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October 31, 2004

Documentaries and Argument

Inspired by George's discussion of his planned course for Spring 2005, I've begun thinking about what I'll be teaching next semester in my English 1102 freshman composition classes. Right now, I'm thinking about focusing the class on documentary film. It's the topic that I'm most passionate about right now, and the topic would certainly lend itself well to paper assignments in that many documentaries structure themselves as argumentative.

I've just begun thinking about this topic in earnest, and I haven't yet decided what the course would look like. I imagine that it would heavily favor contemporary documentaries (films made in the last ten years), but I would also feel the need to teach some foundational docs, too. A tentative list might include:

I'd also be interested in teaching a Maysles Brothers film, and I'd like to include a "rockumentary," probably Don't Look Back. My list is heavily tilted towards American political docs, so I'm trying to find ways to either reduce that emphasis or to simply run with it. And with Capturing the Friedmans, I'd love to supplement that discussion with clips from An American Family or something similar (maybe Seven Up?). Because I haven't quite decided what I want to do with the topic of documentary film, I'm still trying to put together an exact list (given the limitations of the class, I'm guessing I'll do 6-7 films, tops).

In addition, rather than doing a "group hypertext project," I've considered requiring that groups make a short 5-10 minute (?) documentary film using equipment checked out from Georgia Tech's library, which they could edit using iMovie, which is available in many of Tech's computer labs. That idea is pretty tentative right now. I'm not sure how much tech support I would need to provide, and it's possible that supervising 15 student film projects might be more than I want to take on right now. On the other hand it could be pretty damn cool, especially if 1-2 of the student groups put something cool together. Right now, I'm leaning towards a "more traditional" group hypertext project where students could research a documentary film or filmmaker, although I'm unsure how that would work right now.

The only drawback that I can imagine is that it would be a royal pain to arrange for students to see all of the films I'd like to teach. Some of them aren't widely available (according to IMDB, Titicut Follies isn't even on VHS or DVD, so that's probably out), and if I schedule an evening screening time, I imagine that a significant percentage of my students won't be able to attend.

Posted by chuck at 10:51 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

Manhola Dargis ♥'s Huckabees, and So Do I

I'll have more to say about it later, I think, but Manhola Dargis's New York Times review is a pretty good explanation for why I ♥ (♥ed?) I ♥ Huckabees (IMDB). Okay, I promise to stop using the heart symbol now, but I did enjoy the film quite a bit, and as Dargis notes, the film deals with post-9/11 "liberal-left despair" with the deft screwball humor that I needed to get me through Election Weekend (yeah, I know I shouldn't worry so much, but still).

The film's protagonist is Albert Markovski (Jason Scwartzman), a poet and environmental activist, who has founded the Open Skies Coalition to protect the environment against suburban sprawl. He is countered by Brad Stand (Jude Law in a wonderfully smary performance), an insincere rising executive for Huckabees, a chain store trying to appear eco-friendly, without really being eco-friendly. Brad is sort of in love with Dawn Campbell (Naomi Watts), Huckabees' perky, all-American spokesperson. Or at least he's in love with her image. Because of a series of coincidences, in which he keeps running into the same young African guy (it turns out he's come to the US to escape genocide in the Sudan), Albert goes to see Jaffe and Jaffe (Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin), a pair of existential detectives, to sort out what ails him. Throw into the mix Tommy Corn (Mark Wahlberg), a firefighter ("but not a hero," he reminds people) so petroleum-conscious after 9/11 that he bikes to fires rather than riding the truck. Their stories weave together in complicated ways that I'd rather not explain--I don't want to spoil the fun.

But, as I watched, I found myself thinking about David O. Russell's previous film, the vastly underappreciated Three Kings, still the best film about the first Gulf War. In fact, Wahlberg's character seemed to be a virtual extension of the character he played in the previous film. There have been a lot of jokes lately about "liberal outrage fatigue," and for me, the film seemed to offer some relief from all that, if only through its screwball humor. I'm having a difficult time knowing what to say about Huckabees, other than to say that I enjoyed its comedy and its optimism even in the face of Wal-Marts and SUVs, not to mention the other sorrows (genocide, terrorism) we've confronted since September 11. Though Dargis doesn't find the film quite as comforting as I do, the film's essential message, that we "keep pushing that rock back uphill," really worked for me.

In other news, the film has "fake" websites galore, including a blog by the Mark Wahlberg character, Tommy Corn, a website for the Open Skies Coalition, for the Existential Detective Agency, and finally for the eponymous Huckabees Corporation itself.

Posted by chuck at 1:44 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Sneak Previews, Fall 2004

While waiting for I ♥ Huckabees (review forthcoming) to start, I caught a preview for an upcoming movie, White Noise (it has nothing to do with DeLillo's book), a paranormal thriller in which the dead communicate with the living through household recording devices such as audiotape and videotape, a phenomenon described in this website (part of the film? yes? no? maybe?) for the "American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena". There's a clear connection here to my essay on The Ring and The Blair Witch Project, which deals with the concept of haunted technologies. What made the the preview interesting was its use of documentary conventions such as talking heads interviews (leading to comaprisons not only with Blair Witch but also with The Last Broadcast). I'm not sure yet what to do with that comparison because I haven't seen the film yet, but I'll be interested to see what White Noise does with these concepts.

Other films I'm curious to see: Kinsey, with Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters) directing Liam Neeson as the famed researcher on human sexuality and Sideways, with Alexander Payne directing Paul Giamatti. That's all for now.

Posted by chuck at 12:57 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

October 30, 2004

"A Little Gift"

The New York Daily News is reporting that Bush campaign workers don't just consider Osama bin Laden's recent video message a boost for the President's flagging re-election campaign. One campaign worker has taken to dsecribing the tape as "a little gift" from the terrorist. Here's the scoop:

[The tape] refocused the nation on terrorism, which polls show helps Bush. And it reminds voters of their horror on Sept. 11 and Bush's well-received response, as well as obliterating the recent flood of bad news for Bush.

"We want people to think 'terrorism' for the last four days," said a Bush-Cheney campaign official. "And anything that raises the issue in people's minds is good for us."

A senior GOP strategist added, "anything that makes people nervous about their personal safety helps Bush."

He called it "a little gift," saying it helps the President but doesn't guarantee his reelection.

Thanks to Daily Kos for the link. Like Kos, I'm not sure that the tape works in Bush's favor, especially given a recent Fox News poll showing a decline is support for the struggling Republican candidate, but I'm more disturbed by the cynical treatment of the tape as a political tool and the hope among Bush's supporters that people will vote solely out of fear, that they will have "terrorism" on their minds this week.

Posted by chuck at 5:06 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

October 29, 2004

Primer

[Revised slightly for clarity, new observations] Shane Carruth's Primer (IMDB, see also Primer Ventures--thanks Rachael!) is the most exciting, difficult, and puzzling time travel film I think I've ever seen. I feel like I'll need to see the film again tomorrow night, and that's about the highest compliment I can give any film. I can't be sure that I entirely understand all of the film's narrative turns, and to be honest, I'm struggling to find a way to wrap my head around the film's take on the nature of time, identity, and scientific inquiry. It's the kind of film that will provoke endless conversations and repeated viewings, with many critics comparing it to films such as Memento, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Mulholland Drive, a category to which Primer certainly belongs. Reading back over this review, it's very clear that I'm still grappling with this film, so please bear with this review--it's all over the place.

I'm not sure where to start, so I'll begin by noting that the story of the film's production is itself pretty amazing. Primer was made on a $7,000 budget and filmed in Super 16. Carruth, a sofware engineer-turned filmmaker wrote, directed, and starred in the film, and he also composed the film's score. Members of the cast also served on the crew. Carruth's parents provided craft services. The film itself is a testament to the DIY ethos associated with independent cinema. Stylistically, the film powerfully conveys a bland corporate culture, with washed out colors and sparse, modern buildings. I'll have to see the film again before I can talk fully about the cinematography and mise-en-scene, but many of the film's shots were beautifully composed, regardless of the film's budget.

The film opens with a group of researchers who are working nights in a garage on a device that is only vaguely described, but the four men, all wearing what one reviewer called "white collar drag" (whie dress shirts, striped ties) assemble this technology out of spare parts such as a catalytic converter and copper coil (note: one reviewer on this forum notes that the garage is a refernce to HP, the ties, of course recall IBM). The four guys are trying to find someone to invest in their idea so that they no longer have to work for a large company and so they can profit from their own labor. The house, a typical middle-class home in a Dallas suburb, recalls other films that deal with white-collar alienation. As I was watching I was reminded of Neil LaBute's In the Company of Men, in part due to the white collar culture, but also due to the relationship between Aaron and Abe (a point that I'll try to explain later). One of the men, Abe, discovers that time passes at a different pace inside the box, that they have assembled a time machine. Then he shows Aaron (played by Carruth) that he built a larger version of the time machine inside a U-Haul storage space [some spoilers may follow].

The two of them eventually face all of the ethical questions that time travel offers: given the incredible power associated with time travel, what would you do? Naturally, they go back and collect lottery winnings, but as one of them points out, that's only $200,000 a year for the rest of our lives, not the kind of payoff you'd want for inventing a time machine, so they discuss other ways in which they could exploit their invention ("we could publish it," one suggests), hoping to capitalize on the power it offers. The two men go back in time often, creating some confusion about what is happening, as causality and agency itself become confused, with at least three Aarons and two Abes existing simultaneously at one point, though "Aaron 2" speculates in the audiotape that there could be "at least twenty" Aarons out there trying to repeat the party scene that serves as the film's narrative crux.

Eventually, one of the film's chief concerns becomes clear. Aaron wishes at one point that he could beat up his boss without any consequences. His wife jokingly teases him saying, "my husband, the hero." And at this point it becomes clear that Aaron wishes to "reverse-engineer" the moment at the party in which he can be the hero, repeatedly returning back to this same moment again and again until he can "get it right." In my experience, this is one of the most effective treatments of this desire I've ever seen in a time travel film (and I've seen a lot of time travel films), in part because it's one of the few time-travel films to directly criticize this impulse (La Jetee might be the other example). These questions of power begin to complicate the relationship between Aaron and Abe, with the two of them becoming increasingly paranoid as their travels in time begin to take their toll, physically, emotionally, and mentally. It's this competition between the two men that reminded me so much of LaBute's film, with the power available through time travel leading to the demise of their relationship, a reading that Carruth himself emphasizes in this interview and in this Village Voice interview.

I'm still wrapping my head around this film, but I can say it's one film that really "gets" time travel. I'll be thinking about this film for a long time.

Posted by chuck at 11:27 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Please Vote

Via George and Liz, What if you show up to vote next Tuesday and election workers say you are not registered?

  1. Make sure you are at the correct voting precinct. You can check at My Polling Place or call 1-866-OUR-VOTE for assistance.
  2. If you are at the correct polling place and officials claim you are not registered, request a provisional ballot. It’s your right under the law.
I thought about voting early today, but some real life stuff intervened, but you can bet I'll be going to the polls on Tuesday. I'll be letting my students leave class early so they can vote (many of them have already voted!), and I'll be driving out to my polling center after my last class. I'm anticipating (and sort of hoping for) long lines Tuesday afternoon, but it's cool to see so much excitement about this year's election! Then Tuesday night, I'll be attending an election-watching party, keeping my fingers crossed for some good news. Looking forward to hearing other people's election stories.

Update: Thanks to Jen, here is a link to the Georgia Secretary of State's office with an easy-to-use poll locator so you know where to vote.

Posted by chuck at 5:40 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Kerry After Vietnam

Rude Pundit is right: Senator Kerry's record after the Vietnam War has been severely underestimated. At great risk to his political future, he spoke out against the Vietnam War. As a first-term senator, he actively pursued the Iran-Contra scandal, taking on one of the most popular presidents in recent memory. As the Rude One notes, Kerry, despite the political risk, stayed on the case

until he revealed that the Reagan administration allowed the Contras to smuggle cocaine into the U.S. in order to fund their CIA-led "war" against the legally-elected Sandanistas in Nicaragua. (And thus helping to cause the crack epidemic.) Kerry was called a conspiracy theorist, said to be interfering with other drug cases, and impugned throughout the media. But the part that rarely got told is that he was right.
Kerry also went after the BCCI, an international criminal bank, and its murderous clients, including one Saddam Hussein. So let's forget about the thread that Kerry hasn't done anything since Vietnam. His record of service after the war is at least as admirable as his record during the war. Thanks to Michael Bérubé for the tip!

Posted by chuck at 5:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 28, 2004

Political Polarization

Link for later (I just realized it's 1:40 AM): Frederick Wasser, a film professor at Brooklyn College CUNY, has an article in the most recent issue of Flow called "Political Polarization and the New Hollywood Blockbuster." I've corresponded with Wasser a few times via email, and he's a cool guy, so I'm looking forward to the read. Thanks to Green Cine for the tip.

Note: Flow, the project of Christopher Lucas and Avi Santo, looks pretty exciting. I'll be checking back often.

Posted by chuck at 1:38 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

October 27, 2004

Faulkner and Orwell

This is too cool not to blog. The cinetrix reports that in a 1956 interview with the Paris Review, William Faulkner, who wrote the screenplays for To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep, was asked if he would like to make another movie. His response?

Yes, I would like to make one of George Orwell's 1984. I have an idea for an ending which would prove the thesis I'm always hammering at: that man is indestructible because of his simple will to freedom.
Like the cinetrix, I wish I could've seen that ending. Back in my previous incarnation as a literary critic, I wrote a master's thesis on Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, and he's still one of my favorite twentieth century novelists, so I'm simply fascinated by this bit of news.

You can now return to the latest election year insanity, in which Tom DeLay engages in a bit of neo-McCarthyism.

Posted by chuck at 7:19 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Public Conversations About Voting

Okay, I think I need to embrace the fact that I'm not going to be thinking about anything besides the election for the next few days, so my radio is tuned to Air America, I'm following all the political blogs, and right now, it's hard not to think about voter suppression/voter registration issues.

These somewhat scattered thoughts were inspired by Kathleen's decision to post the content of a MoveOn.org letter about voting rights, Kari's comment to that post, and Alex's assignment to his students that they write about their voting experiences (which I've rather freely borrowed), and conversations about voter registration controversies (including people calling voters to tell them their polling location has changed--thanks to bitchphd for the link). For many reasons, I find the act of voting here in the United States to be a rather mysterious process (I can't think of the right term, but that just about gets it). I think that part of that is due to the act of voting itself. You go to a public place--a church, synagogue, community center, or school, usually--but when you get there, you go to a "private" space, a booth with a lever or, in Georgia's case, a computer screen, to cast your ballot. I know that one of the goals here is to protect voters from having someone "looking over their shoulder" while they vote. In the past, I've experienced the voting booth as communicating that voting is a "private" expression of individual preference for a given candidate or ballot initiative. Once you vote, you give the ballot to a poll worker and it disappears. And with Georgia's no-paper trail electronic voting, there are no visible, material traces of your vote. Your "ballot" looks exactly like it did when you took it into the booth, just an opaque piece of plastic with a small computer chip.

The result of all this mystery: people don't really talk that much about voting, a point that Alex makes in his entry on this topic, and I'd imagine that this lack of conversation leads to a lot of the misconceptions that many Americans have about our rights as voters, or about election rules in general. So, I'd like to formalize Kari's suggestion that voters use their blogs to document their experiences, hopefully making this mysterious process just a little more transparent.

So, this is a call for people to write about their experiences in the voting booth in their blogs or in the comments to this entry. If you write about your voting experiences, link to this entry (or not), but after the election crisis in 2000 in Florida, I think we need more transparency regarding the election process, not less.

Update: If you're not sure where to vote, check MyPollingPlace.com. rusty, who voted early, reports on his experience, which included some fairly long lines (a good omen for high voter turnout on election day, I'd imagine).

Update 2: It looks like lots of people here in Georgia are joing the ranks of advance voters. David has a great narrative abot taking his daughters to the polls.

In the comments, Jen mentions that her parents rarely discussed politics with her when she was a child, and I realized that I had a similar experience. My mom, especially, wouldn't tell me how she voted, and she's still uncomfortable talking about it. In some sense, I think that silence has probably contributed to my perception of the process as being a mysterious one. Oh, and while I'm linking, here's Steve's experience.

Update 3: Via David, Josh Marshall reprints this letter from Florida:

This was one of the most moving, meaningful days of my life.

My job is to get people to the polls and, more importantly, to keep them there. Because they’re crazily jammed. Crazily. No one expected this turnout. For me, it’s been a deeply humbling, deeply gratifying experience. At today’s early vote in the College Hill district of East Tampa -- a heavily democratic, 90% African American community — we had 879 voters wait an average of five hours to cast their vote. People were there until four hours after they closed (as long as they’re in line by 5, they can vote).

Here’s what was so moving:

We hardly lost anyone. People stood outside for an hour, in the blazing sun, then inside for another four hours as the line snaked around the library, slowly inching forward. It made Disneyland look like speed-walking. Some waited 6 hours. To cast one vote. And EVERYBODY felt that it was crucial, that their vote was important, and that they were important.

And there were tons of first time voters. Tons.

[...] The best of all was an 80 year old African American man who said to me: “When I first started I wasn’t even allowed to vote. Then, when I did, they was trying to intimidate me. But now I see all these folks here to make sure that my vote counts. This is the first time in my life that I feel like when I cast my vote it’s actually gonna be heard.”

To see people coming out — elderly, disabled, blind, poor; people who have to hitch rides, take buses, etc — and then staying in line for hours and hours and hours... Well, it’s humbling. And it’s awesome. And it’s kind of beautiful.

Great stuff.

Posted by chuck at 4:01 PM | Comments (25) | TrackBack

October 26, 2004

Late Night Insomnia Blogging, Day 2

Or night two. Really productive day all around, at least. I had the chance to workshop my Capturing the Friedmans article with a few colleagues this afternoon, and they had some great suggestions about how to revise it for presentation and eventually for publication. One of my biggest struggles in writing a film paper is knowing how much background I'll have to offer my audience members, and I'm guessing that with a relatively obscure film (approximately $2 million box office, as I recall), with such a large cast of characters, that some framing/backstory might be needed. Any suggestions on whether or not it would be appropriate to provide my audience members with a cast list or some other handout?

Was reading the most recent issue of Cineaste tonight while watching Monday Night Football when a Wendy's commercial came on, advertising their new kids' menu, complete with milk and mandarin oranges. And while there's obviously no mention of Super Size Me in the publicity material, I have to think that Spurlock's film might have something to do with Wendy's decision. It's also interesting that they're not talking about the mandarin orange option in terms of health/obesity, but in terms of consumer choice. We see one commercial in which the annoying "unofficial" Wendy's spokesperson talks to a kid about the fact that back in the day he didn't get any choices about what came with his kid's meal.

In other news, I'm glad to see that so many of my fellow bloggers are continuing to hold on during this last week before the election. Rusty offers his endoresments for the races in which he'll be voting. Rusty adds that Georgia voters will be voting on two possible Amendments to the State Constitution. One of them would write discrimination into the constitution, by prohibiting gay marriage. Such an amendment could make it difficult for gay couples to share some privileges that hetero couples take for granted, including hospital visitation rights. If it wasn't already clear, I am strongly opposed to this amendemnt.

While I don't know as much about the second proposed amendment, Jen has the scoop on her blog. David has done a great job of providing further evidence of the Bush administration's incompetence and arrogance. Meanwhile, Bitch Ph.D. passes along information that "people are getting calls telling them their polling site has changed, calls that are not true and are clearly designed to prevent people from voting" and provides a link to the very useful MyPollingSite.com.

Thankfully, tomorrow is a worskhop day for my students....

Posted by chuck at 1:55 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

October 25, 2004

Late Night Insomnia Blogging

For some reason, my sleep schedule is out of synch again, so I'm checking email and pretending to be productive while You've Got Mail, a slightly better choice than any number of infomercials, plays in the background on TBS, but it's making me think that I really do need to consider getting cable.

So what's so interesting at 2 AM? I'd imagine I'm losing a little sleep over the election. David and Bitch PhD (and countless others) have been blogging up a storm on this year's election, and I haven't really said much. In part, this is due to the fact that I'm teaching the election course and know that some (if not all) of my students have found this blog (one of my students Googled "Zell Miller" in class and found this), and while I'd imagine they're smart enough to guess my politics, I don't want them to think I'm trying to force a political stance on them. The result is that I haven't been talking about the election nearly as much as I would like. I am pretty worried about what will happen if Bush wins the election, even if I'm somewhat optomistic that won't happen.

Also, just a quick note: I got an email from another recruit for the "Georgia Super-Highway Patrol." A la Gauche is blog by a fellow Georgian who has pretty good taste in political parties.

Posted by chuck at 1:44 AM | Comments (15) | TrackBack

October 23, 2004

Primed for Fun

Shane Carruth, director of the indie ($7000 budget) time travel flick, Primer (IMDB), sent an amusing letter to the Landmark Theaters mailing list. Matt Dentler has the details.

Primer is coming to Atlanta next weekend. Based on Rachael's review and my own enthusiasm for time travel films, I'm pretty excited.

Posted by chuck at 4:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Ted Leo at the Earl

Just finished a draft of my Capturing the Friedmans paper, so to celebrate, I'm going to see Ted Leo (Lookout Records) in concert this evening at the Earl.

From there, I'll be able to focus primarily on job applications for the next two weeks before I go on my personal US tour. Here's my current itinerary:

With all of those plane trips, I'm sure I'll have the opportunity to make lots of single-serving friends.

Posted by chuck at 2:21 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

Bright Leaves

Ross McElwee's Bright Leaves (IMDB) focuses on his ambivalent relationship to North Carolina's tobacco industry and his family's relationship to that history, but it also frequently reminded me of my own family's connections to the western North Carolina communities where McElwee filmed. The old warehouse where his great-grandfather stored tobacco now converted into a cosmetology academy. The red brick church rising up out of the tobacco fields. These are the images I remember seeing when I attended family reunions in Maiden, a small town just north of Charlotte. It's probably no surprise that I'm reflecting on my personal and family histories after seeing a McElwee film. After all, he's one of the masters of personal documentary. But McElwee's ambivalent relationship to the south and his fascination with cinema as a kind of memory machine resonated with my own experiences.

The film opens with McElwee meeting a second cousin who is a samll town lawyer and a serious cinephile. The cousin shows us his collection of film stills that fill a wall full of file cabinets, his collection of trailers, and finally a letter he had received from a small-time movie star. Finally, we learn the main reason for the visit. McElwee's cousin has determined that a 1950 Gary Cooper-Patricia Neal-Lauren Bacall film, Bright Leaf, may have been loosely based on their great-grandfather, a tobacco entrepeneur who was run out of business through some shady dealings by the Duke family. This encounter becomes a cinematic palimpsest for thinking about family and cultural history, as well as on documentary cinema itself, on what it means to film something.

The discovery of this connection to a forgotten Hollywood classic inspires McElwee to research his great-grandfather's story. He briefly imagines his great-grandfather defeating the Duke family, entertaining the idea of inheriting a great tobacco fortune, but also inheriting the guilt of knowing that he would have made a profit on other people's health. For the most part, the film avoids appearing didactic about tobacco smoking, or even about the people who make a living growing and selling tobacco. When he asks a small-time tobacco farmer how his church's pastor feels about the tobacco industry, it's clear that the farmer shares that sense of guilt. When he talks to friends who are trying to quit smoking, we see the visceral appeal of cigarette smoking. It would have been very easy to make a film that focused only on these questions, and I'm glad that McElwee didn't make that film.

The moments that I loved, the scenes that captured my interest, were the "home movie" scenes, the moments in which McElwee reflects on the nature of documentary film. At one point, he reflects on a scene in Bright Leaf in which Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal kiss. He reminds us that Cooper and Neal had an affair that lasted several years, and while watching the scene, he notices Neal make a tentative, tender gesture with her left arm, briefly touching Cooper's shoulder while they kiss, before quickly pulling her had away. McElwee speculates that this is a "documentary moment," a scene in a fictional film in which real life briefly intervenes. In typical McElweean serendipity, Patricia Neal happens to be appearing at a nearby film conference. When he gets a chance to ask her about the scene, she denies his interpretation, but it's an interesting theory.

These questions constantly inform the film, as McElwee reflects on the role of film and photography in "remembering" the past. He shows us footage of his son as a young boy struggling to tie his shoes. He notes that he doesn't remember why he filmed this moment, doesn't remember what happened immediately before or after. Of course, these questions about memory and "home movies" are close to me right now while I finish my Capturing the Friedmans paper (almost done!), and now I have another film where I can revisit the questions I've been considering. And while I'm thinking about memory, photography, nd family, I've just realized that this building may be the place where my mother's family held their annual reunions for many years. I'm not entirely sure I'm right, but it looks about right. If I'm not mistaken, there's a playground with a basketball court just down the street where I would sneak away to play while my parents and grandparents would talk (I also remember watching Villanova beat UNC on a cheap black-and-white TV, cheering the underdog Villanova while all of my cousins rooted for their beloved Tar Heels).

In short, I really enjoyed Bright Leaves. I haven't said everything I could have about this film because I don't want to spoil all of surprises the film offers, but I imagine that I will write more about this film at some point. McElwee talks about filming things becoming a narcotic as powerful as tobacco itself, and I'm beginning to think that the addiction to going to the darkened theater and watching the flickering images on the silver screen is a pretty powerful narcotic itself.

Posted by chuck at 12:36 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

October 20, 2004

To Be Silent is To LIe

So, I've been out of the loop for a while. The latest example: I didn't realize that William Gibson is blogging again. His commentaries on US politics, while not terribly cheering, are fun to read. The good news: there might be a movie version of Gibson's novel, Pattern Recognition. The cooler news, Peter Weir, of Truman Show fame, may direct.

I've been doing some heavy-duty writing lately, hence the blog silence. For whatever reason, I've found this paper fairly difficult to write (I know I've probably said that before), but it seems to be taking shape now.

Update: I just checked, and it appears that Gibson has only been blogging for a few weeks. Here's why he returned.

Posted by chuck at 3:17 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 17, 2004

Movie Question

Just out of curiosity, does anyone else find it difficult to find time to watch movies when they're in the midst of writing a (film) paper? I'm moving tentatively towards drafting my conference paper, and I had planned to catch a movie this weekend-- several interesting films, including Shaun of the Dead and I {Heart} Huckabees are playing--but I'm finding it difficult to walk away from the computer to go see a film.

In addition, I'm less likely to even rent a movie while working on a paper. It's not likely that I'll "forget" what's in the film I'm discussing (I took copious notes!), but for some reason, I'm less inclined to watch other films when in intense writing mode. Do other people have this experience? I don't remember having this exact experience when writing my dissertation, so maybe it's simply due to the fact that I'm in writing sprint mode rather than writing marathon mode.

The paper is going pretty well, I think. I've been re-reading James M. Moran's excellent book, There's No Place Like Home Video, which has helped me to think through my discussion of the use of video footage in Capturing the Friedmans. Not much I can discuss in detail just yet, but the distinction between home movie and home video footage in the film, and the nostalgia plotted onto the Super 8 film seems important to my reading of the film.

I had orginally planned to discuss my feelings of midterm malaise, especially after reading so many other bloggers talking about it, but with Fall Break providing me with a little time to get some work done, I feel a little better about the world right now, even though Purdue got beat, ending the run among the undefeated.

Posted by chuck at 1:02 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

October 16, 2004

You be the Judge

The upcoming Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode, in which viewers of the show decide whether or not a character lives or dies, sounds absolutely fascinating. I saw a commercial for this episode a few days ago, but until I read David Carr and Michael Joseph Gross's New York Times article , I'd forgotten to blog about it.

The character, Nicole Wallace (Olivia D'Abo), is apparently a villain of sorts on the show, and the plot device grew out of a conflict between Rene Balcer, executive producer of the show, and Bruce Evans, a VP at NBC, about whether or not to write the character out of the show. The result: they've made two episodes, one in which Nicole dies, another in which she lives, which will appear in different parts of the country. Fans can then choose, American Idol style, which ending they prefer. Many fans have written on bulletin boards that they'd like to see her character killed, but the producers of the show suggest that their story may make that decision more difficult:

Once they see the episode, that may change their opinion. [...] t's easy to believe in the death penalty in the abstract. If you're the one pulling the switch, it's a little different. Here, the audience gets to pull the switch.
One of my colleagues at Georgia Tech, Janet Murray, comments that placing the audience in the position of the executioner violates the premise of the show, "In some way, that violates the premise of the series: How do we live together as a society, while containing antisocial impulses? Allowing the viewers to vote completely undermines the 'order' part of 'Law & Order.'" Others have seen the show as the logical extension of reality TV, arguing that reality TV has become so extreme that it will "eventually lead to a live execution on television."

I'm not sure the reality TV comparison holds entirely. Yes, many reality TV shows allow for greater audience participation, but some of the more popular shows (Survivor and The Apprentice) don't involve audience participation. I'm also curious about the assumption that audiences will necessarily decide to execute the Nicole character. No matter the decision, I think it's an interesting creative choice to give audiences more control over a narrative, especially in a world where things seem increasingly out-of-control, and it will be interesting to see how it plays out within the medium of television, which thrives on immediacy and presentness.

Posted by chuck at 11:38 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

October 15, 2004

More Jarecki Links

More research. Just came across this interesting interview from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (you may need a subscription) with director Andrew Jarecki. In the interview, Jarecki addresses the concern that his film might be voyeuristic or that it might "objectify" the Friedman family (he notes in the interview that he continues to talk to Elaine and Jesse Friedman). Also check out this British Film Institute interview. Some good questions from a bulletin board discussion on HBO's website, including a discussion of the "reveal" that Arnold Friedman's brother, Howard, is gay.

Other links:

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Update: Found a cool Eugene Hernandez article on documentary film while looking around on indieWIRE.

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More Capturing Links

I'm doing some last-minute thinking for my Capturing the Friedmans paper, which I'll be writing this week. As I've discussed in previous entries (I believe Alex brought this up in a comment), Capturing the Friedmans (CTF) warrants comparison to Errol Morris's Thin Blue Line (TBL), especially in the inability of both documentaries to get back to an "inaccessible past." Of course, in TBL, Randall Adams is eventually exonerated of the crime, while Arnold's guilt is left ambiguous at the end of the film.

In this context, some critics have charged the film's director, Andrew Jarecki, of cynically exploiting the "postmodern ambiguity conveyed by Capturing the Friedmans." The author of this article, Chris Mooney goes on to imply that Jarecki may have "adopted this line as a cynical marketing ploy." While I think that Mooney's accusation doesn't really hold up (I don't think you can require a documentary film to proceed in the same way as a legal defense), he does bring together a few of the important reviews of the film. On the other hand, David Edelstein finds the "case against the prosecution more devastating for being undersold."

Note: while following some links, I came across Jesse Friedman's personal website and a website about Jesse's case with a message from his brother, David. Also check out this Gary Dretzka interview with Andrew Jarecki.

Second note: I lost some of this entry when my browser shut down, but I've been struck by all of the comparisons to Rashomon (I got 298 matches on a Google search for "Jarecki and Rashomon"), and I've been somewhat surprised by how many of those reviewers see that comparison as negative, criticizing Jarecki for the film's ambiguity.

I may continue to be beneath the blog radar for the next few days. Job market, conference paper, and teaching obligations are keeping me very busy.

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October 11, 2004

The Butterfly Effect

I had a brief moment of job market panic last night, so I decided to take a brief break and watch the Ashton Kutcher vehicle, The Butterfly Effect. (IMDB). Note: possible spoilers ahead, but I figure that if you're interested in this film at all, you've probably seen it by now. I'm not quite ready to work through the film's time-travel logic, which it associates with chaos theory, but I will note that the film may be loosely relevant to my project, especially in its use of the main character's diaries, and eventually home movies, as the mode of conveyance through time.

I'm also intrigued by the film's fear of unpredictablility, especially when it comes to the safety of children. Butterfly constantly puts small children, including the Ashton Kutcher character, Evan Treborn, in physically or psychologically dangerous situations that have a profound effect on Evan's adult life (as well as the lives of three of his friends). It's a strange, somewhat troubling film, one that seems desperate to protect innocence in the face of a dangerous, hostile world. Also interesting that Evan is essentially raised by a single mother (his father has been institutionalized due to his similar claims about time travel). Although Evan's mom is portrayed as caring and protective, she is rarely around when Evan places himself in dangerous situations. Finally, the film, like many other time travel films, has a fairly explicit religious subtext, which becomes more explicit when you listen to the directors' commentary, in which they note that the time traveler's name was originally supposed to be Chris Treborn.

The question of unpredictability raised in this film (and it comes up in other films as well) was sparked when I was reading a colleague's work this afternoon, and she mentioned Anthony Giddens' Reith Lectures, where Giddens discusses the relationship between globalization and uncertainty or unpredictability, using the phrase "runaway world." PDFs of several of the lectures are available at the Lectures on Key Topics website linked above, but his discussion of globalization seems particularly relevant.

Posted by chuck at 3:59 PM | Comments (17) | TrackBack

October 10, 2004

211 Miles of Bad Road

Technically, 422 miles of bad road, round-trip. So here's the story of my weekend. My somewhat brief time in Statesboro was actually pretty nice. I gave a talk on some of my experiences using weblogs in freshman composition classes at a conference this weekend, where I had the good fortune of appearing on a panel with Dennis G. Jerz, who spoke about both blogging and wikis. Like Dennis, I learned quite a bit from being one of a small number of English faculty members attending the conference (compared to library sciences and other discplines).

But to be honest, the most memorable part of the weekend was the drive. I'm someone who really doesn't like to drive. If I had a better car (I currently drive a 1989 Mazda with 192,000 miles on it), I might enjoy driving more, and it wasn't really a bad drive. Georgians love their concrete, and I encountered fast, smooth roads all the way from Atlanta to Statesboro. I made it to Statesboro in time to watch the debate last night (you may have heard about it), and while Bush seemed less uncomfortable than he did last week, I still found him to be incredibly defensive, especially on foreign policy. His inability to acknowledge that he makes mistakes is also a major problem in my opinion. I do think that Kerry should have been a little more aggressive, but holding serve in the town hall debate doesn't really hurt.

Finally, I've just learned about another film blogger out there and wanted to give him the spotlight, or at least a quick link. Filmmaker Guy (I'm eventually going to become lazy and start referring to him as FG, might as well start now) teaches film production and has made several films (and that's all I'l say for now).

Too tired to go to see a movie at theater, so I'm watching the Bob Dylan documentary, Don't Look Back. Fun stuff.

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October 8, 2004

New HBO Documentary

I'm leaving town in a few minutes, so no time to blog in detail, but Alexandra Pelosi, who also directed Journeys with George, has a new documentary out called Diary of a Political Tourist. Catherine Seipp has a review.

Posted by chuck at 12:49 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Statesboro Blues

Leaving tomorrow afternoon for the Georgia Conference on Information Literacy, at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, but, as usual, I'll be spending most of the day before the conference (Friday) finishing the paper I'll be delivering on Saturday.

Posted by chuck at 12:56 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

October 6, 2004

Watery Eye

Via Cinema Minima, a new lens that can "mimic the way the human eye focuses." The lens uses water/fluid pressure to regulate the focal length of a lens, more closely simulating the ways in which the human eye focuses. Ratchet Up has the full story.

Posted by chuck at 11:08 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Self-Indulgent Link Storage

Working on revising the abstract for my book project and so I was digging around in my archives (procrastination? organizing my thoughts? you decide!), and I rediscovered this Crooked Timber entry by Brian Weatherson on time travel. While sifting through the comments (now, I'll admit that's procrastination), I found a link to M. Joseph Young's "A Primer on Time." I haven't looked very closely at Young's site yet, but his analyses on several prominent time travel movies should be helpful, if only to remind me about some films I need to revisit.

I keep forgetting to rewatch the underrated Marisa Tomei-Vincent D'Onofrio film, Happy Accidents,, for example, but then again, I really didn't need to be reminded about the Meg Ryan vehicle, Kate and Leopold (actually K&L is a little more interesting than it looks). I'm also trying to think about ways of incorporating a chapter or so on television. I'd especially like to write about the original versions of The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits.

What I enjoyed the most about Brian's entry and the comments that followed was the discussion of causality, a topic that I have tended to discuss less often in my work on time travel films. I'm usually less concerned about the specifics about the logic of time travel, and in fact, I'm more interested in those films that are "incoherent" or "inconsistent" to use a couple of terms that came up often in the CT discussion. I realize that I'm being pretty cryptic here, mostly because I'm trying to re-process some ideas that are in need of revision.

Update: Just a quick reminder that one of my conference narratives has a link to and discussion of the DeMille film, Male and Female, which I want to discuss in my early cinema chapter.

Update 2: Another DeMille film that deals with time issues, the reincarnation film, The Road to Yesterday, which is not available on VHS or DVD from Amazon. For some reason, on second glance, Man and Woman doesn't look like the right film.

Posted by chuck at 11:01 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

October 5, 2004

One Vote

Just learned from a friend about the cool website and video, One Vote: A Short Film about Women and Voting. The website itself speaks to many of the concerns my students have addressed in our election-themed course about whether or not their votes "matter," especially given that so few states have been designated as "swing states." I'm still considering how I'll approach teaching the video in my class, but I'm planning a discussion of GOTV and fundraising letters later in the semester, and watching this video might complement that discussion nicely.

Posted by chuck at 11:34 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Links for An American Family

Just a quick link to the PBS page on Lance Loud, who passed away in December 2001. Lance Loud was the "star" of one of the first reality TV shows, An American Family, (IMDB) and one of the first openly homosexual people to appear on TV.

Posted by chuck at 12:32 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

October 4, 2004

Defining Documentary

I've been working on my Capturing the Friedmans paper, and today I've been reading Jeffrey Ruoff's excellent book, "An American Family:" A Televised Life. I've been making lots of useful connections, most of which I'm not quite ready to discuss just yet, but Ruoff discusses one debate that seems to haunt my personal project, not to mention discusion of the reception of documentary film in general. In this context, Ruoff writes:

Visual anthropologist Jay Ruby claims that documentaries mask their ideological agendas, fooling viewers into thinking they are watching objective representations of the world. Using this, albeit untested, theory of spectatorship, Ruby has argued [...] for a self-reflexive documentary that would acknowledge its constructed nature. [...] More recently, film theorist, Bill Nichols, while surely sympathetic to Ruby's formulation, has offered another text-based definition of nonfiction film. In Representing Reality, Nichols maintains that documentaries may best be categorized as works that present an "argument about the historical world" (95-6).
Ruoff, of course, goes on to complicate this comparison between Nichols and Ruby, but I think these two definitions of documentary speak to contemporary debates about this genre, including the battles over whether Michael Moore's F9/11 should be classified as a documentary (a debate that came up at a party I attended this weekend), and I think these definitions could have clarified our discussion somewhat. Moore's films are transparently reflexive, of course, with Moore himself playing a prominent role as a narrator, his looming presence in his films calling explicit attention to his directorial control. His documentaries are unambiguously argumentative (which is what makes Moore such a polarizing figure), though I'd argue that his best arguments are sometimes obscured by his tendency to overreach. But while viewers clearly see Moore as making an argument because of his reflexivity, they perceive that practice as defying the requirements of documentary film, which they expect to be "objective," showing "both sides" of the story (in some sense this expectation is derived from a false equation between journalism and documentary film, two entirley different activities).

Ruoff adds that Nichols' formulation may not hold for "observational cinema," such as An American Family, especially in terms of reception. In my experience, most viewers demonstrate some awareness of the constructedness of all documentaries, even those that use a "fly-on-the-wall" approach. In this sense, I'm less inclined to uphold the idea of a "naive viewer," especially one who is "fooled" into believing they are watching "objective representations" (here the ehcoes of "false consciousness" are far too strong for me to accept).

I haven't quite resolved this tension, but it seems to inform most conversations about how documentaries are received, an issue that seems particularly relevant in my paper on CTF, which has produced such a wide variety of responses (as the comments in my original entry on the film suggest). The "reality effect" is amplified in CTF by the use of home movies and home video belonging to the Friedman family, but Andrew Jarecki's directorial control over the film seems pretty explicit, in part because we hear him ask questions, but also because of formal flourishes, such as the time-lapse shots of the clock in Great Neck. Perhaps more importantly, Jarecki includes footage from several of the film's screenings, showing us the arguments provoked by the film, and in some sense, potentially steering our interpretation of the film, not necessarily in terms of Arnold and Jessie's guilt, but in terms of the questions that we ask after watching the film.

Posted by chuck at 10:52 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

October 3, 2004

Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry

George Butler's sympathetic biographical documentary, Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry (IMDB), initially appears to be the perfect antidote to the cynical smear politics practiced by the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth (SBVT). If you accept Butler's representation of Kerry's Veitnam service, then the SBVT charges are clearly false, or at least beside the point. We learn, among other things, that swiftboat duty was incredibly dangerous, with a 75 percent casualty rate. The swiftboats faced firefights on a daily basis, making it nearly impossible to claim that John Kerry's service was anything but courageous.

We also learn that Richard Nixon, clearly threatened by the charismatic young veteran, sought to sabatoge Kerry's young career, first by trying to find some "dirt" on him. Nixon aide Charles Colson, recognizing Kerry's appeal, comments on one of the infamous White House audio tapes that "We have to destroy the young demagogue before he becomes another Nader" (best laugh line of the night). When they cannot find any dirt, Nixon recruits John O'Neill, now the leader of the SBVT, to question Kerry's reputation. To punctuate this point, Butler includes a segment from an episode of the Dick Cavett Show, in which Kerry and O'Neill debate. But Going Upriver is not interesting only as a campaign document. Most viewers of the film will already have made up their minds about Kerry before ever seing the film.

What I found most compelling about the film was the use of archival footage, including Super-8 film taken by Kerry and his crewmates on their swiftboat. These shots give Kerry's Vietnam experience a surprising immediacy, not only conveying what Max Cleland calls Vietnam's "beauty and terror," but also showing John Kerry to be a charismatic youth, capable of taking a principled stand at an early age. The Super-8 film footage, and other archival footage when Kerry returns to the United States, fascinated me throughout, and Butler carefully selects this footage to convey Kerry's heroics, both in Vietnam and later as a protestor. We see Kerry as engaged, thoughtful, and reflective, holding back the anger that seems to overwhelm many of his comrades, with Kerry's clean-cut demeanor contrasting their shaggy-haired appearance.

The film is also carefully structured to convey John Kerry's transformation from a Kennedy-inspired idealist who willingly fights for his country to a disillusioned veteran who returns to the United States to protest a war he sees as unjust, but while Kerry's political shift is contextualized in his participation in the Winter Soldier conference on wartime atrocities, as J. Hoberman observes, Going Upriver fails to emphasize that Kerry represented the view of thousands of soldiers returning from the war, turning a major cultural shift into a personal journey.

Throughout the film, we see very few contemporary images of Kerry, other than a brief montage of photographs at the film's end, including a shot of Kerry at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC. In a sense, the film conveys the extent to which we still have yet to resolve the ghosts of the Vietnam War, and how those ghosts haunt our present war in Iraq. Following in the footsteps of Errol Morris's Fog of War, Going Upriver carefully chronicles Kerry's personal transformation during the Vietnam era, adding "a small, valuable contribution" to the continued efforts to make sense of the Vietnam War's effects on American life.

Posted by chuck at 5:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Lazy Saturday Entry

It wasn't quite a "lovely, cinematic experience," but today was a pretty cool day. I spent most of the morning tracking down books at the Emory library, which always makes me feel like I've accomplished something (I even learned that non-Emory patrons can only check out a total of 25 books at a time). Then I watched as Purdue beat freakin' steamrolled Notre Dame in South Bend for the first time in 30 years--great stuff. I've become a big fan of Kyle Orton, a great quarterback and, by all reports, a good student, too. The bad news is that because Purdue is undefeated, I'll be spending a little too much time paying attention to college football on Saturday afternoon (when I should be working).

But now I've just returned from a nice party/cook-out where I had a good time, especially when I was defending that F9/11 is a documentary film. As I left the party, I realized that I'm almost incapable of leaving a party until the very end--I am, however intentionally, always the last person to leave a party. Probably not a good sign. So, no breathtaking tracking shots or colorful mise-en-scene, but a good day all around.

I also wanted to mention a couple of movies I've seen recently, both of which I'd recommend, but have no desire to review. The first is Crimson Gold, an Iranian film about a jewely heist that goes awry. The film does some interesting stuff with social class, but for wahetevr reason, I don't have much to say (for a change). The second is Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. You'd think I'd have more to say about an anime film about cyborgs and postmodern identity, especially one in which a major character is named "Haraway," but I really don't. I quite liked the animation, and the film does some great things with technologies of vision (there are some great visual references to Blade Runner and film noir in general), but it's been two weeks since I watched the film, so for whatever reason, it didn't resonate. I did watch Going Upriver, the John Kerry documentary, Friday night, and I'll write a review of that later tonight or on Sunday afternoon.

Posted by chuck at 1:24 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

October 1, 2004

Froomkin on the Debate

Here's the Dan Froomkin Washington Post article Dave recommended in the comments to a previous entry. It's pretty much a one-stop shop for all your spin needs (no need to go to the Pottery Barn and risk breaking something).

Like Dave, I'm intrigued by Froomkin's defensiveness about traditional journalism against the blogger hordes. Froomkin comments at one point,

So if you thought for a minute that trained, professional journalists had lost their value in the Internet age, today's coverage proves that when it comes to helping the public assess the veracity of politicians, there is simply no substitute.
I don't see why this has to be an either-or situation. It seems pretty clear that both groups can complement each other. Froomkin does point to some useful materials that clairfy some of factual information at stake in the debates:

Posted by chuck at 6:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Watching the Debates

Watching the debate (transcript) with my students turned out to be a great experience, and afterwards, many of them had interesting things to say about their experiences. I don't think I've ever watched a presidential debate with such a large audience, and never with a group of people with such a broad range of political commitments. Like most of the post-debate polls, an informal survey of our students seemed to indicate that Kerry "won" the debate.

I was surprised, or at least intrigued, to see that many of the students felt that "the media" would somehow misrepresent or distort the results of the debate (although we never quite established how the media would misrepresent it). The theme that seems to keep coming up my class is a lack of faith in the media, and while that mistrust of the media is likely justified, I'm hoping to explore that question in further detail over the rest of the semester (among many other questions).

What were your observations about the first debate?

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