Erik Moe: Critic at Large

For some reason, the first perfect days of Spring weather always seem to coincide with the opening of the Philadelphia Film Festival. Faced with a choice between biking past blooming cherry blossom trees and sitting in a darkened theater watching strange tales from far flung places, I’ll go for the dark theater almost every time. In past years, I’ve volunteered for the fest in order to see as many films as I could. This year, my gig with About.com means I’m seeing as many documentaries as I can.

This Film is Not Yet Rated, and 51 Birch Street are high on my list. I’m also excited about some of the music documentaries playing at the fest, including Danielson: A Family Story (pictured), The Devil and Daniel Johnston, and Beijing Bubbles (about China’s emerging protest punk scene). Of course, there is plenty of fiction on the bill as well. Anyone up for Alexander Sokurov’s take on the relationship between Emperor Hirohito and General MacArthur? Something lighter maybe? How about Wassup Rockers about “L.A. Chicano punk skateboarders?”

As we filmgoers gear up for the 13-day monsoon known as the Philadelphia Film Festival. City Paper’s Sam Adams reminds us of the drought we endure the rest of the year and has frustrating news about the future of International House following the departure of director of film programs Michael Chaiken.

International House is the leading venue for independent and repertory film in the city despite the fact that they only average maybe ten film events per month (outside of film festival screenings). The program staff there are great people dedicated to film, but Adams’ article makes it clear that I-House management has no interest in developing the program beyond its current modest niche. As the de-facto leader in the region, I-House CEO Oliver St. Clair Franklin’s comments about not replacing Chaiken are embarrassing:

“Why should you replace him when he’s in New York?” Franklin says. “Can you do better?” Chaiken, Franklin explained, will still be booking programs from his new perch, with staffers Robert Cargni and Jesse Pires increasing their contributions to the calendar…. Franklin says Chaiken will “be doing the same thing up there that he was doing down here — except up there, he’ll be in the center of the action.”

Can you do better than have an ex-staffer occasionally arrange for a few prints to be shipped to Philly while the rest of the staff does more work for the same amount of money? Um. Yes.

Chaiken is a great guy, and New York is a good place to be for a film devotee, but he is clearly not thinking of Philadelphia audiences first and foremost. He may have left on good terms, but he is working what sounds like a more-than-full-time job at a startup program in Harlem serving the Harlem community.

If I-House takes its role in the Philadelphia film community at all seriously, it needs a full-time director of film programs that can build on existing relationships with Chaiken and others. Such a position is essential if the program is to grow. There is no reason that Philly can’t support a year-round calendar featuring both the “esoteric” films Chaiken loved to program as well as the classic and contemporary films that draw dedicated audiences to non-profit cinemas in cities much smaller than Philadelphia. With decent leadership, I-House is well positioned to grow into the premier venue for repertory, documentary, and independent cinema that Philadelphia sorely lacks.

At least they are installing more comfortable seats this year.

While doing some background reading for an about.com piece, I stumbled across this tantalizing mention of the Philadelphia Housing Authority nearly earning an Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject in 1941:

A PLACE TO LIVE, produced by the Philadelphia Housing Authority. In the tradition of the great progressive films of the late 1930s and early 1940s such as “The River,” “Valley Town” and “The Land,” director Irving Lerner shows the deleterious effects of slum housing. This lyrical work features a rousing, Coplandesque score.

Of course, the housing projects the PHA built in order to rid the city of “deleterious effects” became notorious slums themselves with equally deleterious effects. The projects are mostly gone now, but Philly still has a serious housing problem… If only rousing, Coplandesque scores could solve all our problems…

I have many frustrations about the film scene here in what is still America’s fifth largest city. For the second year in a row the city’s big Fourth of July tourism push is presenting a series of outdoor screenings. That part is a fine and laudable goal. I love outdoor screenings. They are a great way of building community and reclaiming open spaces that are sometimes scary after dark.

My compliant is with the quality of the screenings. See if you can spot the problem in the picture (inset, taken from the Welcome America site). The screen is a truck with two video panels on its side. The image source is not even film. It’s a DVD that was probably rented at a local Blockbuster (hopefully they at least secured the rights for public exhibition). The two screens on the truck leave a wide black seam down the middle of the frame. Fun… You know, in France there were riots over bad projection at the cinemas…. And, if the DVD/truck combo weren’t bad enough, the company operating the truck apparently thinks it better to use all of the real estate on the “screen” instead of presenting the film at the proper aspect ratio. This means that all the characters look like Ernie from Seseme Street (squat midgets with wide heads).

Even if you aren’t a film junkie like me, you are probably thinking “that sounds really unwatchable.” You would be right. This is essentially the same thing as “exhibiting” a painting by presenting a crumpled up, sliced-in-half reproduction of the original. Admittedly, the works on display here aren’t the Mona Lisas of cinema (Rocky II, Phantom of the Opera, and National Treasure are on the bill), but is it really all that hard to do this one small thing right (especially on Welcome America’s bloated budget).

Isn’t Philly supposed to be all gung-ho about the economic benefits of building a film scene here? Wouldn’t it be smart to have the biggest, most expensive annual tourism event clued-in about a basic respect for public exhibition?

Maybe someday the non-existant department of film and new media at the PMA or the ICA will host decent outdoor film events. For now, The Secret Cinema is doing its best. Tonight at dusk is their last scheduled summer screening outside at 40th and Walnut. A Laurel and Hardy film is on the bill. It’s better than nothing, right?

STANDINGS:
W L PCT GB Streak
Phila. Phanatics: 2 2 .500 - Lost 1
Phila. Frustration: 2 2 .500 - Won 1


‘Me And You And Everyone We Know’ directed by Miranda July, 2005. Rating 9 out of 10.

Miranda July’s debut film Me And You And Everyone We Know is making its way to a theater near you. I’ve been a big fan of July’s work since seeing her at the Walker Art Center several years ago and hearing her on some fun releases from K Records back in the late-1990′s. I made a point of seeing the film when it screened at the Philadelphia Film Festival back in April and meant to write a few words about it back then but that never happened.

The remarkable thing about “Me and You” is that it does a good job of bringing the questioning and wondering sensibilities of performance art to a narrative film. When I first saw the film, I was contrasting it with the works of Todd Solondz, who deals with similarly isolated characters in a similarly quirky way. Unlike Solondz’ though, July leaves you with a hopeful feeling. “Me And You” does have some troublesome content (like the naive youngster who connects in a kinky online chatroom), but instead of tragedy July finds comedy in the strange and varied sides of loneliness that she depicts. Just as in her performance/video work, she finds a way of instilling a kind of momentary magic in the everyday.

Related: Miranda July’s “Me And You” Blog (do watch the videos in this post about Philly for a taste of July’s aesthetic.
See Also: Learning to Love You More

‘The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill’ directed by Judy Irving, 2003. Rating: 9 out of 10.

This documentary chronicles a San Francisco flock of cherry-headed conures and the ex-musician who came to be their closest friend and advocate. The ex-musician is Mark Bittner, and his transformation from unemployed San Francisco post-beatnik to dedicated steward of the parrots is a remarkable story. His struggle to find a sustainable niche for himself in urban America nicely parallels the story of the non-native conures (they are almost certainly all refugees of the illegal trafficking of South American birds to pet shops). Each of the dozen or so birds we get to know in the film has more personality than most of the characters in a typical hollywood film. Director Judy Irving has done a remarkable job of finding and shooting footage to accompany each of their stories. More than a nature documentary, ‘Wild Parrots’ touches on issues of urban displacement (human and animal), and the gulf between modern life and the physical, natural world we overlook.

Related: San Francisco Movies

During the hype of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Central Park Gates project, I was reading quite a bit about the Maysles Brothers’ series of documentaries about previous landscape transformations by the pair. Over the past couple of weeks, I finally had a chance to see them and I can’t recommend them highly enough. David and Albert Maysles developed a very close friendship with Christo and Jeanne-Claude over the course of their many collaborations. Their love for their subject comes through in the films – even when their subjects are bickering and yelling at each other, worn down by the logistics and lack of sleep demanded by massive installation projects.

The first film in the series documents the Valley Curtain installation in Colorado. Christo and Jean-Claude are very young and there are a number of amusing/endearing moments between them and the rugged cowboy construction workers of Colorado in the 1970′s. When a chain-smoking Jeanne-Claude laying in the grass lifts her head to yell “Does anybody know what is going on now?” we start to wonder what her role is in these collaborations (later films clarify her role well). This first film is not as well-rounded because the Maysles’ were not brought in until the final week of the project. The film does not even mention the failed first attempt at installing Valley Curtain some years prior.

Later films Running Fence, Islands, Christo in Paris, and Umbrellas have more well-rounded plotlines and offer more insights on the art duo. Christo in Paris has the most biographical content (the duo rifle through boxes of old photos and reminisce about the fascinating courtship between the Romanian refugee artist and the wealthy daughter of a French General). The projects in these films are more accessible than Valley Curtain as well. Both because they were installed in more populous areas and because they were all installed not by construction workers but by armies of local artworkers hired by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The long process of gaining approval formally (from government committees) and informally (from neighbors and landholders) is what most of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s time goes into during these projects, and the Maysles’ films provide this essential documentation alongside gorgeous views of these temporary works.

Related: Albert Maysles’ concise advice for documentary filmmakers | In-depth summary and trailer for The Gates (mayslesfilms.com) | The Gates at imdb | My take on The Gates.

Film Fest season is my favorite time of year. For two amazing weeks, we cinema-starved Philadelphians have access to way more international and indie film than we can possibly see. Because last year I only really saw things at the Philadelphia Film Festival that later had longer runs at mainstream theaters, this year my strategy is to only see things that might be unlikely to screen outside of the fest. This means that I’m gritting my teeth and passing up the latest by Todd Solondz, Francois Ozon, Steve Buscemi, and Isabelle Huppert in favor of some more obscure selections. Among the picks that I already have tickets for are:

• Me and You and Everyone We Know, the debut film by performance artist Miranda July.
• Survive Style 5+, a surreal Japanese comedic action film from the ever-popular Danger After Dark sub-festival
• This Charming Girl, a debut film from Korean director Lee Yoon-ki

I’ve also plugged some of the more interesting films that might work with my schedule into iCal and published the listings here. Send me a message if you see something you’d like to go see with me.

Update: The Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival is also going on now. There is usually quite a bit of overlap between the two fests. Minny readers – please let me know what you are seeing!

Recently watched Le Trou (1960) and Touchez Pas au Grisbi (1954), both by Jacques Becker. Each was memorable, but Le Trou is the more memorable one by far. Sure, the prison that it’s set in is rather quaint and silly with its freindly Frenchmen stockpiling cakes and sausages. Their comradarie and civility makes the Hogan’s Heroes prison camp look tough. The set-up can almost be cast aside just to justify the insanely long takes of hammers banging away at concrete, files hacking away on metal bars, and metal being thrust at stone. I didn’t time any of these shots, but some of them must have been eight minutes long of straight-up work. The clanging and banging went on so much longer than any narrative filmmaker would let it today — which is a shame. Watching concrete break apart through brute force and repeated blows is actually fairly compelling. After the first minute or so you get beyond the narrative questions (like “why don’t the guards hear this?”) and get into a sort of zenlike state as the solid stone of the cell floor crumbles. At that point you can start questioning the physical world entirely and those walls that make up your cell, man… It actually is rather reminicent of Rififi, Jules Dassin’s legendary 1955 heist flick in which there is an extremely long, almost silent segment that takes us through all the tense details of a jewel robbery.

Touchez Pas au Grisbi itself falls into my much loved heist flick subgenre. Though technically, this is more of a sequel to a heist flick, since the gangster (Jean Gabin) already has the loot from his ‘one last job that will let me and my beautiful girl (Jeanne Moreau, in this case) retire from this vicious life of crime.’ Here the weary mobster is torn between loyalty and social security as a rival gangster makes threats to Gabin’s long-time partner-in-crime.

This weekend, I finally had a chance to see Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, winner of all kinds of acclaim when it came out in 2002. That it takes three years for amazing films like this to screen in the country’s fifth largest city is one of my most frequent Philly frustrations. Film at International House and The Fabric Workshop are definitely two of the most forward-thinking arts programs in the city, and they deserve credit for their current collaboration, Experiments With Truth, which finally brought Atanarjuat to town.

The film is gorgeous from start to finish, alternating between blue and white arctic landscapes and orange-black, fire-lit interior and night scenes. The plot line is essentially a classical heroic epic with brothers, lovers, rivals, elders, love, violence, murder, rape, cheating, good and evil, etc. The richness of the tale illustrates just how far mainstream cinema has gotten from the basics of storytelling. You don’t need me to tell you that most of the films screening at your mutliplex are all visual candy with nothing human to hang on to. There are few contrivances in Atanarjurat, unless you consider violence, static cameras, removed locales and props to be contrivances. Much of the action is everyday and mundane (at least for the Inuit). Tearing apart and eating meat is a recurring image – which serves both as an illustration of the difficulty of survival and a nice mirror for the human-on-human brutality in the film. And finally, I’ll put the chase scene across ice floes up against that car chase on San Francisco hills in Steve McQueen’s Bullitt as one of the greatest of all time.

Related: Libby Rosof was there, too