SIFF 2012 #5, #6, #7 - Paul Williams Still Alive, Around The World, Animation for Adults
So, yesterday - on of course a beautiful sunny day - was my big three show marathon SIFF day at the Uptown.
Paul Williams Still Alive
I tell people that when I think of the music of 1970s, I think of Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen, and Tom Waits. But that's bullshit. Consciousness of that came much later. No, the soundtrack of my childhood was written by Paul Williams. Yes, I had a Carpenters collection as a boy (deal with it). I knew many of his songs, and like the filmmaker, I knew him from his many TV appearances. He was on the Muppets so much I thought he WAS a Muppet. And, also like the filmmaker, I assumed he was dead.
Actually, he's quite well preserved, still performs (at very humble venues, but he clearly appreciates his audience, and, at 20+ years older than me, he has more hair. He went through a period of drugs and alcohol in the 1980s, which dimmed his star significantly (though I don't think that's the only reason - but I'll get to that) and had come so far from that state that he's now a certified addiction councilor.
This is a strange film, because the filmmaker is not a documentarian, but a Paul Williams fan (he's also a filmmaker of commercials and a few features). This has him go easy on the subject, though not completely. But that's OK; I've got no reason to see the man tortured or "taken down". Sure, the director is curious about the arc of his life, but I think is too concerned about "how it felt" to fall rather than the how. And to Williams' great credit, he still has his great sense of humor, which is an excellent survival tool, and he's looking forward, not looking back. And the director makes his hapless position a central feature of the film, making it much funnier (and I did love his rumination after visiting a place on the State Department's warning list, that maybe the other places weren't as bad either).
For me, a much more interesting question is the whole nature of fame in the 1970s. It was a very weird time. Television was still messing with what used to be fame and glamor, but the fame funnel was still much narrower than what it is today. Fame tried to look classy but just looked like tinsel. But it was only on a few channels. It's a long way from Paul Williams' big break and Snookie, though. Many more channels and means of delivery have made the kind of ubiquity that Williams enjoyed in the 1970s impossible, and it would have been impossible to sustain even if he lived like Mitt Romney or Pat Boone.
Now, THAT would be a fascinating documentary - the change in fame from the 1970s to today.
Around the World
I must say I was somewhat disappointed by this collection. The first was just a filmed version of an essay by Matthew Modine about Jesus, property, politics, and wealth. It was a sermon, basically, and it's not even like the ideas were that original. I think actors and celebrities have as much right to an opinion as anyone else, but they don't have any more right. There was a very quick time-lapse gender-idenity piece based in old-school Bollywood. And then there were two Scandinavian shorts, and two based in East Africa. The Scandinavians were about subjects I really don't need to be reminded of - the Iceland film's about unemployment and economic collapse around the 2008 banking crisis there (and I have little sympathy for someone who won't take the nation's generous unemployment benefits), and the Danish film involves a boy trying to resurrect his dead granddad by sending dead animals into space with paper balloons. Good Times. Yeah, tell me more about death and unemployment. But the East African films were better and more hopeful. Ironic, as their situations were worse. This is especially true in "Asad", set in Somalia but made in South Africa, about a boy who doesn't want to be a pirate, but a fisherman. And he makes a very strange catch.
Animation for Adults
This collection was more satisfying, but it was also a mixed bag. Some were simple to the point of pointlessness (time lapse Washington State fair neon?) and some were incomprehensible (I'm sure the Holocaust was in the Estonian short somewhere, but I'm not sure what was going on), some were inventive but a bit disgusting (the food one), there was short Plymptoon, and there were some that shone. Like "Ambiogensis", and "Caldera", two CGI pieces, and "The Monster of Nix" a fantasy with the voice of Tom Waits as evil (so of course I liked). And funniest of all was "Mulvar is Correct Candidate!", a satire of hyperactive campaign commercials in Bizarro-world speak: "Mulvar is Green Candidate! Mulvar also come in 200 OTHER colors!!".
Paul Williams Still Alive
I tell people that when I think of the music of 1970s, I think of Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen, and Tom Waits. But that's bullshit. Consciousness of that came much later. No, the soundtrack of my childhood was written by Paul Williams. Yes, I had a Carpenters collection as a boy (deal with it). I knew many of his songs, and like the filmmaker, I knew him from his many TV appearances. He was on the Muppets so much I thought he WAS a Muppet. And, also like the filmmaker, I assumed he was dead.
Actually, he's quite well preserved, still performs (at very humble venues, but he clearly appreciates his audience, and, at 20+ years older than me, he has more hair. He went through a period of drugs and alcohol in the 1980s, which dimmed his star significantly (though I don't think that's the only reason - but I'll get to that) and had come so far from that state that he's now a certified addiction councilor.
This is a strange film, because the filmmaker is not a documentarian, but a Paul Williams fan (he's also a filmmaker of commercials and a few features). This has him go easy on the subject, though not completely. But that's OK; I've got no reason to see the man tortured or "taken down". Sure, the director is curious about the arc of his life, but I think is too concerned about "how it felt" to fall rather than the how. And to Williams' great credit, he still has his great sense of humor, which is an excellent survival tool, and he's looking forward, not looking back. And the director makes his hapless position a central feature of the film, making it much funnier (and I did love his rumination after visiting a place on the State Department's warning list, that maybe the other places weren't as bad either).
For me, a much more interesting question is the whole nature of fame in the 1970s. It was a very weird time. Television was still messing with what used to be fame and glamor, but the fame funnel was still much narrower than what it is today. Fame tried to look classy but just looked like tinsel. But it was only on a few channels. It's a long way from Paul Williams' big break and Snookie, though. Many more channels and means of delivery have made the kind of ubiquity that Williams enjoyed in the 1970s impossible, and it would have been impossible to sustain even if he lived like Mitt Romney or Pat Boone.
Now, THAT would be a fascinating documentary - the change in fame from the 1970s to today.
Around the World
I must say I was somewhat disappointed by this collection. The first was just a filmed version of an essay by Matthew Modine about Jesus, property, politics, and wealth. It was a sermon, basically, and it's not even like the ideas were that original. I think actors and celebrities have as much right to an opinion as anyone else, but they don't have any more right. There was a very quick time-lapse gender-idenity piece based in old-school Bollywood. And then there were two Scandinavian shorts, and two based in East Africa. The Scandinavians were about subjects I really don't need to be reminded of - the Iceland film's about unemployment and economic collapse around the 2008 banking crisis there (and I have little sympathy for someone who won't take the nation's generous unemployment benefits), and the Danish film involves a boy trying to resurrect his dead granddad by sending dead animals into space with paper balloons. Good Times. Yeah, tell me more about death and unemployment. But the East African films were better and more hopeful. Ironic, as their situations were worse. This is especially true in "Asad", set in Somalia but made in South Africa, about a boy who doesn't want to be a pirate, but a fisherman. And he makes a very strange catch.
Animation for Adults
This collection was more satisfying, but it was also a mixed bag. Some were simple to the point of pointlessness (time lapse Washington State fair neon?) and some were incomprehensible (I'm sure the Holocaust was in the Estonian short somewhere, but I'm not sure what was going on), some were inventive but a bit disgusting (the food one), there was short Plymptoon, and there were some that shone. Like "Ambiogensis", and "Caldera", two CGI pieces, and "The Monster of Nix" a fantasy with the voice of Tom Waits as evil (so of course I liked). And funniest of all was "Mulvar is Correct Candidate!", a satire of hyperactive campaign commercials in Bizarro-world speak: "Mulvar is Green Candidate! Mulvar also come in 200 OTHER colors!!".