Category Archives: Documentary

Behind the Music, Documentary, Jazz Musicians

SIFF 2012: The Savoy King ***

August 9, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 9, 2012)

I’m glad I caught Jeff Kaufman’s The Savoy King: Chick Webb and the Music That Changed America, because I learned quite a bit about a period of American music that I’m a bit rusty on-the Jazz Swing Era. Specifically, the story of a diminutive, hunch-backed drummer named Chick Webb, and the impact he made over the course of his relatively brief career (1927-1939). Crippled by TB of the spine (the result of a childhood injury), the self-taught drummer and band leader was not only a significant and respected player in his own right, but instrumental in fostering the career of one Ella Fitzgerald. With all due respect to the late Dick Clark, it turns out that his role in integrating America’s dance floors, while of significance, may have been overstated; it seems Webb was the true pioneer in that arena, thanks to the cross-cultural appeal of his music (years before American Bandstand). The archival footage is fabulous.

Behind the Music, Documentary, Rock 'n' Roll

SIFF 2012: Beware of Mr. Baker ***1/2

August 9, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 9, 2012)

“Ginger Baker influenced me as a musician,” gushes an interviewee, who is quick to add “…but not as a person.” More than any other statement made in Beware of Mr. Baker, that one encapsulates the dichotomous nature of the man who many consider one of the greatest jazz-rock drummers of all time. Mixing archival footage with present-day chats with Baker, as well as observations from family members, admirers and former band mates, director Jay Bulger has assembled a compelling rockumentary that is as kinetic and unpredictably volatile as its subject. It’s probably a good thing that the filmmaker is a former boxer; in the opening scene, the ever-mercurial Baker punctuates his displeasure at some perceived slight by caning him on the nose. By his own admittance, interpersonal skills have never been his forte (he’s currently with the 4th Mrs. Baker). Still, what emerges is a portrait of an artist who literally lives for his art; he remains an absolute motherfucker on those drums because that is exactly what he was put on this earth to do.

Documentary

SIFF 2012: All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace **1/2

August 9, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 9, 2012)

I wish that I could tell you that writer/director/narrator Adam Curtis’ documentary All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace is as deep as its title (taken from a poem by Richard Brautigan), but I cannot. Ostensibly intended as an illustration of how mankind has become enslaved by its own technology (at least I think), Curtis opens his treatise with a portrait of Ayn Rand and an examination of what he alleges to be her influence on the cosmology of the Silicon Valley pioneers, and bookends it with theories about The Selfish Gene. In between, there’s Alan Greenspan, Dian Fossey, the ecosystem, gene theory, the internet, altruism, the global banking crisis, the Tutsis vs. the Hutus, the Man-machine… and a large orange soda. While Curtis does offer up a plethora of intriguing ideas over the course of his sprawling 180-minute film (edited together from a 3-part BBC-TV series), ultimately he fails to connect them in any kind of satisfying (or cohesive) manner.

Big Money, Documentary, Nuclear Paranoia, On Politics

SIFF 2012: The Atomic States of America ***

August 9, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 26, 2012)

Remember the “No Nukes” movement that gained momentum in the mid to late 70s and then fizzed after Chernobyl proved that those DFHs may have been on to something after all? Good times. Lots of (irradiated) water passed under the bridge. Everyone got distracted by their iPhones. Fast-forward to the announcement in 2010 that the U.S. was going forward with construction of the first nuclear power plant in three decades; corporate America swooned over the “Nuclear Renaissance” (short memories). Then, as if on cue, Fukushima happened in 2011. The Atomic States of America is a timely eco-doc that could serve as a perfect wake-up call for anyone who may have failed to connect those dots (i.e., the jury is still out on the “safety” of this energy source).

Co-directors Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce build their case with a certain sense of urgency, reviewing the industry’s past sins and spotlighting present day travails suffered by communities adjacent to nuclear plants (like “cancer clusters”). Most importantly, the filmmakers boldly tackle the $64,000 question: How in the fuck did we get to this Bizzarro World scenario wherein the Atomic Energy Commission finds itself kowtowing to the nuclear power industry…instead of vice versa? Essential viewing.

Documentary, Movie Movie

SIFF 2012 – The Story of Film: an Odyssey ****

August 9, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 19, 2012)

The Story of Film: an Odyssey is one long-ass movie. Consider the title. It literally is the story of film, from the 1890s through last Tuesday. At 15 hours, it is nearly as epic an undertaking for the viewer as it must have been for director-writer-narrator Mark Cousins.

Originally aired as a 15-part TV series in the UK, it has been making the rounds on the festival circuit as a five-part presentation. While the usual suspects are well-represented, Cousins’ choices for in-depth analysis are atypical (e.g. he has a particular predilection for African and Middle-Eastern cinema). That quirkiness is what I found most endearing about this idiosyncratic opus; world cinema enjoys equal time with Hollywood.

The film is not without tics. Cousins’ oddly cadenced Irish brogue requires steely acclimation, and he has a tendency to over-use the word “masterpiece”. Of course, he “left out” many directors and films I would have included. Nits aside, this is obviously a labor of love by someone passionate about film, and if you claim to be, you have an obligation to see this.

Documentary, Show Biz

SIFF 2012 – Paul Williams: Still Alive ***1/2

August 9, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 19, 2012)

Paul Williams: Still Alive begs the question: “Do I care?” Speaking for myself, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I “care” care, but I had enough morbid curiosity to pull me into this update on the oddball singer-songwriter-actor with the pageboy haircut who penned a slew of 70s hits (“We’ve Only Just Begun”, “Rainy Days and Mondays”, “An Old-Fashioned Love Song”, “Evergreen”), appeared in cult movies (The Loved One, Phantom of the Paradise), became a fixture on the TV game show/talk show circuit…then disappeared.

Initially, Williams vacillates on whether he wants to be the subject of a “fly on the wall” study, but filmmaker (and professed super fan) Steven Kessler ingratiates himself after the men bond over a mutual love of squid. What results is an alternately hilarious and sobering look at the ups and downs of this business we call “show”.

Real life imitates Ishtar when the Woody Allen-esque Kessler reluctantly joins Williams as he travels overseas for a gig in the Philippines that includes a long bus ride through jungles (allegedly) chock-a-block with Islamic terrorists. Kessler is on the verge of a panic attack for the entire trip; Williams remains quietly bemused.

That’s show biz…

Documentary, On Politics, War

Hear no evil, see no evil: Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today ***1/2

August 8, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on February 19, 2011)

These men saw no evil, spoke none, and none was uttered in their presence. This claim might sound very plausible if made by one defendant. But when we put all their stories together, the impression which emerges of the Third Reich, which was to last a thousand years, is ludicrous.

–Justice Robert Jackson (chief counsel for the U.S. at the first Nuremberg trial in 1946)

Herman Goring. Rudolf Hess. Hans Frank. Wilhelm Frick. Joachim von Ribbentrop. Alfred Rosenberg. Julius Streicher. Any one of those names alone should send a chill down the spine of anyone with even a passing knowledge of 20^th Century history. Picture if you will, all of those co-architects of the horror known as the Third Reich sitting together in one room (along with a dozen or so of their closest friends). This egregious assemblage really did occur, during the first of the Nuremberg trials (November 1945 to October 1946).

Through the course of the grueling 11-month long proceedings, a panel of judges and prosecutors representing the USA, the Soviet Union, England and France built a damning case, thanks in large part to the Nazis themselves, who had a curious habit of meticulously documenting their own crimes. The thousands of confiscated documents-neatly typed, well-annotated and (most significantly) signed and dated by some of the defendants, along with the gruesome films the Nazis took of their own atrocities, helped build one of the most compelling cases of all time.

By the time it was over, out of the 24 defendants (several of whom were tried in absentia for various reasons), 12 received a sentence of death by hanging, 7 were given prison sentences ranging from 10 years to life, and the remainder were either acquitted or not charged. One of the biggest fish, Herman Goring, ended up “cheating the hangman” by committing suicide in his cell (Martin Bormann, one of the condemned tried in absentia, had already beat him to the punch-although his 1945 suicide in Berlin was not confirmed until his remains were identified in a 1972 re-investigation).

Hollywood would be hard pressed to cook up a courtroom drama of such epic proportions; much less a narrative that presented a more clearly delineated battle of Good vs. Evil. Granted, in the fog of war, the Allies undoubtedly put the blinders on every now and then when it came to following the Geneva Convention right down to the letter-but when it comes to the short list of parties throughout all of history who have willfully committed the most heinous crimes against humanity, there seems to be a general consensus among civilized people that the Nazis are the Worst.Bad.Guys.Ever…right?

At any rate, this is why a newly-restored U.S. War Department documentary, produced over 60 years ago and never officially released for distribution in America (until now) may well turn out to be the most riveting courtroom drama that will hit theaters this year.

Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today (made in 1948) was written and directed by Stuart Schulberg, who had worked with John Ford’s OSS field photography unit, which was assigned by the government to track down incriminating Nazi film footage to be parsed by the Nuremberg prosecution team and help build their case.

Schulberg’s brother Budd (who later became better known in Hollywood as the screenwriter for On the Waterfront and A Face in the Crowd) was a senior officer on the OSS film team; he supervised the compilation of two films for the U.S. prosecutors; one a sort of macabre Whitman’s Sampler of Nazi atrocities, from the Third Reich’s own archives, and the other assembled from that ever-shocking footage taken by Allied photographers as the concentration camps were being discovered and liberated by advancing troops in early 1945.

Stuart Schulberg, in turn, mixed excerpts from those two films with the official documentation footage from the trial to help illustrate the prosecution’s strategy to address the four indictments (conspiring to commit a crime against peace; planning, initiating and committing wars of aggression; perpetrating war crimes; and crimes against humanity).

So why had Schulberg’s film (commissioned, after all, by the U.S. government to document a very well-known, historically significant and profound event in the annals of world justice) never been permitted open distribution to domestic audiences by same said government? After being shown around Germany in 1948 and 1949 as part of the de-Nazification program, extant prints of the film appeared to have vanished somewhere in the mists of time, with no documented attempts by the U.S. government to even archive a copy.

Even the man who had originally commissioned the film, Pare Lorentz (who at the time of the film’s production was head of Film, Theatre and Music at the U.S. War Department’s Civil Affairs Division) was given the brush off by Pentagon brass when he later petitioned to buy it and distribute it himself.

A 1949 Washington Post story offered an interesting take on why Lorentz had been stonewalled, saying that “…there are those in authority in the United States who feel that Americans are so simple that they can only hate one enemy at a time. Forget the Nazis, they advise, and concentrate on the Reds.” (there are several layers of delicious, prescient irony in that quote…so I won’t belabor it).

Stuart Schulberg’s daughter Sandra, along with Josh Waletzky, embarked on a five-year mission in 2004 to restore this important documentary. I should note that the term “restore”, in this particular case, does not necessarily refer to crystalline image quality; though they have done the best they can with what is purported to be the best existing print (stored at the German Film Archive).

They did have better luck with the soundtrack; they found what sounds to my ears to be fairly decent audio from the original trial recordings, which they painstakingly matched up as best they could to reconstruct the long-lost sound elements from the original. Voice-over narration has been re-recorded by Liev Schreiber, who is a bit on the dry side, but adequate .

It is chilling to hear the voices of these defendants; even if it is at times merely “jawohl” or “nein”- one hopes it is enough to give even the most stalwart of Holocaust deniers cause for consternation.

So what is the “lesson for today” that we can glean from this straightforward and relatively non-didactic historical document? Unfortunately, humanity in general hasn’t learned too awful much; the semantics may have changed, but the behavior, sadly, remains the same (they call it “ethnic cleansing” now).

“Crimes against humanity” are still perpetrated every day-so why haven’t we had any more Nurembergs? If it can’t be caught via cell phone camera and posted five minutes later on YouTube like Saddam Hussein’s execution, so we can take a quick peek, go “Yay! Justice is served!” and then get back to our busy schedule of eating stuffed-crust pizza and watching the Superbowl, I guess we just can’t be bothered. Besides, who wants to follow some boring 11-month long trial, anyway (unless, of course, an ex-football player is involved).

Or maybe it’s just that the perpetrators have become savvier since 1945; many of those who commit crimes against humanity these days wear nice suits and have corporate expense accounts, nu? Or maybe it’s too hard to tell who the (figurative) Nazis are today, because in the current political climate, everyone and anyone, at some point, is destined to be compared to one. Maybe we all need to watch this film together and get a reality check.

Behind the Music, Documentary, On Music

In search of the lost chord: Pianomania ***

August 8, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on July 16, 2011)

Tuner sandwich: Stefan Knupfer at work in Pianomania

“It looks like you’re just poking around in there,” observes a young woman. “Yes,” replies Stefan Knupfer, with a shrug and a laugh, “…that’s exactly what I’m doing.” On one level, he is in fact just “poking around” the innards of an immense concert grand piano. However, as we come to learn from watching Pianomania, a new documentary from Robert Cibis and Lilian Franck, Herr Knupfer is being somewhat modest. He is actually engaging in a much more complex and esoteric endeavor: the art of piano tuning.

Cibis and Franck offer up a “year of the life” portrait of the affable Austrian piano technician, tagging along as he dashes around Europe in a company van (doggie in tow) to service Steinways for a bevy of world-class performers (including Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Lang Lang, Alfred Brendel and Richard Hyung-Ki Joo). I admit that I had doubts going in regarding the subject matter (“That note sounds flat-can he tweak it to A-440 in time for the big concert? I’m on the edge of my seat!”). However, as it turns out, this pursuit of tonal perfection holds the dramatic elements of a classic “quest” narrative.

Knupfer must prepare two pianos (beginning nearly a year in advance) which will be used by Aimard for a recorded performance of Bach’s “The Art of Fugue”. The fastidious Aimard isn’t asking for much…only that Knupfer adjust his instruments in such a way that affords him the option to call up the tonality of a clavichord, an organ and a harpsichord at will. The two artists (for the film bears out that the tuner is just as much an ‘artist’ as the performer) ensconce themselves onto the stage of Vienna’s Konzerthaus and set to work like a pair of mad scientists sweating over a formula.

Nothing fazes the cheerful Knupfer, with exception of a horrifying realization that his new hammerheads are off-size by 0.7 millimeter (prompting an uncharacteristic cry of “Shist!” from our intrepid hero). Knupfer is so empathetic with his client’s vision that when the performer makes a nebulous request like “less air!” he knows exactly what Aimard means (even if we don’t).

Knupfer’s infectious enthusiasm for his gig is a documentarian’s dream; especially when the camera is there for his frequent moments of creative inspiration. While helping Richard Hyung-Ki Joo and violinist Aleksey Igudesma brainstorm visual gags for one of their comedic performances, he comes up with an idea to replace a piano leg with a cheap yet still fully functional violin (in a very funny scene, Knupfer calls an instrument dealer and says he is looking for a violin that costs “like five Euros or something”, to which the dealer instinctively responds, “Do you want to smash it?”) Even the more serious work that he does inside the music box greatly benefits from his ability to constantly think outside the box, as it were (like bouncing tennis balls to temper the strings, for example).

I’m not a keyboard player, or frankly much of a classical piano fan (more of a guitar guy) yet I still found this film to be absorbing and entertaining . As credits rolled, I realized I previously had no clue as to what a piano tuner does; like a lot of folks I’ve always assumed it to be more on the technical, rather than creative side of the music.

I can relate to Knupfer’s obsessive nature; I’ve been known to zone out for two or three hours at a time “poking around” with pedal settings and amp adjustments in search of the “perfect” guitar tone. Some viewers may cry foul that the filmmakers seem to have made a conscious decision not to reveal too much about Knupfer’s personal life. However, the pursuit of excellence and perfection in any field is an admirable endeavor, and at the end of the day that’s really what the film is about. Sometimes, it not the music-it’s how you play it.

Documentary

Lady in a cage: Nenette ***

August 8, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on January 29, 2011)

Orangutans are skeptical

Of changes in their cages

And the zookeeper is very fond of rum.

-Paul Simon

Quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore!’

-Edgar Allan Poe

The cat, of course, said nothing.

-Kinky Friedman

Humans are silly creatures, particularly with our compulsive need to anthropomorphize our animal friends. You see what just happened there? I had an uncontrollable compulsion to say, animal “friends”. How do I really know they’re my “friends”? When I was a kid, I loved spending Saturday mornings watching Yogi and Boo-Boo copping picnic baskets. Now, let’s say I’m taking a nature hike on Kodiak Island, and suddenly find myself face to face with a 1500 pound bear. What would be my first “compulsion” then? Give him a cheerful greeting? Not likely. I would probably acquiesce to my lizard brain response (i.e., soil myself and flee in the opposite direction).

In Nicolas Philibert’s Nenette, a documentary centering on a beloved 41 year-old female orangutan who has resided in the menagerie at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris since 1969, a zoo visitor hypothesizes likewise. “The thickness of the glass…it’s in proportion to our fear of getting closer,” he muses. “She seems familiar to us, because we’re protected. But, if the glass were to break all of a sudden…you wouldn’t hear ‘my sweet Nenette’ anymore. You’d only hear, ‘Run for your lives!’.” Like I said- humans are silly creatures.

And, throughout the four decades since she was captured in her native Borneo and transplanted to the Jardin des Plantes, Nenette has watched the daily parade of silly creatures that point and gawk and endlessly pontificate about what she might be thinking. The director gives us lots of time to study Nenette’s (mostly impassive) reaction to all the fuss; because the camera stays on her (and to a lesser extent, her three fellow orangutans) for nearly the entire 70-minute running time of the film. The zoo visitors are largely heard, and not seen, save for their ephemeral reflections in the thick glass that separates the simians from the homosapiens. “She looks sad,” says one little girl. “I think she looks very depressed,” one woman opines; “Maybe she misses her husband?” wonders another.

Nenette has actually been “married” three times over the years, and has borne four offspring. One of her adult sons keeps her company (and to address the inevitable question that arises concerning the particulars of that living arrangement, a handler assures us that when Nenette’s son matured, it was decided that she be put on the pill, surreptitiously dropped into her daily bowl of yogurt).

In my favorite scene, a visitor attempts to bond with Nenette’s son. Speaking in almost reverently hushed tones, she tells a companion that, unlike most zoo patrons, she “knows how to communicate” with the orangutans. “Sing for me,” this Jane Goodall wannabe coos seductively, and then kisses the glass (we assume, as the orangutan appears to be aping the gesture from his side). I suspect she is one of those people who, according to a handler, drop by for daily chats with the apes, as if visiting with a family member in prison.

Nenette, of course, says nothing. Orangutans are taciturn by nature, and not overtly demonstrative like some of the other great apes. I suppose this makes Nenette’s inscrutable countenance an ideal “blank canvas” upon which each chatty visitor can paint their own unique projection (if you planted a microphone behind the Mona Lisa, you would likely have a very similar collage of comments).

Not surprisingly, it takes the observations of (someone we assume to be) an actor to ultimately put Philibert’s enigmatic and meditative film study into perspective. As he marvels at “the quality of (Nenette’s) idleness” which she executes “with astounding virtuosity” he is reminded of an exercise from acting class, in which the teacher instructs the students that “the space is yours…just be there.” He concludes, “She is fully there, that’s all.” For all we know, she’s pondering how yummy a nice banana might taste right now.

Documentary, Show Biz

Shades of Gray: And Everything is Going Fine ***1/2

August 8, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on January 22, 2011)

Everything is contingent, and there is also chaos.

–Spalding Gray

Who was it who once dismissed the art of the monologist as “comedy, without punch lines”? Oh…it was me. OK, I confess-when I used to work as a stand-up, I always felt a bit envious of my more long-winded show-biz cousins, because generally, they get to sit down (I’ve always been a lazy bastard). Not only that, but they get to sit behind a desk, upon which they are allowed to keep notes (in case they lose their place-which probably makes actors jealous, too).

They could get away with using props-without being accused of “hiding behind them”. Also, why is it that when a stand-up comic does a long-form piece with props, it’s a “one person-show”…never a “monologue”? Who, or what, officially certifies you as a monologist?

As I allegedly became older and wiser, I came to admire the monologists, once I gleaned what separates them from stand ups. Stand-ups are insecure and desperate for acceptance. That’s why we’re willing to go out there “naked” with only a microphone in hand, performing the same 20 minute act night after night for roomfuls of hostile drunks, collect $50, and dash for the exit, before the sense of shame and humiliation over what we do for a living sinks in (Jay Leno once cleverly likened the life of a stand up to that of a hooker).

A monologist, on the other hand, has to have a strong sense of confidence. Confident enough to believe that the minutiae of their lives is so fascinating, people will pay good money to sit in rapt attention for 90 minutes while they prattle on about themselves.

Whether or not you are going to enjoy And Everything is Going Fine, Steven Soderbergh’s documentary about the life of the late Spalding Gray (king of all monologists) largely hinges on how open you are to paying good money to sit in rapt attention for 90 minutes while someone prattles on about themselves. That’s because Soderbergh is shrewd enough to let a man who was nothing if not a compulsive (and gifted) storyteller tell you his own story, in his own words.

For Gray’s fans, Soderbergh’s film could be what the Beatles Anthology was to Fab Four aficionados-a masterfully edited and chronologically assembled compendium of clips from TV interviews and performance excerpts spanning the breadth of his career, spiced throughout by rare and previously unseen footage. What emerges is a portrait of the artist, narrated by the artist.

Like many moviegoers, my first awareness of Gray was due to Swimming to Cambodia, Jonathan Demme’s wonderfully realized 1987 film version of Gray’s stage show, in which Gray was able to weave a mesmerizing and entertaining monologue from his experience working on the 1984 film, The Killing Fields. He had a relatively minor part in that film, but the stage piece it inspired is a veritable epic; it may begin like just another backstage tale, but somehow ends up touching on life, the universe and everything.

The film was a surprise hit, and although he continued to take acting roles, he was always best at “playing” Spalding Gray, particularly in subsequent film versions of three more stage shows, (the 1988 HBO presentation Spalding Gray: Terrors of Pleasure, and two feature films-Monster in a Box from 1992 and Gray’s Anatomy, released in 1996).

There is an elephant in the room that Soderbergh largely sidesteps, and that is Gray’s tragic end. In March of 2004, after a two-month disappearance, his body was recovered from the East River, off Greenpoint in Brooklyn. It was a presumed suicide, as Gray had been suffering from severe depression (and had made several attempts to take his own life) since a 2001 car accident that left him with a fractured skull and shattered hip. There is some footage of Gray recounting the accident, and hobbling around on crutches, but not too much further elaboration on what it eventually may have led to.

Perhaps the director does broach the subject in his own oblique fashion; in one interview clip Gray jokes about how Soderbergh had talked him into taking a “perfect part” in his 1993 film King of the Hill-playing a depressive who eventually kills himself. And there are several clips (from tinterviews and stage shows) where Gray refers to his mother’s suicide; perhaps the most revealing quote comes when he says “I was darkly convinced that at age 52 I would kill myself because my mother committed suicide at that age. I was fantasizing that she was waiting for me on the other side of the grave.” We can never know who or what Gray thought might be waiting for him when he took that plunge into the watery depths, but if dead men really could tell tales, I’d bet his would be the best.