recapping last saturday's walker event: Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then

Saturday was the final night in the Walker’s “Expanding The Frame” series, which saw a combination of live music and sound effects supplementing the viewing experience of Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then.  The movie tells the true story of one man’s attempt to save the life of his terminally ill wife, by building a house to God.  It was shot as a live-action stop motion movie, with an original score composed by the filmmaker, Brent Green.

To expand the cinema experience, the audio track was removed (except for the dialogue), and the film was presented with live sounds.  Green himself performed live narration throughout the movie, as well as sang and played guitar in the 6-member band.  The accompaniment was a type of folksy americana music; fitting of a movie set in Tennessee.  It wasn’t a perfect set, as the narration and the music were occasionally out-of-sync with the story.  While it’s not often one experiences this type of imperfection at the movies, it made the cinematic environment feel less manufactured than most other film experiences, which was refreshing.

Most exciting to watch was the foley artist providing real-time sound effects for the movie.  Footsteps on dirt, brushstrokes on glass, and other usually unnoticed sounds were all made more pronounced, making for a more immersive experience.  The sound effects were slightly cartoonish in their excessiveness, which worked well in conjunction with the quasi animated style of the picture.

There were unfortunately a few hiccups in the showing.  The blu-ray was damaged and initially wouldn’t play the climax of the film, resulting in 10 additional minutes of song and story from the band while staff attended to the problem.  For a frontman who doesn’t do Q&A’s and keeps his back to the audience for the entirety of the performance, Green handled the delay well enough.  This kind of misfire could be disheartening, especially if one’s not accustomed to the non-traditional cinema experience, but having a live band present only helped in this instance.

Due to this mishap, the audience was treated to an extra song, an extra story, and, after the film, we were treated to another movie, this time a short stop motion animation piece about Santa Claus.  I had a harder time following this story (maybe cause I couldn’t tell the difference between the scarecrow character and Santa Claus), but it was a nice surprise, as the low-budget animation fit well with this less manufactured, more organic feel to the evening.  All in all, these mishaps are certainly unintentional consequences of expanding the frame, but they enhance the experience in ways happy accidents do.

The Kids Grow Up: a recap of last friday's q&a

IFP-MN and The Film Society brought filmmaker Doug Block to St Anthony last Friday for a screening of his latest work The Kids Grow Up.  The film is a story about parenthood, following Doug’s own struggles to accept his daughter Lucy's eventual departure for college.  The story starts at the beginning of Lucy's senior year of high school, and, through old home movies and interviews, we witness the father-daughter bond first hand.

Not surprisingly, the final product becomes something other than what the director initially intended.  Instead of a loving portrait of family bonds, the movie becomes a critical look at attachment in the era of the helicopter parent.  This transformation in story is in the audience's best interest; it keeps the movie from being narcissistic, or at least distractingly so.  Lucy becomes less of a main character, and more of a figure through which Doug grapples with aging and unresolved issues with his father.

During the Q&A that followed the film, it seemed unclear if Doug fully understood this transformation, or, more specifically, understood the extent to which his presence took center stage in the movie.  Doug casually lamented his daughter’s unwillingness to participate in similar discussions and Q&A sessions; he wanted the star present to field questions of character development and motivation.  This was a little startling.  He appeared set on viewing himself as filmmaker first, instead of the figure best positioned to answer the types of questions asked of a film's main character.

To be sure, the number of filmmakers in the audience (the screening was part of a monthly documentarian gathering) helped steer the discussion toward technical and production questions.  But the most telling part about how Doug viewed his role in the film was in the bonus screening of a DVD extra.  Shortly after completing the film, Doug filmed his wife and daughter's reaction to it.  Their thoughts were in keeping with what they had shared throughout the course of the movie: they were critical and suspicious of his desire to show first and foremost the father-daughter connection.  In spite of this, he still felt the need to get more story from his supporting cast.  For both his family and the audience, it becomes clear by the film's end that the real emotional draw and the force driving the narrative comes from the man behind the camera.

This movie is a fairly selfish one, but it contains an appeal in how easily relatable it is, if not for the intriguing questions posed about the often complicated and messy documentary process.  Doug's unwitting turn as the film’s main character only adds to its charm.  This combination of naivete and unpretentiousness demand more feeling than thought from its audience (and its director, to an extent), which in no way is meant to take anything away from its power as a moving and intimate portrait of a father, son and husband.