Visions of Eight

 

VISIONS OF EIGHT (Anthology Film, 1973)

Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date Jun 22, 2021

Review by Christopher S. Long

When executive producer David L. Wolper scoured the globe for a dream team of directors to shoot a film about the 1972 Munich Olympics, he didn't worry about whether any of them were actually fans of the games. Swedish director Mai Zetterling states explicitly that “I am not interested in sports” at the start of her segment, but it's clear that most of her colleagues also prioritize aesthetics over athletics.

With eight different “visions” this anthology film reflects a kaleidoscope of interests and perspectives, but a few dominant themes emerge. Zetterling, the only woman hired for the project, trains her cameras on the burliest men at the competition, weightlifters. She is primarily interested in the obsession required to train for such specific feats. What kind of man spends hours every day frog-hopping across a cold gym floor and pumping his body full of eggs and boiled ham all so he press an iron barbell over his head, preferably a bar loaded with 2 more kilograms than anyone else in the world can lift? I dunno – the kinda guy who really likes to lift heavy stuff, I guess.

British director John Schlesinger similarly wonders what would drive a man to spend hundreds of lonely hours running along country roads day after day just to be able to run a single marathon at the Olympics. While Zetterling's obsessive giants can be viewed with a mixture of awe and affectionate bemusement, Schlesinger's segment unearths a darker side to an athlete's monomania. One competitor reads newspaper reports of the murder of 11 Israeli athletes by Black September terrorists, literally just down the road from him in the Olympic Village, and tries his best to block it all out: “I'm here for one thing, and that's to run a marathon.”

Obviously, the murders overshadow everything else about the Munich Olympics, something Wolper could not have foreseen when he initiated the project. The failure to include anything but a fleeting reference to the terrorist attacks until Schlesinger's late segment also overshadows “Visions of Eight” and was the source of much of the controversy surrounding the film's 1973 release, first at the Cannes Film Festival, then to many negative reviews in the states. Perhaps an obsession with art above all other concerns also needed to be examined.

Along with obsession, the film's other dominant theme is failure. French filmmaker Claude Lelouch titled his segment “The Losers” and he provides a moving portrait of athletes at the moment they know their lifelong ambition has been thwarted, at least for now. A losing boxer rages futilely against cold fate in the ring before heading over to his corner for a consoling hug from his trainer. A gimpy wrestler gamely fights on, but has to be helped to the sideline by his opponent. As men and women weep openly, having given it their all and still come up short, the world moves on, leaving them alone and forgotten (except by Lelouch's camera, at least for a few minutes more.)

As Lelouch renders failure sympathetic, American director Arthur Penn transforms it into a thing of beauty. In the film's boldest stylistic segment, Penn composes slow-motion, sometimes blurry images of pole vaulters racing to their destiny. Soaring high and all alone in the universe, one man after another trips that cruelly fragile bar, then freefalls back to earth along with his dreams. When the montage of failed attempts finally morphs into triumphs, with bodies gracefully contorting themselves to just barely clear the bar, the strategic eruptions of applause (the only audible sounds in many shots) accentuate the viewer's euphoria.

In a segment by Japanese filmmaker Kon Ichikawa (director of 1965's “Tokyo Olympiad”), we see a Trinidadian sprinter pull up lame at the start of the 100-meter dash, then we see him do it again and still again. Ichikawa filmed this 10-second race with more than 30 cameras, pointed at each lane, from the sides and above, to document this brief blaze of kinetic energy. He's not just interested in the failure of the one runner, but in the experience of each of them, with slow-motion close-ups on their faces twisted into grimaces of maximum effort. It's a beautiful piece, but far too short.

The net result is indeed a film of remarkable visions, heavier on spectacle than on insight or analysis. Call it a sports film both by and for non-sports fans perhaps. Had it been filmed any other year, it would be easier to celebrate its chronicle of the beauty of bodies in motion, of the potential of human willpower properly harnessed. But it's difficult to think of the Munich Olympics for anything other than tragedy.

Video:

The film is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Criterion included “Visions of Eight” as part of its sprawling “100 Years of Olympic Films” set back in 2017. I don't own that set for comparison. However, this 1080p transfer is sharp throughout, even with some of the extreme slow-motion footage where detail might be harder to preserve accurately. This 4K restoration “from the 35 mm original camera negative” has no obvious flaws.

Audio:

The linear PCM mono audio track is crisp and provides a strong presentation both of the classical music excerpts and the original score by Henry Mancini. Optional English SDH subtitles support the audio.

Extras:

The film is accompanied by a commentary track by podcasters Amanda Dobbins, Sean Fennessey, and Chris Ryan of “The Ringer.” To the best of my knowledge, this is the first Criterion commentary done by podcasters. They add a sports savvy that's largely absent from the film itself.

The main extra feature is a new Making Of documentary (2021, 54 min.). I suspect many fans only sample snippets from lengthy Making Of features, but this one is packed with information about an unusual and complex production. Claude Lelouch is the only director who worked on “Visions” who is still alive and he is featured here along with historian David Clay Large and the sons of both David L. Wolper and Arthur Penn. The most interesting aspect of this feature is learning about the other directors Wolper approached. Fellini never agreed to participate, but did allow Wolper to use his name to attract other talent. Senegalese director Ousmane Sembene shot a film about Olympic basketball, but his footage wasn't used for reasons that aren't fully explained. What a huge loss for the project – I'd love to know more.

The only other features are a short promotional film (6 min.) that accompanied the film's 1973 release and a short Trailer (3 min.)

The thick insert booklet includes George Plimpton's 1973 “Sports Illustrated” review of the film, an excerpt from David L. Wolper's 2003 memoir “Producer,” and an essay about the film by novelist Sam Lipsyte.

Final Thoughts:

In 1972, tragedy eclipsed athletics at the Munich Olympics. In 2020, global tragedy canceled the Olympics for the first time in the post-WW2 era. Here's hoping the 2021 Tokyo Olympics are remembered only for their pageantry and competition.

Streetwise

 

STREETWISE (Bell, 1984)

Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date June 15, 2021

Review by Christopher S. Long

After a decade of economic struggles, Seattle officials were eager to rebrand the Emerald City as one of America's “most livable” locations heading into the '80s. Photographer Mary Ellen Mark and journalist Cheryl McCall were sent by “Life” magazine to the new, more “livable” Seattle and they returned with a devastating story about homeless teens eking out perilous livings on the streets. Their article was published in the July 1983 issue of “Life” by which time Mark had already contacted her husband, director Martin Bell, about featuring the kids in a documentary, a project that turned into “Streetwise” (1984).

“Streetwise” introduces viewers first to the big city and its vibrant waterfront, then to the broad array of teens who spend their days and nights along Pike Street near the Pike Street Market. The boys aggressively panhandle while most of the girls work as prostitutes. All look impossibly young while sounding so very much older than their years. Several girls speak quite matter-of-factly about being beaten and raped – by 14 or 15, such horrors have simply become an expected part of their daily lives. They calmly weigh the merits of various pimps (most of them also teens), sizing up who might offer them the best protection.

The film gradually begins to focus more on a few emergent stars. Rat, a scrawny boy who can't weigh 100 pounds soaking wet, dumpster dives for food and constantly hustles for cash, preferably with a more muscular partner backing him up. Lulu, a tough-as-nails lesbian, declares herself the unofficial protector of Pike Street; she evinces no fear whether dealing with violent homeless men or the police.

If this ensemble documentary has a single lead, it's 14-year-old Erin Blackwell, better known as Tiny. Tiny dreams of being “really rich” and living on a farm with lots of horses, but her current reality sees her spending more time at the free clinic where she worries about getting pregnant or contracting another STD from one of her “dates.” With a wry smile and a quick wit, Tiny appears to be a true survivor, though the threat of abrupt, unavoidable violence hangs over even the most grizzled veteran of the streets.

Unlike many of the other children, Tiny hasn't lost all contact with her parents. Tiny's mother feeds her a meager meal at the cheap diner where she works, marveling at how quickly her daughter has grown up in her new life away from home. Mom is fully aware of how Tiny earns her living, but dismisses the tragic situation as “just a phase,” justifying her inaction (and her preference for booze over parenting.) Tiny's decision to live on the streets has its own logic. Her home situation seems even worse, and the street offers the tantalizing illusion of freedom – new friends, no rules, and more money than mom could ever make.

One of the film's most unforgettable scenes involves another parent-child interaction. Dewayne, a skinny scrapper like Rat, visits his father in prison. Dad tries to scare Dewayne straight with a stern lecture about the right way to live that fails to convince when delivered through the plastic screen that separates them. He promises Dewayne “I'm gonna make it up to you” but neither of them believe he'll get a chance to deliver. The poignant image of the father pressing his hand helplessly against the screen as Dewayne turns his back to leave is difficult to shake off.

In contrast to the hand-held “fly on the wall” style associated with direct cinema, Bell prefers more static compositions, sometimes with the camera mounted on a tripod, producing many patient, beautiful shots of a hectic, ugly reality. This aesthetic approach communicates an air of respect for the film's marginalized characters, though it's fair to ask how anyone could witness this brutal exploitation of children without putting down the camera and intervening. In a 2015 excerpt included in the Criterion booklet, Mary Ellen Mark says that she and Bell offered to bring Tiny home with them in 1983, but that Tiny declined. Could they have done more? Could the social workers or other support figures only briefly glimpsed in the film have done more? Whatever the answer, the tragic fates that awaited so many of the film's characters (one of the girls was murdered by serial killer Gary Ridgway) once again raises doubts about the capacity of documentary to serve as a tool for social change.

If they didn't bring Tiny home with them, Mark and Bell did stay in touch with her over the years, shooting several short films and eventually the feature “Tiny: The Life of Erin Blackwell” (2016) which Bell completed after Mark died in 2015. Now in her forties, Erin is the mother of ten children along with many adorable little dogs. Erin raised some of her children; others became wards of the state at various points. As Erin inherited the problems of her parents, her kids have inherited many of her struggles. Some of them, like Erin, are drug addicts, some in and out of prison or juvie, and some are still wide-eyed, happy little kids. Much of the film consists of Mary Ellen and Erin reminiscing over footage from their earlier films, lending this follow-up project echoes of the “Up” series of documentaries. Whatever her travails, Erin keeps doing what she's best at: keeping on.

Video:

“Streetwise” is presented in a 1.40:1 aspect ratio, pretty close to a fullscreen ratio. “Streetwise” was shot on 16mm film and the 1080p restoration looks grainy as you might expect from the source. This transfer looks fantastic overall with rich detail and a naturalistic color palette.

“Tiny: The Life of Erin Blackwell” is presented in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio. It was shot on digital, but includes a lot of 16mm footage from “Streetwise.” Obviously, image quality varies based on the source, but this is another strong 1080p transfer.

Audio:

“Streetwise” is presented with a linear PCM mono audio track. “Tiny” gets a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track. “Streetwise” features both direct sound and voice-over, as well as some overlapping dialogue and it's all crisply and cleanly mixed here. The film also makes prominent use of a street performance of “Teddy Bears' Picnic” by Baby Gramps and it sounds great here, as do songs by Tom Waits. “Tiny” doesn't make much use of surround channels, but doesn't need to – the audio is clear and distortion-free. Optional SDH English subtitles support the English dialogue in both films.

Extras:

This single-disc Blu-ray release from Criterion includes two feature films, “Streetwise” and "Tiny: The Life of Erin Blackwell.” Extras are included along with each feature.

“Streetwise” is accompanied by a commentary track by director Martin Bell.

Criterion has also included a new interview (2020, 10 min.) with Bell in which he discusses the film's genesis (from the “Life” article by Mary Ellen Mark and Cheryl McCall) and provides more detail about the production, including the fact that the budget mostly consisted of funding from singer Willie Nelson.

We also get a new interview (2021, 17 min.) with editor Nancy Baker who discusses how she shaped many hours of footage into a narrative. A Trailer (3 min.) is also included.

Under “Tiny: The Life of Erin Blackwell,” Criterion offers several more features.

This includes two other short films about Erin Blackwell's life, “Tiny at 20” (1993, 14 min.) and “Erin” (2005, 23 min.) Much of the footage from these two shorts is shown in “Tiny: The Life of Erin Blackwell.” “Streetwise Revisited: Rat” (14 min.) is a new feature which catches up with Rat, now a husband and a father and owner of a towing company.

“The Amazing Plastic Lady” (1995, 22 min.) is a short documentary. In 1993, Mary Ellen Mark published the book “Indian Circus” about child acrobats in India. This 1995 documentary follows up on that material, largely focusing on Pinky, a 10-year-old girl who can contort her body into a pretzel at will. The film covers both her family and work environment, and shares some clear similarities with “Streetwise.”

The last supplement is a Trailer (2 min.) for “Tiny: The Life of Erin Blackwell.”

The fold-out booklet includes an essay by historian Andrew Hedden, a reprint of the 1983 “Life” magazine article by McCall and Mark (along with some of Mark's magnificent photographs), and a brief excerpt from Mark's book “Tiny: Streetwise Revisited” in which she discusses her relationship with Erin Blackwell.

Final Thoughts:

“Streetwise” was nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, losing to “The Times of Harvey Milk.” This two-film Blu-ray release from Criterion and its supplementary features give viewers the sense of the scope of the project that Mark, Bell, and McCall began with “Streetwise” and continued for the next several decades.

Town Bloody Hall

Greer and Mailer in Town Bloody Hall

TOWN BLOODY HALL (Hegedus and Pennebaker, 1979)

Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date Aug 18,2020

Review by Christopher S. Long

In the documentary “Town Bloody Hall” (1979), Norman Mailer accuses virtually everyone of misunderstanding what he wrote. A lesser writer might have considered this an opportunity to reflect on the possible shortcomings of his craft, but for an author who styles himself as a heavyweight prizefighter, it's an excuse to come out swinging at the puny pretenders who dare to challenge the champ. Mailer doesn't really land any haymakers, but he certainly stirs his share of shit.

Mailer had just stirred an Everest of shit with his essay “The Prisoner of Sex” (published in the March 1971 issue of “Harper's”), a retaliatory strike against feminist author Kate Millett, who had recently criticized him. While (big surprise) accusing Millett of misunderstanding him, he mischaracterized and derided much of the women's liberation movement, igniting a firestorm which branded him, for some, as the nation's male-chauvinist-in-chief, and therefore an inviting target.

The still white-hot controversy generated a April 30, 1971 panel discussion/fundraiser at The Theater of Ideas in Manhattan's Town Hall, ostensibly pitting Mailer against four feminist thinkers, though framing the event and labeling the participants in that manner grossly oversimplifies. Documentarian D.A. Pennebaker and his crew were on hand to film the evening, though the footage would be shelved for several years until editor Chris Hegedus (also credited as co-director) cut it into an actual film that was finally released in 1979.

The documentary begins with the crowds both outside and inside the venue, and the first distinct impression of the evening is the total lack of diversity. This event appears to be exclusive to white attendees, both on stage and off. One heckler, seen a few times, reminds participants that the admission fee precludes the poor from participating in this “open” discussion.

Mailer's bluster threatens to overshadow the circus-like atmosphere, but the four women who speak on stage aren't intimidated by his preening machismo. They also each bring their own perspectives to the program, making it clear that women's liberation circa 1971 is a series of movements, not a monolith. Jacqueline Ceballos, president of the New York chapter of NOW, admits she represents the “square” feminist organization, while the esteemed literary critic Diana Trilling expresses skepticism about what she considers to be the more radical feminist wing, especially those who deny the role biology plays in gender politics, aligning her at least to a modest degree with Mailer.

Germaine Greer, whose landmark “The Female Eunuch” was published the year before, represents that more radical wing, though she asserts that she speaks for nobody but herself. She postulates that the hallowed masculine artist is a figure granted far too much power in modern culture, much to Mailer's amusement. Jill Johnston, then well-known as a dance and cultural writer for “Village Voice” and soon after as the author of “Lesbian Nation” (1973), takes over the stage by all but ignoring both the format and Mailer. She performs a raucous and hilarious poem/speech that culminates in a pantomimed make-out session with two other women. Understanding the virtue of ending on a high note, she then promptly exits stage right, never to return.

The other panelists remain for a contentious discussion which Mailer largely dominates, frequently whining to the audience that he just wants the chance to say something when he has, in fact, been doing all the talking. Greer seems to be the only one really interested in dueling with him aside from audience members, including a few elites selected to ask questions or shoot barbs at Mailer, including Susan Sontag, Elizabeth Hardwick, and Betty Friedan, among others.

Stylish and poised, Greer (much-criticized today for her transphobic comments from several years ago) emerges as the fearless heroine of the evening, at least after Johnston's triumphant exit, while Mailer, at least in my eyes, plays the buffoon. Did Hegedus edit the footage to emphasize Mailer's boorishness? This Criterion disc includes a Mailer appearance on “The Dick Cavett Show” (see below) which raises the possibility that Hegedus may have actually done her best to make the pugilistic author appear reasonable and charming. Mailer calling a woman in the audience “cunty” can almost be dismissed as yet another tedious provocation. But his rambling discursion about how women who take “advantage” of a man who they know won't strike them are actually committing violence against the man would ring as obscene from any speaker, let alone from a man who had stabbed his wife.

Viewers aren't likely to learn much about second-wave feminism from “Town Bloody Hall,” but it's surprisingly entertaining and sometimes outrageous. It also provides a window to a moment in American culture when public intellectuals did something other than whine about cancel culture on social media.

Video:
The film is presented in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The event was shot on 16 mm, and Pennebaker's crew didn't have official permission to film the event. So the footage looks grainy, isn't always well-lit, and features plenty of shaky framing and swish pans. This is a new digital transfer “created in 4K resolution” but it's only going to look so sharp. However, this 1080p more than does justice to the source.

Audio:

The LPCM Mono audio mix is fairly crisp, though sound quality varies at time considering the venue and filming conditions – audience members who shout out weren't miked up, after all. Optional English subtitles support the dialogue, and I found it helpful to turn them on the whole time.

Extras:

Criterion has included a variety of supplemental features for this Blu-ray release.

The film is accompanied by a commentary track featuring Germaine Greer and co-director/editor Chris Hegedus. This was recorded in 2004.

The disc also offers a new interview (2020, 25 min) with Hegedus, discussing her early career and influences (Maya Deren among them) as well as her involvement with “Town Bloody Hall.” As mentioned above, Pennebaker shelved the footage for years. Hegedus, an admirer of some of the women featured on the panel, was excited to have the chance to shape the material into a film. The movie premiered at the Whitney in 1979, but received limited play elsewhere, on college campuses and on PBS in NYC.

“Reunion” (22 min.) shows footage from a 2004 event in which several of the panelists (Mailer not among them) got back together for a screening and discussion of the film at the National Arts Club in NYC.

We also get a 2001 interview (12 min.) in which Greer discusses her impressions of Mailer leading into the panel discussion. She admired him greatly as a writer but had problems with the format of the event since the women were generally expected to march to Mailer's tune. Perhaps surprisingly, she talks about her desire to impress him at the time.

Finally, Criterion has included a full episode (67 min.) of “The Dick Cavett Show” that aired on Dec 15, 1971. Author Gore Vidal and journalist Janet Flanner were guests along with Mailer. Cavett brings out each guest in turn, with Mailer heading on stage last, about a half hour into the episode. Cavett's discussions with Vidal and Flanner were quite controlled, but once Mailer, possibly drunk, shows up it turns into a circus even more overwrought than the town hall event in the main film. Mailer arrives in a rage over some perceived insult from Vidal and fails to connect with a series of embarrassingly lame one-liners. Some of his insults are so incoherent Cavett asks him directly what he even means, and Mailer has no coherent response. The audience turns on Mailer quickly as well, which only provides him with even more energy as he wonders if they're all idiots because, of course, everyone misunderstands him.

The fold-out insert booklet features an essay by film critic Melissa Anderson.

Final Thoughts:

“Town Bloody Hall” may not be the kind of movie you desperately need to see on Blu-ray with a new high-def transfer. But Criterion has loaded this release with extra features that make it a worthy addition to anyone's home video collection.

No No: A Dockumentary

NO NO: A DOCKUMENTARY (Radice, 2014)

Theatrical Release

Review by Christopher S. Long

(Today marks the 50th anniversary of one of baseball's most-celebrated no-hitters. Why does anyone still care about an early-June game between the Pirates and the woeful Padres? Read on and find out.)

Dock Ellis won 138 games in the major leagues, started an all-star game, and earned a World Series ring. But Dock Ellis will forever be known for pitching a no-hitter while (allegedly) tripping on LSD. As Ellis told and re-told the much-loved story, he couldn't even see the batters and just pitched to the reflective tape catcher Jerry May wore on his fingers. “High as a Georgia pine,” he walked eight and hit a batter. Trust Dock Ellis to pitch a no-hitter in his own style.

While “No No: A Dockumentary” (2014) shows us there is much more to Dock Ellis than just his June 12, 1970 gem against the Padres (yes, no-hitters pitched against the Padres still count officially) it still takes this cherished legend as its primary inspiration. It was neither the first nor the last time Dock (his given name, by the way) took the mound while under the influence of illegal substances.

Ellis's career (1968-1979) was a constant binge of LSD, vodka, and especially greenies, the amphetamines in widespread use in major-league baseball during the '60s and '70s. Ellis claims he would grab a fistful of pills from a bowl in the clubhouse, toss them in the air and take the ones that landed standing up... and then take the rest as needed. He enjoyed the night life too and was fortunate to find the perfect home with the party-animal Pirates headlined by Willie Stargell and Ellis's roommate and mentor Roberto Clemente. Fans of the team will enjoy the numerous interviews with Bucco stalwarts like Al Oliver (one of Dock's closest friends), Manny Sanguillen, Bruce Kison, and others.

First-time feature documentary director Jeff Radice plays the drug angle for the combination of awe and stoner humor that has usually accompanied the legend of Dock Ellis, but it's only fun and games until somebody gets hurt. The laughs stop quickly when we learn that Ellis choked his first wife Paula (she ditched him immediately) and later threatened to shoot his second wife, Austine, during a night-long ordeal as he raged after being released by the Pirates. According to the movie, Ellis took the second incident as a wake-up call, checked himself into rehab, and embarked on an unlikely post-playing career as an advocate for substance abuse treatment for professional athletes and a drug counselor in prisons.

Whether you buy the final act redemption story as neatly as presented here or not, Ellis emerges from the movie as a complex and thoughtful character. He loved to say and do outrageous things, but seldom did so without a calculated purpose. If there's a common thread to the controversies this self-described “angry black man” generated on a regular basis (I'll leave you to discover them in the movie in case you don't already know) it's that he didn't want anybody telling him what to do; not fans, not the press, and certainly not his employers. Ellis's defiant message to his teams was to watch how he played on the field and not to worry about anything else. 

The documentary also suggests a sensitive, almost artistic side to Ellis. One of the stranger aspects about one of baseball's strangest careers is that Dock's biography would be written by future poet laureate Donald Hall who spotted something unique in the outspoken pitcher. He wasn't the only one. Jackie Robinson was inspired to write Ellis an appreciative letter in which he cheered him for standing up for his values. Dock tries to read the text of the letter, but can't make it to the end as he breaks up in tears.

Tell Me Who I Am

TELL ME WHO I AM (Perkins, 2019)

Netflix Streaming, Release Date Oct 18, 2019

Review by Christopher S. Long

When 18-year-old Alex Lewis woke up in a hospital bed, he immediately recognized the young man standing faithfully by his side as his twin brother Marcus. As for the woman also in the room, Alex didn't have a clue until Marcus informed him that she was their mother.

It was the beginning of a new pattern for Alex, relying on Marcus to fill him on all the details of a life he no longer remembered as the result of the motorcycle accident that sent him to the hospital. In the first act of director Ed Perkins's documentary “Tell Me Who I Am”(2019), Alex recounts the early months of this reconstruction project, a disorienting and arduous process also laden with moments of humor. Marcus reintroduces Alex to his longtime girlfriend, and the now-adult Alex (54 at the time of filming) jokes that this provided him the unique opportunity to lose his virginity to the same girl twice.

With Marcus's help, Alex gradually readjusts to the family household, run by his disciplinarian father and a vivacious mother who's always the life of the party. Young Alex, having no memories of his own life, let alone anyone else's life as a comparison point, remains largely unaware of how unusual their domestic situation really is, but it doesn't take long before viewers realize there's a dark secret lurking beneath the semi-placid surface. Perhaps the secret is hiding in the upstairs of the house from which the twins are forever banned.

Perkins delays the big reveal for an uncomfortably long stretch, a dramatic technique I sometimes find ethically questionable when filmmakers deal with true stories. In this case, however, the elongation of tension replicates Alex's real experience. For years, he unquestioningly believed everything Marcus told him about their shared lives. After all, if you can't count on your twin brother, who can you trust? Only after their parents died, did Alex come to realize that the normal, happy childhood he now knew about was largely a work of fiction written by his twin.

I'm hesitant to reveal much more. Suffice it to say that while “Tell Me Who I Am” begins with a story remarkable enough just based on the barest facts (twin brothers – one with no memories, one with all their memories), it soon delves into more profound and unnerving territory. Marcus has very good reasons for this seeming betrayal of one of the most intimate trusts one can imagine, so much so that many will see him as a noble figure who makes a tremendous sacrifice as an act of compassion for the person he loves the most. On the other hand, it's not difficult to understand Alex's anger at Marcus. When the only memories you have never really happened, how can you possibly know who you are?

Perkins mostly relies on Alex and Marcus to speak their truths to the camera, each of them filmed separately for the bulk of the movie, though he also shoots some limited recreations, explorations of the dark spaces of the mysterious house, for example. He returns to select images over and over, a technique which pays off in the film's most poignant shot, that of just one of the twins, as boys, sleeping in their shared bedroom, the other bed empty. It's one of the most emotionally potent moments I can recall seeing in a documentary in quite some time.

Alex has to recreate his identity because he lost his memories. Marcus has to (and perhaps wants to) recreate his identity because he no longer has another person who shares his memories. In its brief running time, “Tell Me Who I Am” can barely touch on the immense burdens confronting each of these men, but it presents their stories with grace, clarity, and humility. Nobody who watches this film will ever forget about the Lewis twins.

“Tell Me Who I Am” is currently streaming on Netflix.

When We Were Kings

WHEN WE WERE KINGS (Gast, 1996)

Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date Oct 22, 2019

Review by Christopher S. Long

You've probably heard some variant of the claim that movies are primarily made in the editing room. Orson Welles, for example, said, “(F)or my vision of cinema, the editing is not one aspect, it is THE aspect.” You won't find many more illustrative examples of this maxim than the documentary “When We Were Kings” (1996).

Director Leon Gast was hired to shoot a documentary about Zaire 74, the music festival scheduled to accompany the massively hyped Rumble in the Jungle, the heavyweight fight between champion George Foreman and a scrappy little underdog named Muhammad Ali in Zaire (today The Democratic Republic of the Congo). The concert would feature an all-world lineup mostly headlined by African and African-American artists, including Miriam Makeba, James Brown, B.B. King, The Spinners, and many more.

A lineup like that couldn't possible miss, but when the Rumble was delayed because of a sparring injury suffered by Foreman, the show still had to go on, to a largely empty stadium since it was no longer attached to the biggest fight ever (free admission helped pack the stands on the final day, at least). After this major setback, Gast struggled to find funding to complete his project and hundreds of hours of footage would sit unused for many years.

In the late-1980s, Gast continued to shop his footage around and found a new booster in the form of lawyer and music manager David Sonenberg who became a producer on the new film-to-be. But was there really demand for a movie about the ill-starred Zaire 74, no matter how great the music was? Maybe, but in transferring and revisiting the old footage, Gast and Sonenberg (perhaps others were involved in the decision – I don't know) realized they were sitting on a trove of crackerjack material of Foreman and, especially, the photogenic and always media-available Ali, as they prepared to rumble. There would certainly be demand for a documentary about Muhammad Ali and the fight of the century.

Thus was born “When We Were Kings”, a documentary released twenty years after its main subject, which the filmmaker wasn't even directly pursuing at the time. It turned out to be a commercial hit and even an Oscar winner.

“When We Were Kings” still plays a bit like a concert film, and not because of the snippets of performances from James Brown, B.B. King, and others still in the movie. Ali, today described by some as the original rapper, entrances audiences of all kinds – groups of admiring children in Zaire, gaggles of giddy reporters, the filmmakers themselves – with his perfectly polished rhythms and cleverly scripted rhymes. “If you think the world was surprised when Nixon resigned, wait til I kick Foreman's behind.” And “(I) injured a stone, hospitalized a brick; I'm so mean I make medicine sick.”

Ali doesn't just bust rhymes (or skulls), of course. The film poignantly evokes the thrill Ali gets from being in Africa – in one of the most memorable scenes, he can barely contain the pride and joy he feels when flying on a plane staffed entirely by a black crew. Fans from Zaire were every bit as proud of Ali, who arrived as a legend and left as a demi-god (I'm understating the matter here). It's actually tough not to feel bad for the young Foreman whose chief sin was not being Muhammad Ali, and thus being identified by many as the evil American imperialist. “Ali, bomaye!” the crowds chanted. “Ali, kill him!”

The fight itself only takes up a few minutes running time in the documentary, but it remains a mesmerizing spectacle today, even for those who can't stand boxing. Ali's winning rope-a-dope strategy has been much discussed, but watching it in action provides a reminder that the Greatest's plan relied on two keystones. Step One – letting Foreman tire himself out by throwing flurries of punches while Ali leaned against the ropes - makes perfect sense. However, Step Two involves Ali resting up and conserving his energy by letting George Foreman beat the hell out of him for several rounds. I guess it works if you're Muhammad Ali.

The film also incorporates some newly-shot interviews which consist primarily of way too much Norman Mailer, not nearly enough Spike Lee, and just the right amount of George Plimpton. Their retrospective views are useful (just about everyone thought Ali would lose, Plimpton feared he might be killed), but the stars of the documentary are Ali and the people of Zaire. They truly loved Ali and, at least judging from what we see on screen, Ali loved them. The film captures that dynamic quite touchingly, which makes this something more memorable than just another boxing documentary.

Video:

The film is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. From Criterion, “This new digital transfer was created in 4K resolution... from a 35 mm interpositive and restored at Deluxe in Hollywood.” The 16 mm archival footage looks surprisingly sharp in this high-def transfer, at least as sharp as you could expect given the source material.

Audio:

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix isn't called on to do much with most of the interviews and archival footage, but the film includes some brief snippets of great music from the Zaire 74 concert as well as the title song for the film. The lossless audio treats the music quite well. Optional English subtitles support the audio.

Extras:

The first extra on this Criterion release is a 1997 interview with director Leon Gast which only runs 4 minutes. The interview doesn't reveal much except the degree to which Ali was quite media savvy and helped set up some of those great “spontaneous” shots.

We also get a new 2019 interview (16 min.) with David Sonenberg, the producer who proved so pivotal in getting “When We Were Kings” made and released nearly two decades after Gast originally shot the footage. He speaks in detail about the unlikely and complicated process of converting an old concert movie into a fight documentary (though, of course, it's much more than that).

The star attraction in the Extras collection is “Soul Power” (2009, 92 min.), the concert movie also made from the footage shot in 1974. This film is directed by Jeffrey Kusama-Hinte (one of the editors on “When We Were Kings”) and showcases numerous great acts from Miriam Makeba to James Brown and so much more. It's a real blast and further proof of the degree to which a film is made in the editing room, though of course it helps to have music superstars to work with in the first place.

The slim, fold-out insert booklet includes an essay by writer Kelefa Sanneh.

Final Thoughts:

There's a whole subindustry of Muhammad Ali documentaries, but none are better than “When We Were Kings.” And if you already own it on DVD, there's still a good reason to upgrade in the form of the extra documentary “Soul Power.”

Fata Morgana

FATA MORGANA (Herzog, 1971)

Blu-ray, Shout! Factory, Release Date July 19, 2014

Review by Christopher S. Long

How to make a movie the Werner Herzog Way, in four easy steps:

1) Show up in the Sahara Desert with a script for a science-fiction movie about an alien crew from the Andromeda Galaxy assigned to film a report about a strange planet called Earth.

2) Discard said science-fiction script on the first day of shooting because someone tells you that desert mirages can't be filmed and you, as both a Bavarian poet and a former Mexican rodeo rider, take that as a personal challenge.

3) Drive through multiple African desert nations in your rented VW van along with your tiny crew, filming whatever you find along the way until you get swept up in a coup d'etat in Cameroon and are thrown in an overcrowded jail where you almost die from malaria.

4) After being released from the Cameroonian prison, take your footage back to the editing room and create a masterpiece.

Yes, kids, it really is that simple.

Describing “Fata Morgana” (1971) is a daunting enough prospect, let alone interpreting it. Why does the film begin with over four minutes worth of footage of various planes landing in the shimmering heat of a desert runway? Why is every third person we meet wearing the same pair of goggles? Is that really Leonard Cohen we're hearing on the soundtrack?

The answer to the final question is yes. As for the other two, beats me. Not quite knowing what you're looking at or why you're looking at it is integral to the pleasure of a freewheeling film difficult to categorize as anything other than a hallucination. What I am certain of is that the one compelling argument this not-a-documentary makes is that there is nothing in cinema as mesmerizing as a long tracking shot.

Cinematographer Jorg Schmidt-Reitwein shoots from the roof of the VW van as Herzog drives past a sinuous ridge of sand dunes (some hand-sculpted by the production crew to create more evocative contours) as tiny billows of sand blow off in the hot breeze; the longer the tracking shot continues the more those billows start to look like sheer rippling fabric. Later, lengthy aerial shots glide across a landscape mottled with patches of ice, or maybe they're salt flats, or possibly desiccated earth. Have I mentioned yet that “Fata Morgana” means mirage?

For more than the first twenty minutes, this chimerical terrain is devoid of people, but Herzog doesn't intend to settle into any comfortable pattern here. Eventually we will meet a menagerie of animals and people, some staring directly into the camera for uncomfortably long moments, many appearing disoriented as they gesticulate insistently off-camera at... something. A group of boys led by a teacher declare that “War is madness” and an ersatz scientist captures a giant turtle only to release it so he has something to capture the next day.

As bizarre as that all sounds, Herzog's wildest invention is the soundtrack, combining narration and one of the most unpredictable selections of musical tracks you've ever heard. In voice-over, several different speakers (beginning with German film guru and Herzog mentor Lotte Eisner) relate a creation story partly inspired by the Mayan “Popul Vuh” mythos and only obliquely related to the actual footage. Surely there's an ironic connection between shots of bleached carcasses lying in the sand and a voice-over speaking about man's dominion over the animal kingdom. I suspect Herzog's main goal is to recontextualize all of his images to form a radical new perspective, situating the viewers as those Andromedans trying to make sense of a baffling new world. Planet Herzog, to be specific. The creation story is broken into three sections, each divided by the repeated image of a half-glimpsed vehicle (or something) turning circles at the edge of the horizon, perhaps the most enigmatic image in a film replete with them.

The musical track is stranger still, combining classical and ecclesiastically-tinged tunes with the otherworldly “Ghetto Raga” by Third Ear Band, and pop tracks from Blind Faith and the aforementioned Mr. Cohen. Curiouser and curiouser still is the manner in which Herzog self-consciously underscores his manipulation of the various musical cues. In a bravura five-minute tracking shot (a relentless glide to the right broken up only by one cutaway) over industrial detritus and the bleached trailers of a desert town, Herzog begins with silence, cranks up a lengthy excerpt from Cohen's “Suzanne,” stops for a few lines of voice-over narration (“In Paradise, man is born dead.”), then rolls into the bulk of Cohen's “So Long Marianne,” all playing over that same almost unbroken tracking shot. You ask: Why? I respond: I've watched and listened to that sequence more than fifty times and I am overwhelmed on each viewing. Not only do I need not need to know why, I would dearly prefer not to.

The great critic and programmer Amos Vogel, an early Herzog booster, described “Fata Morgana” as “a cosmic pun on cinema verite.” I'm not sure that conveys the core essence of the film, but the final section does descend fully into the absurd, beginning with the strangest musical act in cinemahistory (this one I've watched over a hundred times) and ending with confused tourists stumbling around in ditches (Herzog directed them to “turn the pig loose”) and characters practically laughing themselves to death on screen, cf. the ending of “Even Dwarfs Started Small.” If you want to hear the normally unflappable Herzog crack the hell up, just listen to the commentary track starting around the one hour, seven-minute mark.

That doesn't mean “Fata Morgana” is intended as a joke. It is playful at times, morbid at others. For the viewer who tunes into its wavelength, the film is a visionary experience that inspires wonder and sometimes outright awe as it creeps up to and kisses the sublime threshold. I also feel safe in claiming that there is absolutely nothing else like it, not even its semi-sequel “Lessons of Darkness” (1992).

But really, there's just no way to describe it.

Herzog Collection from Shout! Factory

Video:

The film is presented in its original 1.37:1 aspect ratio. The high-def transfer from Shout! Factory is another “meh” effort, perfectly serviceable but nothing to brag about. Some of the sun-baked desert shots looks somewhat washed-out and the mediocre bit rate doesn't present the sharpest image quality. It's fine, a slight improvement over the old Anchor Bay DVD which, by the way, has to qualify as one of the odder DVD anomalies since this all-time great film was merely included as a “Bonus DVD” for Anchor Bay's release of “Lessons of Darkness” (1992). Sure, “Lessons” is a hell of a movie too, and the two films are definitely spiritual siblings, but “Fata Morgana” only a “Bonus DVD”? That's a hell of a bonus.

Note: Images in this review are NOT taken from the Blu-ray.

Audio:

The audio mix is competent if somewhat flat. No problems though. You can listen to the film with its German soundtrack or its English soundtrack (different narrators for both versions). Optional English subtitles support the audio, and can be a bit difficult to read over some of the whiter shots.

Extras:

The only extra is a commentary track by Werner Herzog, along with moderator Norman Hill and just-hanging-out-that-day actor Crispin Glover. I keep repeating myself: Herzog's commentary tracks are a performance art unto themselves and can be enjoyed over and over again.

In this Shout! Factory box set, “Fata Morgana” shares the same Blu-ray disc as “Land of Silence and Darkness.”

Final Thoughts:

A top ten all-time film for me. It's one of the movies I can see when I close my eyes.

Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story By Martin Scorsese

ROLLING THUNDER REVUE: A BOB DYLAN STORY BY MARTIN SCORSESE (2019)

Currently Streaming on Netflix, Release Date June 12, 2019

Review by Christopher S. Long

Martin Scorsese is in a playful mood. He opens his (or is it really his?) newest movie with an excerpt from silent-film pioneer Georges Melies' “The Vanishing Lady” (1896), in which the illusionist-filmmaker delivers on the title, making a seated woman disappear and reappear through the magic of editing.

Why start a Bob Dylan documentary (or is it a documentary?) in 1896 France? The cheeky answer is that Scorsese just likes Georges Melies, but that doesn't make it a bad answer. It's a direct reference to Scorsese's “Hugo” (2011) in which Ben Kingsley portrayed Melies, which raises the possibility that Scorsese has issues of authorship in mind. Starting with a wink and a nod to your own work is an efficient way to impress your auteur stamp on a film that consists primarily of footage of other artists' work.

Choosing this specific Melies clip also serves as Scorsese's promise to deceive, and therefore to entertain, by any cinematic means at his disposal. He makes the promise clearer by transitioning directly from the Melies clip to the word “Conjuring” in bold blue letters, hovering alone on the screen for a beat before he adds the words “The Rolling Thunder Revue” right under it. Revue then becomes Re-vue, and is finally completed by the subtitle “A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese.” So much to keep track of and we haven't really even started.

You probably get it by now. Netflix might call this a documentary, but it's a story, and a story by a guy who loves to play tricks, so be careful what you believe. The ostensible subject of said story is the Rolling Thunder Revue, a barnstorming rock tour through both small towns and big cities in America and Canada in 1975 and 1976, spearheaded by Bob Dylan but featuring a dynamite troupe including Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Roger McGuinn, and many others. Poet (and sort-of aspiring musician) Allen Ginsberg even hitched along for part of the ride, and is feature at length here.

The film mixes interviews (mostly new, some archival) with concert and behind-the-scenes tour footage. Unsurprisingly, Dylan is the chief talking head, but, also unsurprisingly, he's not all that helpful, claiming not to remember a thing about the tour because “it happened so long ago, I wasn't even born.”

Sure, Bob. Dylan is still wearing a mask, just like he did while performing at many stops on the tour, either an actual mask or thick white face-paint. Scorsese is quite enamored of the mask as a running theme, cutting in random footage of masked film performers. This also explains why Scorsese introduces us to Stefan van Dorp, the enigmatic and pompous European filmmaker who shot all the concert footage and is delighted to brag today about his crucial role in the project. We'd probably tolerate his vanity better if he wasn't an entirely fictional character played by performance artist Martin von Haselberg and serving, perhaps, as a mask worn by Scorsese – note that Van Dorp is credited simply as The Filmmaker. Did Scorsese cast him just because his name is Martin too? Sounds good, let's print it. ("It's all true!," bellows an angelic Orson Welles from a steakhouse high above.)

Viewers may or may not realize which of the talking heads are fictional, though film buffs should figure out that something's up once we start hearing from former Senator Jack Tanner (Michael Murphy). What's clear is that there isn't a chance in hell we're going to get to know the “real” Bob Dylan or even the “real” Scorsese, and it doesn't really matter.

I won't claim to be certain exactly what all of Scorsese's chicanery accomplishes. It may frustrate some viewers who wind up feeling betrayed when, to take one example, they find out that story about Dylan hooking up with a teenage Sharon Stone might not actually be totally, entirely, completely true. For me the various contrivances and misdirections serve as a reminder that, when dealing with artists, all we can rely on for certain is the art itself, and boy does “Rolling Thunder Revue” deliver on that front.

At the twenty-minute mark, Dylan launches into a performance of “Isis” that absolutely rips the roof of the house, with Scarlet Rivera ripping it up on violin (she's amazing throughout the film). It's some of the best concert footage I've ever seen, and it's just the beginning. We get a knockout version of “When I Paint My Masterpiece” and, oh man, the most amazing “A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall” you've ever heard. Just one molten hot number after another, peak Dylan beyond what I previously thought his peak was. Any skeptic who has ever sniped, “But Dylan can't sing!” can watch this movie and then kindly please never speak on the subject again.

It's breathtaking at its best, but is this Martin Scorsese's movie or Bob Dylan's? Trick question, because the real answer is that now it's yours.

The Spy Behind Home Plate

THE SPY BEHIND HOME PLATE (Kempner, 2019)

In Theaters, Release Date May 24, 2019

Review by Christopher S. Long

There may be no more common commodity in the history of baseball than the backup catcher who can't hit a lick. Catching's hard work and every team needs some poor shnook who can give the real catcher a rest once a week. Just flash the right signals, tell the pitcher “Attaboy!” every few innings, and try not to ground into a double play every time up. OK, maybe the job's a bit tougher than that, but the point is that expectations are generally pretty modest, and every team churns through a vast and mostly interchangeable supply of supporting players over the years.

The rare balsa bat backstop who becomes a legend, though, is someone to cherish. Baseball fans throughout the land still venerate the great Bob Uecker, proud owner of a .200 career batting average. Uecker's only big hits were against himself: “I had slumps that lasted into winter” and “When I looked to the third base coach for a sign, he turned his back on me.” Uecker parlayed his futility into a thriving brand that extends from the broadcast booth to Miller Light and even “Mr. Belvedere.”

Catcher Moe Berg also couldn't hit and boy could he not run. He spent most of his 15-year major-league career (starting in 1923, ending in 1939) on the bench, and never snagged his own sitcom or even a beer commercial. So why are we still talking about him today? Well, there was that time he almost assassinated Werner Heisenberg...

But let's start at the beginning, since that's what director Aviva Kempner does in her new documentary “The Spy Behind Home Plate” (2019). Moe Berg was born in 1902 in Harlem to a working-class Jewish family. His father Bernard was a self-made man, a pharmacist who mapped out futures for his children as doctors, lawyers, and teachers. Baseball player was definitely not on the list of acceptable careers, and Bernard never changed his mind about the disreputable nature of the game, not even when baseball helped open the doors to a Princeton education for Moe at a time when few Jews were admitted to the Ivy League. Heck, not even when the major-league Brooklyn Robins came calling for young Moe's services with the idea of appealing to Jewish fans in New York.

Kempner's film brings young Moe Berg to vibrant life in these early segments, portraying him both as a rebel in his own family and as a pioneering Jewish athlete, who combined brawn, carefully groomed good looks, and brain. And oh what a brain. I don't want to traffic in lazy stereotypes about the intellectual capacity of professional athletes, but it's safe to say that only a few baseball players ever learned how to speak Sanskrit. As well as French. And German. And Hebrew. And Latin. And Yiddish. And Russian. And... Well, as one of his fellow players quipped about Berg, “He spoke a dozen languages. And couldn't hit in any of them.”

Berg's inability to grasp a bat as effectively as foreign syntax didn't prevent him from gaining a considerable reputation in the game for his glove and his savvy, a reputation that would assure him a decade and a half on an active roster even though his managers seldom saw fit to play him in an actual game. It also netted him a spot on the All-American team sent on a good-will tour of Japan in 1934, alongside luminaries such as Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig, and Babe Ruth.

Berg used the long cruise to brush up on his Japanese and also to hit on Ruth's 18-year-old daughter, Julia. He also brought along a hand-held Bell and Howell camera which provides us our first answer as to why we're still talking about the kid who couldn't hit. Berg remained in Japan for a while after his teammates returned to the States, and while exploring, he also took some rather interesting footage of the countryside which he found a way to sneak home past vigilant authorities. Don't ask how.

Said footage may or may not have proven instrumental in U.S. war efforts in the following decade, but it definitely provided a glimpse of things to come. After Berg's playing career finally petered out in 1939, he soon began a surprising second career, as an agent for the newly formed OSS, the predecessor to the CIA. Details about Berg's spy career are understandably hazy and difficult to confirm, but he was involved in investigating Germany's efforts in atomic weapons development, which ultimately led him to attend a lecture in Zurich given by German scientist Werner Heisenberg. Berg arrived with a notebook in hand and a gun in his pocket, prepared to complete his mission by whichever means he deemed necessary. Spoiler, he wound up befriending Heisenberg. Moe just had a way with people.

Berg's unlikely secret agent career sure sounds exciting, but the film loses focus during this section. The unique and inspiring story of the multi-lingual, working-class Jewish athlete and scholar who embodied the American success story transforms abruptly into a broad-reaching lecture about the World War II spy program. Key players like William Donovan (head of the OSS) are introduced to provide context, but in the process Berg is reduced to a supporting player of uncertain significance in the grander scheme.

The generic nature of the WW2 section prevents “The Spy Behind Home Plate” from being as successful as Kempner's previous documentary about a Jewish baseball star, the fantastic “The Life And Times Of Hank Greenberg” (1998). But in her new film, Kempner still constructs a vivid portrait of a charismatic figure with no real equivalent in baseball history. You really can't go wrong with a Sanskrit-speaking Jewish athlete and spy who is still a disappointment to the father who just wanted him to become a lawyer. Oh, by the way, Berg graduated from Columbia Law School too, just as a side gig. Which might explain why he didn't have any free time left to take a few hacks in the batting cage.

If you want to learn more about Moe Berg, I strongly recommend Nicholas Dawidoff's 1994 biography, “The Catcher Was A Spy.”

For All Mankind

FOR ALL MANKIND (Reinert, 1989)

Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date July 14, 2009

Review by Christopher S. Long

If somebody tells you they just don’t understand what the big deal about space travel is, you probably won’t be able to explain it to them. And you probably don't want to bother because, really, do you need to hang out with a person who would say something like that? If you want to try anyway, though, point them to Al Reinert’s sublime archival footage documentary “For All Mankind” (1989.)

The Gemini and Apollo missions were filmed by some of the most advanced cameras available at the time, but not because the NASA crews were budding Sacha Viernys. The cameras were there to film moon rocks and moon dust and, um, other moon-related things. Did I mention moon rocks? This wasn’t art photography, this was for science with a few brief clips circulated to the media.

The majority of the mission footage not only went unseen by the public but was stored away in the NASA film archives possibly never to be looked at again. But journalist Al Reinert experienced a “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”-style epiphany, realizing that those millions of feet of cold-stored film contained a cinematic treasure trove. After years of meticulously combing through the archives, culling and editing the best material, Reinert produced one of the most beautiful American documentaries of the past thirty years.

Reinert wasn’t interested in making the kind of dry, didactic documentary school kids pretend to listen to on a trip to the planetarium. Working in the 1980s, he had the opportunity to look back on the entirety of humanity’s efforts to reach the moon and to appreciate the entire arc of the greatest exploration story ever told, and the film would be the story of that grand adventure.

Reinert, along with editor Susan Korda, who had one hell of a job on her hands, cobbled together footage from a half dozen different Apollo missions and, I believe, a little bit from Gemini (if I’m wrong, someone will tell me) and presented them as a single trip to the moon. This trip includes not only footage taken from space and on the moon, but also of the crew working back in Houston, and it’s the counter-cutting between these two that creates the illusion of a single trip from many.

This wasn’t a cheat by Reinert, but a truly inspired decision (cue the opening drum beats of “Zarathustra” again) that does justice both to the extraordinary beauty of the footage and to the communal spirit that united hundreds of men and women, galvanized by an edict from John F. Kennedy, in the pursuit of a single goal, the achievement of a dream so absurd that even believing it possible was an act of unmitigated audacity.

Reinert also recorded many hours of audio interviews with the astronauts and their commentary is interspersed throughout the film. They aren’t identified individually when they speak and it’s pretty hard to tell them apart in those lumpy uniforms too. These are the men of Apollo, the men who reached for the moon and, in some cases, got there. Blu-ray viewers have the option of choosing an alternate audio track that provides on-screen identification of each person we see and hear which is nice to have even if it somewhat undermines the triumphant universal spirit of a film intended “For All Mankind.”

Much of the “throwaway” footage turns out to the most exciting material. In addition to the installed NASA cameras, astronauts were given their own hand-held cameras and a limited amount of film. They usually chose to point it outside to ogle at the Earth visible as one big blue globe, but the more prosaic footage is indispensable too. Watching an astronaut eating ham spread in zero gravity tells more about life in space than even the most majestic, jaw-droppingly beautiful space shots. Contemporary astro-fans spoiled by Chris Hadfield's recent odyssey might take this kind of access for granted, but I will always see it as something special.

The most joyous moment in the film comes when Gene Cernan of Apollo 17 (the last mission to land on the moon) begins to sing “I was strolling on the moon one day in the merry merry month of… December.” Fellow moonwalker Harrison Schmitt says “No… May.” (Cernan was right, but Schmitt obviously cared more about meter and rhyme than historical accuracy.) The camera shows the two men skipping along the moon surface like a couple of schoolkids. Cernan forgets the lyrics, then expresses the whole reason for a lifetime of grueling training, of striving for the heavens: “Boy is this a neat way to travel. Isn’t it great? Dum dee dum dum dum.” Reinert then shows a series of shots of astronauts hopping around on the moon. You wouldn’t know it but he’s actually cutting back between two different landings. Apparently, grown men all tend to act the same on the moon. One astronaut in mid-leap shouts “Ya-hoo!” If you’re not smiling while you watch that, you’ve obviously never dreamed.

NASA didn’t send the cameras up there to bring images of America’s heroes playing hopscotch on the taxpayer’s dime, but they got them anyway, and they’re every bit as compelling as the far more famous footage of Neil Armstrong descending the ladder and taking that small step that became a giant leap for mankind. Thank goodness Al Reinert and his team found these wonderful pictures and sounds and had the sense and the artistic vision to transform them into this sublime, mesmerizing documentary. 

Video:

The film is presented in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The image is windowboxed like most Criterion fullscreen releases - some viewers will see a black frame around the whole image.

The entire movie is composed of various archival sources, much of which is 16 mm, so the image quality varies and is generally very grainy and a little muddy. Forgive them, they weren’t able to set up the lighting equipment exactly the way they wanted.

The Blu-Ray, of course, represents an upgrade over the SD version of the film, and is appreciated even if the grainy archival footage still looks like grainy archival footage even in high-def.

Audio:

The Blu-ray is presented with a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. Some of the audio comments by the astronauts sound a bit tinny and garbled at times but that’s an artifact from Reinert’s recorded interviews with them. It all sounds clear enough. The stereo comes into play mostly with the louder rocket engine sounds. The original score by Brian Eno is well-presented.

Optional English subtitles are provided. As mentioned above, you can also choose to watch with subtitles and identifications of each of the speakers and missions being shown. I chose to watch this way but for the pure audio-visual experience of the film, which was not released with any background information or identifications, you might prefer to save this option for a second viewing.

Extras:

The film is accompanied by a commentary track by Al Reinert and astronaut Gene Cernan, recorded in 1999 for the first Criterion release of this film on SD.

“An Accidental Gift” (32 min) is an excellent feature that recounts Reinert’s journey through the NASA archives and his labor of love while assembling the film. NASA archivists Morris Williams and Mike Gentry also speak about their jobs and their role in helping get the film made.

“On Camera” (20 min.) is an assemblage of multiple interviews of Apollo astronauts conducted by Reinert over several projects and cut together into one feature here.

“Paintings from the Moon” provides a series of paintings by astronaut Alan Bean of Apollo 12, the fourth man to walk on the moon. He provides an introduction (7 min) and then commentary for each of his 24 paintings presented here (37 min. total.)

“NASA Audio Highlights” includes 21 short audio recordings that were widely circulated to media outlets at the time and are mostly familiar to fans of the space program. You do know “The Eagle has landed,” right? 7 minutes total.

“3…2…1… Blast Off” cuts together five different NASA launches from different rockets (3 min. total.)

The insert booklet features a justifiably gushing appreciation by critic Terrence Rafferty and an essay by Al Reinert.

Film Value:

There are so many moments to cherish in this film, and I’ve only been able to discuss a few of them. I love the fact that the astronauts were each allowed to bring a cassette tape on the mission with music of their choosing. The astronauts went a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll. And “Zarathustra” too. You have to go “Zarathustra” if you’re ever flying in space.

Criterion re-released “For All Mankind” on the occasion of the 40^th anniversary of the moon landing back in 2009 but also as a testament to one of the human race’s finest achievements. Will we ever dream so big again? Mars is calling, but I have my doubts that we’ll ever get there. But if we do, you know the cameras will be running and it will make the amazing images New Horizons has been sending back from Pluto look... well, actually nothing could make those images from Pluto look anything but spectacular. But the Mars pics will be a blast too.

Dreams With Sharp Teeth

DREAMS WITH SHARP TEETH (Nelson, 2008)

Docurama, DVD, Release Date May 26, 2009

Review by Christopher S. Long

(This DVD review was originally posted in 2009, re-posted today on the occasion of Harlan Ellison's 81st birthday.)

When I first met Harlan Ellison in person at a Los Angeles Screenwriting convention, he had just plowed his car into some poor, innocent working-class family who were just minding their own business but, as you know, that Ellison cat has a bad temper. Fortunately, the family was also in a car and nobody was injured. The accident not only failed to rattle Harlan, it fired him up to conduct the most memorable workshop I have ever attended. Except that workshop isn’t the right word. “Floor show” is the closest I can think of. Or maybe I should simply call it a performance, the best live performance I have ever had the pleasure to watch. I literally had tears of laughter streaming down my face for the entire hour, and I wouldn't dare use “literally” to mean “figuratively” because that might piss off the ever-grammar-lovin' blue-eyed Ellison and I don't need to get run over any time soon.

For Harlan Ellison, the frenetic stand-up routine was just another day at work. He’s been giving the same high-energy performance for the better part of five decades now, one that combines the art of writing and the art of living into a unified product that can only be described as... Harlan Ellison (his name is, appropriately, a registered trademark.)

Actually, I had already met Harlan Ellison the way most people do: through his writing. At a very dark time in my life, I picked up a short story collection called “Angry Candy” and my life was (here’s that word again) literally changed. Stories like “Paladin of the Lost Hour” and “The Function of Dream Sleep” were seared into my consciousness and led me farther down the path to masterpieces like “The Whimper of Whipped Dogs,” “Lonelyache” and “Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans” as well as his most famous and re-printed works like “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream,” and possibly the greatest short story I have ever read, “Jeffty is Five.” Say this for the man, he sure has a knack for coming up with some great titles.

What speaks to me most in Ellison’s work is his exploration of morality in a godless universe. He is an outspoken atheist but certainly no relativist. In a world without natural guiding principles, we must create our own. In Ellison’s universe, morality does not stem from a fear of eternal damnation but from the need for men and women to treat other well. We have to take care of each other because nobody else is going to do the job for us. This sentiment is expressed beautifully and terrifyingly in “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” (talk about a hero making the ultimate sacrifice!) but also pervades much of his work. But let’s not overlook another appealing aspect of his writing, his sense of humor. Harlan is one damned funny son of a bitch. His vocal performance of his short story “I’m Looking for Kadak” is one of the most hilarious things I’ve ever heard. It also contains the unlikely pairing of the words “farkakte” and “butterfly.”

Ellison is one of the most decorated American writers of the 20^th century, but the legend of Ellison the man exceeds that of the author. The story of how a little Jew from suburban Cleveland became a big shot writer in Hollywood and elsewhere has been told and retold so many times it is impossible to separate fact from fiction which, I believe, is just fine with Harlan. 

Ellison, writing on display

When “Dreams with Sharp Teeth” opens, close friend Robin Williams grills Ellison about some of the legends surrounding him. Yes, he once mailed a dead gopher (fourth class, in the summer heat) to a publisher, but, no, he did not shove a fan down an elevator shaft. He once drove a dynamite truck and, even more daring, he once wrote an entire short story while sitting in a bookstore window in front of a crowd of gawkers. No wonder he has claimed that if he ever writes his autobiography it will be titled “Without A Net.” Harlan Ellison simply never stops. He has spent his life violating the laws of thermodynamics in every possible orifice. And that’s why he makes for a perfect documentary subject.

Director Erik Nelson avoids a dry overview of Ellison’s career and wisely turns his dynamic subject loose in front of the camera. Ellison reads from his short stories, relates personal anecdotes and launches into rants about the shortcomings of various members of his species. It doesn’t take much to work him into a state of high dudgeon. In Harlan’s words: “The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.”

Ninety minutes of pure Harlan would be more densely packed than a neutron star. Nelson alloys the splenetic performance with interviews from friends like Williams, artist Neil Gaiman and writer Peter David. We also get a brief overview of Ellison’s life from his youth in Paynesville, OH to his brief and unsuccessful stint in the Army to his early days as a writer and counter-culture figure in the '60s. There is relatively little archival footage but there are a few treats for fans, including appearances on the Tom Snyder show and a brief snippet from a 1970 college seminar. Most welcome of all is an all-too-brief tour of the fabled Ellison Wonderland, Harlan’s unique L.A. home which you can’t miss if you drive past it, believe me. Ellison is an obsessive collector of all kinds of memorabilia. He has so many books that he actually has collapsible library stack shelves the kind you have to open with a crank. Now that's just cool.

Nelson began shooting this very low-budget documentary more than 20 years ago and gradually pieced together enough footage until he had the bones of a solid feature which he then fleshed out with archival footage and interviews. The film feels all of a single piece, united by the unflagging energy of its subject. A bold creative decision to provide animated backgrounds behind Ellison as he reads from his work pays off for the most part. It is not, however, the most visually pleasing documentary you will ever see.

Harlan Ellison has the natural arrogance of a supremely talented autodidact. He does not suffer fools easily, and from his tight-rope walker’s point of view there are an awful lot of fools down there (another Ellison quote: “You are not entitled to your opinion! You are entitled to an informed opinion.”) His abrasive, unapologetic personality may alienate some viewers who don’t buy into his shtick. That’s OK. Harlan Ellison doesn’t care if you think he’s a mook. He wrote “Jeffty is Five” and you didn’t, bucko. What the hell more can you ask for? Tell me. Somebody please tell me.

Video:

The DVD is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. The interlaced transfer is adequate to the task. Image detail is mediocre and you'll notice the weaknesses more when you freeze frame the picture but it's perfectly acceptable.

Audio:

The DVD is presented in Dolby Digital Stereo. No subtitles are provided.

Extras:

A WARNING to viewers who watch this DVD late at night and don’t want to disturb you neighbors: When you make certain selections from the main menu, Harlan will shout insults at you. What, this surprises you? Anyway, dial the volume down.

The DVD is loaded with extras to warm the cockles of any Ellison enthusiast.

Don’t let the title “Pizza with Harlan Ellison and Neil Gaiman” (40 min.) fool you. It’s about Harlan Ellison sharing pizza with Nail Gaiman. Relying on the same strategy that makes the film work, Erik Nelson just points his camera at Harlan and lets him go. The best part for fans is an epilogue to the dead gopher story.

“An Evening with Sharp Teeth” (21 min.) records the documentary’s April 19, 2007 debut at the Writer’s Guild Theatre in Los Angeles. Here’s how you know that you’ve followed a director closely. In the second shot of this feature, we see the back of a man’s head. I instantly thought, “Hey, that’s Werner Herzog.” It was. Herzog, whose documentary “Encounters at the Edge of the World” was produced by Erik Nelson, was in the same room as Harlan Ellison which I must admit sets my heart aflutter. It would be silly to pick just one artist in any field, but let’s just say that Mr. Ellison and Mr. Herzog are in the running for my favorite writer and director, respectively. Harlan shows off a picture of Herzog and him and all I have to say is: “Who do I have to kill and how soon do I have to do it?” I want that picture. Real bad like. (Ed. Note: Just an hour after I posted this review back in 2009, Erik Nelson e-mailed me a nice, high-res copy of the picture. Sometimes begging works.)

The disc also includes six readings by Ellison of his work. Five of them are short excerpts: “The Glass Teat” (1 min.), “All the Lies That Are My Life” (1 min.), “The Silence” (2 min.), “The Resurgence of Miss Ankle-Strap Wedgie” (1 min.) and “The Prowler in the City at the Edge of Forever” (3 min.) 

Ellison, holding the relish

The one complete reading is a gem, “Prince Myshkin, and Hold the Relish” (12 min.) If you listen to Harlan perform “Myshkin” and you don’t laugh then you, sir, are simply an idiot.

I was holding out hope that the DVD would feature a tour of Ellison Wonderland, but I won’t complain too much.

Final Thoughts:

I’ve already had my say about the documentary. The DVD release offers some great extras though it leaves you wanting even more of Ellison’s readings. There are more available. I highly recommend the aforementioned “I’m Looking for Kadak” among others.

Also, happy birthday, Unca Harlan!