Coming to theatres today, Wednesday, July 26:
ESCAPES
Director:
Michael Almereyda
Premiere:
BAMcinemaFest 2016
Select Festivals:
Rotterdam, San Francisco (both as WIP)
About:
An unconventional biography of occasional actor and BLADE RUNNER screenwriter Hampton Fancher.
On the surface, Fancher would seem to be an unlikely subject for a documentary profile, except perhaps one wholly focused on BLADE RUNNER – and even then, likely primarily suited to that film’s admirers. That’s decidedly not what Almereyda has crafted here, which instead in many ways looks beyond Fancher himself to explore the escapism of storytelling, and, specifically, of Hollywood. His leading man is still front and center, but it’s largely through the images he was part of that his outrageous, perhaps not wholly believable, biography is revealed. Almereyda alternates sections of biography, conveyed through terse screencards, with long stretches of anecdotes – usually involving famous women he seduced –
delivered in voiceover by his subject, and illustrated via clips from the various television shows and obscure films in which he appeared. If at first seemingly too clever by half, the technique soon underscores Fancher’s presence as a not completely sympathetic or reliable narrator, but one who still seems authentically representative of the mythmaking of his industry.
what (not) to doc 