In the spirit of that rushed sensation of looking over the Wisconsin Film Festival schedule for the first time, I’m giving myself only a few hours to write this from first draft to posting. I’ve been preparing for the last few days (see our Festival coverage overview), and I think that Jake, Taylor and I can provide you with some good templates to approach the schedule. But now this morning I can sense everyone hitting “refresh” at wifilmfest.org every few minutes waiting to get their first glance at the lineup (the Festival Facebook page says it should be live later this morning). So what are my preliminary reactions to the independent film lineup at the 2014 Wisconsin Film Festival?
The programming seems strong once again this year, as expected. But as I go through some highlights I will also note some ruts that seem to be emerging from year to year. That shouldn’t skew my response to the films themselves when I get around to seeing them, or yours when you see them. But the ruts are worth noting.
Joe (David Gordon Green)»
David Gordon Green has had an interesting career since his appearance at the 2001 Festival with George Washington. That year I chaperoned him to local media appearances, and interestingly he was excited at the time about the possibility of directing the Fat Albert feature. His subsequent career has indeed alternated between more personal independent projects (All the Real Girls, Prince Avalanche) and mainstream commercial projects (Pineapple Express, Your Highness, and episodes of Eastbound and Down). This year the Festival will screen his new feature, Joe, which also marks the return of Nicholas Cage to smaller, more personal filmmaking. Richard Corliss at Time concluded at the Toronto Film Festival: “Joe may not be quite the equal of Green’s earlier films. But it’s nicely judged and, like Joe’s bad dreams, can’t be ignored.” When Green flexes all of his filmmaking muscles, he’s a great visual storyteller, so I’m looking forward to seeing how this collaboration with Cage works out. Green’s previous feature, Prince Avalanche, is currently streaming on Netflix.
Happy Christmas (Joe Swanberg)»
Back in the days of Hannah Takes The Stairs and in the 15 minutes before filmmakers started distancing themselves from the term mumblecore, I found myself defending Joe Swanberg in many conversations. There’s no doubt that he has had an impact on American independent filmmaking both directly with his own diverse films and indirectly with Hannah‘s star Greta Gerwig crossing over into mainstream film roles. I enjoyed All the Light in the Sky at last year’s Festival (his films are now far less navel-gazing), and I look forward to Happy Christmas this year. But, like the quote attributed to Groucho Marx, “I love my cigar, but I take it out of my mouth every once in a while.” When you include the UW Cinematheque and WUD Film sneak of Drinking Buddies last October, that’s a lot of screen time dedicated to one of many independent filmmakers out there. Still, if you missed all of that attention, catch up with Drinking Buddies on Netflix to get ready for Happy Christmas.
The Sacrament (Ti West)»
I have to admit, I’ve been negligent with Ti West. I’ve had several opportunities to catch up with his films at the Cucalorus Film Festival in Wilmington, North Carolina and elsewhere, but simply haven’t done so. Not being a horror fan is probably the biggest obstacle, but I know that the films are more than worthwhile. So as penance in the next few days I will catch up with both The House of the Devil and The Innkeepers, both are streaming on Netflix. And if I haven’t had my fill of Joe Swanberg, I’ll even look at V/H/S (you really can’t escape him can you?). Oh, wait…Swanberg is in The Sacrament, too?
Guy Lodge for Variety concluded at the Venice Film Festival that “Purists might insist [The Sacrament] isn’t horror in the strictest sense, though this slow-burning investigation of unseemly goings-on at a rural Christian commune is frightening in any genre language.” I’m in.
Visitors (Godfrey Reggio)»
It has been a while since we have heard from Reggio, best known for his breakthrough 1982 film, Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance. His most recent feature, Naqoyqatsi: Life as War in 2002, was not particularly well received (48% rating at Rotten Tomatoes). Visitors examines our relationship with technology, and does so in only 74 shots across its 87 minute running time. More straightforward descriptions of the film call it a stream of human faces, so I’m wondering if the effect will be not unlike Andy Warhol Screen Tests. Reggio is scheduled to attend the Wisconsin Film Festival screenings. Once again, Reggio has collaborated with composer Philip Glass for the film’s score, and music has been central to the success of their previous collaborations. In the New York Times, Stephen Holden concludes that “the word for the film is transfixing.” This seems like a film well suited for my advice in the overview: allow the images and sounds do what they are trying to do rather than force them to meet your expectations. Meanwhile, you can rent Koyaanisqatsi on Amazon Instant Video.
The Congress (Ari Foleman)»
I thought that Foleman’s animated-documentary (if we can call it that) Waltz with Bashir was completely fascinating and in the end devastating. He returns with a combination of live-action and animation loosely based on the novel Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem (the author of Solaris). An out-of-work actress (Robin Wright) accepts a job to preserve her image for future Hollywood. At the Cannes Film Festival, Damon Wise concluded for Empire Magazine that The Congress was “an extraordinary and very touching film that exists somewhere in the twilight zone between the existential brainteasers of Charlie Kaufman and the psychedelic wonders of Hayao Miyazaki.” Waltz with Bashir is currently streaming for free on Amazon Prime Instant Video.
Cheatin’ (Bill Plympton)»
Animator Bill Plympton’s shorts have been a staple of the festival circuit for many years. The last time I saw him at a screening in Wilmington, NC, he talked about the ways in which new computer animation software was now able to let him keep his distinct hand-drawn style, but execute his ideas much faster. Despite this, Cheatin’ is Plympton’s first feature in five years, since the well received Idiots and Angels in 2008. Dennis Harvey at Variety claims that Cheatin’ is “one of [Plympton’s] best longform toons, an energetic romp less dependent on grotesquerie than usual (which is not to say that quality is absent), and with distinctive, freewheeling visual imagination on giddy display.” To get a good sense of that visual imagination, you can stream Plympton’s Idiots and Angels on Netflix Watch Instantly.
Rat Pack Rat (Todd Rohal)»
I was a fan of Rohal’s 2005 feature, The Guatemalan Handshake, which showcased his unique sense of humor and visual style. Rohal has been less successful with the critics for his subsequent features, The Catechism Cataclysm (2011, with Steve Little from Eastbound and Down), and an apparent commercial crossover attempt, Nature Calls (2012, with Patton Oswalt, Johnny Knoxville and Rob Riggle). Apparently Rat Pack Rat started as a Kickstarter-funded project after actor Eddie Rouse (from David Gordon Green’s George Washington—are we keeping track of all of the connections?) agreed to appear as a Sammy Davis, Jr. impersonator who is hired on Craigslist for a boy’s birthday party. The result is a 19-minute short that won a Sundance Film Festival Jury Award for Unique Vision. Rohal will curate a selection of some of his favorite recent short films for the Wisconsin Film Festival screening, which he is also scheduled to attend. You can stream Rohal’s features The Catechism Cataclysm and Nature Calls on Netflix Watch Instantly. The Guatemalan Handshake is available on the streaming service, Fandor.
Experimental Programming:
Nathaniel Dorsky»
Jodie Mack»
Ben Rivers/Ben Russell»
We at the Madison Film Forum will have more to say about the experimental programming this year, but for now I just want to suggest that despite thinking that the choices are fine on their own terms, I can’t help but think that the experimental programs are falling into somewhat stale patterns. Back in the early days of the Festival, it was somewhat difficult to program experimental films due to the proximity of the dates for the great Ann Arbor Film Festival. Now I can’t imagine there are many conflicts at all. More on that topic in the coming days.
If you’re going to focus on one big name each year (following up on Phil Solomon last year), Nathaniel Dorsky is a great choice. He is one of the finest cinematographers in the experimental tradition, and his contemplative approach to the image transforms his films into meditations. It is unlikely that we will get to preview is 16mm prints, but his films are also relatively hard to review conventionally for a general readership, they need to be experienced.
I’ve come to admire the work of Ben Rivers, and I truly enjoyed his feature Two Years at Sea when it played at the Festival in 2012 (J.J. Murphy wrote about the screening on his blog if you missed it). In what I can only call a “senior moment,” in the preliminary posting of this survey, I had forgotten that I programmed Ben Russell’s Black and White Trypps No. 3 for the Wisconsin Film Festival in 2009, but I am less familiar with Russell’s longer-form work. Eric Kohn at IndieWire wrote that in their collaboration, A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness, “Rivers and Russell have certainly cast a spell that sticks.” I’m looking forward to reviewing the film for Isthmus and The Daily Page.
A SPELL TO WARD OFF THE DARKNESS (TRAILER) from Ben Russell on Vimeo.
Last but not least, I will finally catch up with the work of animator Jodie Mack at this year’s Festival. She is a London-born animator who studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and now teaches at Dartmouth College. Samples of her work can be seen on her Vimeo page.
No Kill Shelter v 1.0 from Jodie Mack on Vimeo.
This video documents a solo gallery exhibit, which occurred in March 2013 at Dartmouth College’s Strauss Gallery: No Kill Shelter. This ongoing project features an array of objects born from interests in materials, waste, and old technology: screensavers. Animated loops inspired by mesmerizing computer graphics play on discarded monitors and computers hand decoupaged with wrapping paper. Highlighting rapid technological obsolescence and the role of abstract animation in everyday life, the screensavers question the preciousness and fetishization of “antiquated” technology and the relationship between fine art, design and craft.
Well, I said that I’d give myself just a few hours this morning to write this post, but I’m just finishing up shy of 1:00 pm. I hope you find these thoughts useful, and please feel free to share some of your picks in the comments below or on our discussion forum.