption: Louis C.K. photographed at the Toronto International film festival 9/17/17 for The New York Times’ article Asking Questions Louis C.K. Doesn’t Want to Answer by Cara Buckley. Photo Credit: Angela Lewis for The New York Times.
The unusually thought-provoking documentary Sorry/Not Sorry uses the Louis C.K. scandal to explore the issues of consent, cancel culture and #MeToo accountability while protecting survivors. Produced by the New York Times, Sorry/Not Sorry traces comic Louis C.K.’s ascendancy, his abhorrent behavior over a long period of time, its exposure by the NYT, his demise and comeback. That story is well-researched and comprehensive, but the real value of Sorry/Not Sorry is in its discussion of consequence for everyone involved – the perpetrator, the survivors and those who at least should have known.
This story, as have other #MeToo episodes, involved a power imbalance; in this case between C.K. and other comedy professionals who were not as famous as he was. In social situations, C.K. would ask if is was OK if he pulled out his penis and pleasured himself. Apparently, no one voiced the actual words, “I would ask you not to do that because it would offend me and make me feel unsafe“. But who can consent if they can’t imagine that it is a literal request for permission? It’s not consent if someone’s jaw drops and they fidget in their seat.
As icky as this was for women, men were also confounded. After all, heterosexual men generally seek sexual gratification in a woman’s body – looking at it, touching it, uniting with it. Louis C.K. wasn’t seeking a woman’s body to get off, just her presence. Who does that? What kind of sick power trip is that?
In Sorry/Not Sorry, three strong women – Jen Kirkman, Abby Schachner and Megan Koester – give first-hand accounts of what transpired. The NYT investigative team of Jodi Kantor, Cara Buckley and Melena Ryzik explain how they ran down the story. C.K., with remorse, confirmed what had happened, and ceased performing.
You probably already knew these facts, but now Sorry/Not Sorry takes the story further. C.K.’s exposure made Kirkman, Schachner and Koester relive the unpleasantness and subjected them to torrents of hate from anonymous internet trolls; their careers were certainly not helped by the publicity, and were probably hurt. Remember – all they did was to be present when someone else behaved transgressively, and to be truthful when asked about it years later. (Plus, they were mocked by Dave Chappelle, who is more the villain of Sorry/Not Sorry than is Louis C.K.)
In stunning contrast, C.K. revived his public career, albeit at a much lower level, within less than a year. Sorry/Not Sorry raises the question of, at what point should a disgraced transgressor be able to re-enter the mainstream? And just what is the so-called cancel culture?
It’s pretty clear that, in the case of a serial rapist like Harvey Weinstein, the offender should be incarcerated to protect the public and never be allowed to enjoy a public career again. But, as #MeToo offenses go, Louis C.K. presents a somewhat unique case in two ways. First, he didn’t physically hurt or violate the women; he disgusted and appalled them. Second, he honestly and contritely answered the charges with “These stories are true“, which is a long way from the standard #MeToo response, which is more like “I never met the woman in my life, and it was all her idea“. So, in this case, it doesn’t seem like justice requires his permanent exile, public silencing and unemployment.
But, if not permanently, for how long?
Louis C.K. did endure public disgrace, had his career sidelined for most of a year and lost the ability to earn TENS of millions of dollars. But he has resumed making mere MILLIONS of dollars and being idolized by his diehard fan base. Given the relative situations of the women involved, it doesn’t feel right.
These questions are pondered in Sorry/Not Sorry by an array of talking heads, the most sensible being Parks and Recreation creator Michael Schnur and comedian Aida Rodriguez.
This is a smart and revelatory film. Sorry/Not Sorry releases on July 12th, both into select LA and NYC theaters and digitally.
Photo caption: Penny Lane in her CONFESSIONS OF A GOOD SAMARITAN. Courtesy of Sandbox Films.
Documentarian Penny Lane is known for her choice of offbeat subjects (Nuts!, Hail Satan?) and her unexpected takes on the familiar (Our Nixon, Listening to Kenny G). In Confessions of a Good Samaritan, she turns her camera upon herself as she decides to donate one of her kidneys to a person that she doesn’t know and will never meet. An in-depth exploration of both kidney transplants and altruism ensues – all from the very personal perspective of a person about to go under the knife herself. Lane herself is a delightful subject, and she courageously shares her most intimate feelings, making Confessions of a Good Samaritan ever more engrossing.
I screened Confessions of a Good Samaritan for the SFFILM; this week, it opens at Laemmle’s Royal, NoHo and Monica Film Center in LA and the Roxie in San Francisco.
A scene from Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s THE GRAB. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
The exposé The Grab is an important documentary at the level of An Inconvenient Truth. The Grab documents and clearly explains the global grab for food and water resources by corporations and nations. Think about water as a matter of national security. Imagine an OPEC for food.
The grab to control agricultural land and water rights is happening in secret – but in plain sight. It’s difficult enough to impose any accountable on actors of this scale – global mega-corporations and even nations – so The Grab’s bringing some transparency is essential.
Documentarian Gabriela Cowperthwaite is known for Blackfish, an exposé of Orca handling at SeaWorld and an arthouse hit in 2013. Cowperthwaite has also directed a narrative space station thriller, I.S.S., set for release in June 2023.
Cowperthwaite describes The Grab as a “6-year investigative deep dive“. Impressively researched, The Grab is engrossing and sobering.
I screened The Grab for the 2023 SLO Film Fest. It’s now available to stream from Amazon, AppleTV and YouTube.
Photo caption: Geoff McFetridge in GEOFF MCFETRIDGE: DRAWING A LIFE. Credit: Andrew Paynter; courtesy of Gravitas Ventures.
The thoughtful documentary Geoff McFetridge: Drawing a Life examines a great artist who is decidedly not tortured. No ear-slicing, overdoses or bratty rampages here, just a guy whose disciplined lifestyle and commitment to his family subvert the stereotypes of an artist fueled by torment.
Where’s the interest in a movie about someone who creates without turbulence? This is a guy who is unusually fierce with both his artistic and family lives. He refuses to compromise his art; his attitude is, take it or leave it (although, as a good Canadian, he is polite about it). Just as tenaciously, he safeguards his family time.
At one point in Drawing a Life, McFetridge makes it explicit. He sees it as too easy to make everything else – good behavior, responsibilities – subservient to art. The achievement is to do great art while maintaining life balance.
You may not know McFetridge’s name, but you’ll recognize his art. McFetridge has exhibited in major cities around the world, collaborated with filmmakers like Spike Jonz and Sofia Coppola, and designed for brands like Apple, Hermes, Vans and Patagonia.
Director and co-writer Dan Covert has filled Drawing a Life with McFetridge’s art, and viewing the film is to be immersed in the art. The editing, by Covert and co-writer Eric Auli, is magnificent. Geoff McFetridge: Drawing a Life won the 2023 Audience Award for Documentary Feature at SXSW.
Geoff McFetridge: Drawing a Life opens in NYC theaters tomorrow, in LA next week and digitally on July 2.
In the irresistible documentary Chasing Chasing Amy, filmmaker Sav Rodgers tells his own highly personal story of finding sanctuary in a romantic comedy, a movie that ultimately spurs a both a filmmaking career and his transition to trans man. Rodgers weaves in parallel tracks, the origin story of the 1997 movie Chasing Amy, and thoughtful discussion of how that film, after 25 years of cultural evolution, has aged. Chasing Chasing Amy seamlessly braids together the fictional love story in Chasing Amy with the stories of real life relationships, including his own.
Chasing Chasing Amy‘s writer-director Savannah Rodgers, grew up a bullied lesbian in small town Kansas, and found lesbian representation in an old DVD of Chasing Amy, which became a lifesaver. When Kevin Smith himself heard Rodgers’ TED Talk, he connected with Rodgers and supported her (and then his) filmmaking career. All this is contained in Chasing Chasing Amy along with some revelations.
The novelty of Chasing Amy is a straight man and a lesbian as inseparable soulmates, and we learn that Kevin Smith modeled this after his real life friends, his producer Scott Mosier and the screenwriter Guinevere Turner. Turner had written the lesbian coming of age film Go Fish, which was on the festival circuit along with Smith and Mosier’s Clerks; Turner later wrote the screenplays for American Psycho and The Notorious Bettie Page.
But the core of Chasing Amy’s narrative is a love affair sabotaged by the guy’s insecurities, mirroring Smith’s own less-than-two-year relationship with Joey Lauren Adams, who plays Alyssa, the main female character.
Rodgers meets Smith himself, who becomes a mentor, and we get current on-camera interviews with Smith, Adams and other principals. There’s a shoulder-to-shoulder joint interview with Smith and Adams, followed by a sobering solo interview with Adams. Along the way, Rodgers matures from a gushing fan girl to a grownup who recognizes the personal flaws that complicate other people’s relationships. Smith comes off well here, and if Rodgers seems too adoring of Smith in most of the film, just wait until her final interview with Joey Lauren Adams.
Chasing Amy was director Kevin Smith’s 1997 masterpiece, with a groundbreaking lesbian/bi-sexual leading lady; but, after 25 years of cultural evolution, some elements now seem stale and even embarrassing. The leading male character is Holden, played by Ben Affleck. His buddy and wingman is Banky, played by Jason Lee, and Banky (to Lee’s off camera discomfort) is unspeakably vulgar and homophobic, a whirlpool of toxic masculinity. But of course, Banky is there to highlight Holden’s comparative evolved tolerance and openness. As an exasperated Kevin Smith says, ‘Banky id the idiot“. But, were Smith to make the same movie today, he would certainly still make Banky offensive, but so much over-the-top offensive.
Some viewers saw in Chasing Amy a toxic male fantasy of a “the right” straight male being able to “convert” a lesbian to heterosexuality. But Alyssa is a bisexual character, as is explicitly depicted in the movie when her lesbian friends react to her fling with Holden. She’s just a bisexual who is more than he is emotionally able to handle.
The story of Sav Rodgers winds from Kansas and the TedTalk, through her long relationship and now marriage, and final, the transitioning into a he/him trans man. Rodgers grows from a naïf into a grown ass man, albeit one that is still earnest, sweet and wears his emotions on his sleeve.
That Rodgers tells such a highly personal story along with the origin story of Chasing Amy and subsequent film and cultural criticism is impressive and ever watchable. I screened Chasing Chasing Amy for the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival where it led my Best of the SLO Film Fest. I’ll let you know when it’s available to stream.
Tasha Van Zandt’s AFTER ANTARCTICA. Photo courtesy of SFFILM.
The fine documentary After Antarctica follows ecological adventurer Will Steger on two polar expeditions – different poles and twenty-five years apart.
In 1989-90, Steger led the first non-mechanized expedition to cross continent of Antarctica (the LONG way – from one coast to the other). This was a grueling and risky endeavor. The international team needed to avoid terrifying crevasses; (check out the beginning of the trailer below.) The volatility of the weather was brutal. Steger noted, “Antarctica doesn’t want us here, and is making every effort to remind us”.
The team faced a crisis of supplies and exhaustion just 16 miles from the end of their 3700 mile journey. They knew that the earlier Antarctic explorer Robert F. Scott had died only 12 miles from a supply cache. Steger’s leadership, informed by zen discipline and sheer force of will, brought them through.
The Steger team’s achievement will not be matched – due to climate change, the 4000 square mile Larsen ice shelf that they traversed is no longer there.
Tasha Van Zandt’s AFTER ANTARCTICA. Photo courtesy of SFFILM.
A quarter of a century later, After Antarctica follows a 75-year-old Steger as he undertakes a solo expedition above the Arctic Circle – contemplating the effects of climate change and and his own mortality. In contrast with the global celebrity of the Antarctic expedition, the Arctic march is solitary.
Will Steger, who has survived both a lethal mountain climbing accident and cancer, has lived a life on the extreme. He is self-focused, crusty and open, without defensiveness, about own personal flaws.
The two polar journeys, the examination of climate change and Steger’s own life are told through the voice of Will Steger himself.
After Antarctica is the first feature for director Tasha Van Zandt. We see never-before-seen file footage of the Antarctic expedition. The Arctic cinematography by Van Zandt and DP Sebastian Zeck is extraordinary. Van Zandt has said that the icy ground and the grey sky of the Arctic hindered depth perception, making the piloting of drones for aerial photography especially difficult.
I screened After Antarctica for the 2021 San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM), where it won a jury award. It’s finally available to stream on Amazon, AppleTV and YouTube.
