Coming to DVD next Tuesday, March 22: THE WINDMILL MOVIE
A film more than twenty-five years in the making, THE WINDMILL MOVIE began as an autobiographical project by filmmaker Richard P Rogers, but was left unfinished upon his death in 2001. His former student, photographer Alexander Olch, was brought on to construct a film out of Rogers footage, and the result, his feature debut, had its world premiere at the New York Film Festival in 2008 before going on to a theatrical run at Film Forum in the summer of 2009.
Given this background, THE WINDMILL MOVIE is nothing if not unusual – an autobiographical documentary created by someone else, using a hybrid of fiction and non-fiction to tell Rogers’ story – that of a skilled filmmaker who was nonetheless tortured by unfulfilled success, who carefully documented his life yet still managed to stop short of truly revealing himself. With the help of Rogers’ wife, photographer Susan Meiselas, Olch skillfully found a way to shape the hundreds of hours of footage into an intriguing, poignant, and evocative portrait – one that Rogers might frustratingly have been unable to create, but likely would have approved of. At the same time, the film offers a metacommentary into the construction of fact vs fiction, making it essential viewing for other documentary filmmakers.
what (not) to doc 