Film Endings

The last program I saw was literally called Beginnings and Endings. How appropriate. This is what the festival called a Masters Class. That is a special class by an industry professional on a specific topics. This is the description of the one I attended. David Thomson proposes: forget that movies may be art or show business. They are an experiment with our sense of reality. Thus, it is in entering into a picture and emerging from it that the culture shock is most apparent and instructive. So he will talk about how movies begin and how they end by drawing upon Citizen Kane and Psycho. A master class in our culture of the dark—lovely and menacing. David Thomson was introduced as a foremost movie critic. An internet search says: David Thomson is a British film critic and historian based in the United States and the author of more than 20 books.

Thomson was fantastic, I was spellbound by what he said about the beginnings and endings of films with film clips of both Citizen Kane and Psycho. He spoke a little fast and there was so much content that I couldn't absorb and remember it all. I should have recorded the whole thing. I only recorded the end of his last lecture on the ending of Psycho. Appropriate for my last 'film' of the festival.

I'll come back to this post later hopefully. I have to dig deep to remember most of it. You had to be there.

Two beginning shots of Citizen Kane.

Two of the last frames of Citizen Kane.

Two begininning frames of Psycho.

The last frames of Psycho

Experimental Film experiences

This year I went to films about film and the film industry. I wish I had picked some with narrative - but the film festival is about seeing what you won't ever see in theatres. If i'm right and they are picked up by theatres then I can see those anytime and eventually on Netflix. These are usually movies with stars in them - like the first movie they let me see for free, "The Man Who Saw Infinity" with Dev Patel and Jeremy Irons. That was being released nationally by the end of that week.

Today was a day of experimental choices that will probably never be seen again. In the first film I saw, the director wasn't sure if the film was finished and asked the audience their opinion. The film was called Escapes. I couldn't really tell what the movie was about by the description but I enjoy film biography documentaries which use a lot of archive film. Program description: Two cowboy villains in some black-and-white Western from the 1950s or early 1960s stand at a bar, debating whether or not to skedaddle out of town. The one on the right is a handsome, tall drink of water and the scene is an introduction to Hampton Fancher in Michael Almereyda's lively portrait of the actor/director/producer/screenwriter, executive produced by Wes Anderson. Though best known as the mind behind the legendary cult film Blade Runner, Fancher has whirled through a life full of plenty more tricky situations, close calls and other brushes with fate. From running away to Spain on a freighter while a young teen in hopes of becoming a flamenco dancer to forging a career as a guest star on classic series like Bonanza and Perry Mason to romancing an array of women, Fancher's destiny has been to live large. While Fancher spins his fascinating stories, Almereyda (Experimenter, SFIFF 2015) fills the screen with footage from his appearances and a host of other archival material to illustrate a biography so colorful it could easily be the invention of a Hollywood screenwriter. —Pam Grady

Of course the first thing that sticks out is Wes Anderson one of my favorite writers/directors. He recently did the Grand Budapest Hotel. The second thing I noted was the film Blade Runner, which I have heard is a cult classic film and I wanted to know more about it. What the movie was about was a biography of B-movie or character actor Hampton Fancher who seems to have by luck written Blade Runner against his will and it became a hit. It also seems by luck that he knew someone who wanted to do a biographical film on him. It also is lucky that the director met Wes Anderson and he decided to fund this film. I googled Wes Anderson and director Michael Almereyda and it seems they were both at the Rome Film Festival last year in September so I wonder if that is where they met. There is no Wes Anderson Charm in this movie. Not at all and it had the very last small part about how Blade Runner became a film.

Hampton Fancher is the brunette in the picture above to the right. He was a character actor guest acting in about 50 random tv shows and maybe a few films. The one they featured the most was a role on Bonanza. This documentary was filmed in a unique method where Hampton would speak about his life especially his significant relationships. Instead of viewing him, the topic of the conversation would be played out in pieces of the actor's film and his girlfriends' point of view from their films. He would say something like, I was angry and there would be a clip of him in a TV show with an angry expression. Or if he was having a fight with a girlfriend, there would be a clip of that girlfriend in a dramatic scene. Teri Garr (who later won an Academy Award for supporting actress in Tootsie) and Barbara Hershey were both girlfriends in the 60's or 70's that influenced his early career decisions. He became best friends with Brian Kelly who was the stud park ranger on the TV show Flipper.They womanized Hollywood and he talked about always competing with him for women and losing. During their friendship they were out motorcycle riding and Brian was right in front of him. His motorcycle slid and hit him in a part of his head which caused some brain damage and paralysis to his right hand side. He won a legal settlement of $750,000, but the severe impairment cost him his on-camera career. When he was down to his last few thousand dollars he didn't know what to do and Hampton advised him to option a sci-fi book that he thought had potential. Brian invested and no one wanted it so he talked Hampton into doing the screenplay after he said no numerous times. The movie turned into the hit Blade Runner. That's the straight plot, but it wound around and took a long time to get there.

Some interview stories that were not that interesting and could have been edited. Sometimes Hampton would start a conversation and then say, oh I'm not going to continue that story. Well, why wasn't that edited out? There were some interesting things about him that were just covered briefly with typed lines and a date on a black screen. Especially interesting was a time where he ran away to Spain hoping to become a Flamenco dancer. I was wondering why the movie was really heavy with his guest roles on TV shows in the 60's and 70's. So, I asked the question to the director how he was able to find the archival footage? He replied that one can find almost anything on YouTube. I responded, Seriously? I think it made the director uneasy and he said, well there was something that we researched from a German source and we looked for a newspaper clipping about a plane crash. I felt kind of bad for my slight laugh and saying 'seriously?' but it was what I was most interested in regarding this type of movie and in biographical films in general. Also the things that are available on YouTube are the older clips from the 60's. There weren't clips about Blade Runner which would have been much more interesting, but I don't think that would be as easily available. So I felt kind of cheated that he made the easier movie with a lot of free content and not the later life for which is why he is really remembered and famous.

I'm too tired to talk about the second feature. I'll do it later, but then it will be out of order and be listed before this one. Oh well. Bon soire.

No butter in the popcorn

Today I attended my first of the film festival films at the Victoria Theatre. It's the smallest and the probably the oldest, built in 1908. The old worn marquee is charming but nothing is kept up very well. It's old and worn. The concession stand was the worst. I think they offered about four drink options and four things to eat. One size popcorn and no butter. They use butter flavored salt. I had never heard of the theatre before the film festival. I'm glad they keep 100 year old theatres but I wish they was money to keep them looking great inside and out.

Today I saw an independent film called Cameraperson. I'm attracted to movies about movies or filmmakers. This was not so much a documentary but bits of film by an excellent cinematographer who has worked in the industry for 25 years. Kirsten Johnson is credited as the principal cinematographer on more than 40 feature-length documentaries, and has worked with directors such as Michael Moore, Kirby Dick and Laura Poitras, with whom she shared the 2012 Sundance Cinematography award for The Oath.

The documentary was described as: Simultaneously an astute observation of nonfiction filmmaking’s dilemmas, and a wonderfully creative autobiographical collage, Cameraperson is a must-see for all documentary enthusiasts She assembles moments of location shoots—including a birthing clinic in Nigeria, a Bosnian farm, a detention center in Yemen and a boxing ring in Brooklyn. End of program description.

The majority of footage was on the war crimes centered around Foča,Bosnia. Another major part in splintered 5 minute cut backs was about a crime in Texas where she interviewed a Texan lawyer with a case of a man who was dragged in chains behind a car to his death. He talked about his elbows and ankles rubbing away while trying to protect other organs.

I should have paid attention to this one line in the program which said, Rather than employ the obvious tool of narration... That is one of the other things that made a 105 minute film difficult to watch. It seemed like bits and pieces were thrown in the air and then taped together. At first I enjoyed the 5 minute scenes, sometimes longer with the excellent cinematography. I thought, what an interesting life to film all around the world. However, it would jump to another part of the world and into another setting while I was still thinking about the first place. Eventually the film would circle back and repeat locations, although sometimes it wouldn't.

The majority of reloops to another location were to Bosnia to interview Foča massacre survivors. Foča was were a series of killings committed by Serb military. In Wikipedia it says some 2,704 people from Foča are missing or were killed during the massacres period. Additionally, Serb authorities set up locations - commonly described as rape camps - in which hundreds of women were raped. True to the description one gets this information in cut back interview pieces.

There are scenes back and forth to the Nigeria birthing clinic show midwives giving birth to babies and not so capably and with no equipment or sheets. One baby was having trouble breathing and they put it in the back room covered in a blanket explaining to the camera that it needed special oxygen and there wasn't any. So I believe they were leaving it there to die. Remember this is all happening in random 5 minute clips that jump back and forth to different sites.

The cinematography was fabulous although it was much darker topically than I expected. Maybe they could have called it Bits and Pieces of Human Atrocities.

Inexplicably the film takes a bizarre turn toward the end when the cinematographer jumps into loving home clips of her twins in her apartment or and loving moments with her Alzheimer ridden mother. There is also a gross random clip of her father and children finding a dead bird and picking it up wondering what to do with it. The grandfather ends up throwing it in a bush.

I think it shows that narrative is important and a cinematographer needs a writer. However, what do I know? This movie has won two movie festivals awards and has a 100 pct rating on Rotten Tomatoes by reviewers not audience. It is the highest Rotten Tomatoes rating and I've never seen them give that out.

After I had written this blog post I found an interview in Filmmaker Magazine about this movie. The interviewer didn't review the film but asked questions that seemed favorable, yet some answers were telling. There was no official archiving, she didn't do her own editing - she turned it over to an editor in Oakland and let him take over the project. However, some things made a little more sense after reading this. Especially the term In film and television production, 'B-roll' (B roll, or Broll) is supplemental or alternative footage intercut with the main shot. These are the filler background shots that are usually cut down to a few minutes in the film. So in a sense, she is using these leftover B-roll background shots the filmmakers didn't use in their films. Interesting, but doesn't make a good filmclick here for article