Category Archives: Film

Coming to theatres today, Wednesday, August 10: AN ART THAT NATURE MAKES: THE WORK OF ROSAMOND PURCELL

Molly Bernstein’s portrait of a nature-focused photographer had its world premiere at DOC NYC last year. Other screenings have included Washington DC’s Environmental, Cleveland, and Maine, among other fests.

I previously wrote about the film for DOC NYC’s program, saying:
Finding unexpected beauty in the overlooked, discarded, and decayed, photographer Rosamond Purcell has developed a body of work that has garnered international acclaim, fruitful collaborations with writers such as Stephen Jay Gould, and admirers like Errol Morris. Bernstein details Purcell’s fascination with the natural world – from a mastodon tooth to a hydrocephalic skull – offering insight into her unique way of recontextualizing objects both ordinary and strange into sometimes disturbing but always breathtaking visual studies.

Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, August 9: THE MILLION DOLLAR DUCK

Brian Golden Davis’ look at the annual Federal Duck Stamp Competition made its debut at Slamdance earlier this year, where it won both jury and audience awards. Further festival stops included Salem, Telluride Mountainfilm, San Francisco Doc, and Omaha, among other events.

Davis’ likeable film focuses on the unique contest, where artists vie for the chance for their work to be reproduced for the government’s wetland preservation program – the only juried arts competition run by the federal government. While there is no cash prize, past winners have scored lucrative licensing deals, lending the doc its take-notice title. After providing a brief history of the stamp, and how it developed into an art competition, Davis hews close to competition doc conventions, profiling several artists who are taking their shot, noting that in such a specialized contest with a relatively small pool of entrants, an individual’s chances of winning are more within reach. Subjects include newbies and past winners alike, including a former champion who represents one of three brothers who have dominated the competition in past years, a full-time artist hoping to provide for his young family, and even an outsider to the community who rankles its traditionalist members by using unconventional materials like sequins in his entries. Demonstrating their artistic process, Davis follows them from field research to execution, sometimes taking more than a year to fine tune there duck portraits, and onto the convivial two-day competition, as contenders react to their work being scored and sweat it out until the final results.

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, August 9: WOMEN HE’S UNDRESSED

Gilliam Armstrong’s tribute to an acclaimed Hollywood costume designer made its bow at Sydney last year. Additional fest play included DOC NYC, Toronto, Mill Valley, Chicago, Hong Kong, Minneapolis-St Paul, and Seattle, among other events.

Armstrong’s elusive subject is Orry George Kelly, a fellow Australian who made a name for himself in Hollywood as Orry-Kelly, designing costumes for countless classic pictures. While his work is well-remembered and lauded – he won Academy Awards for SOME LIKE IT HOT, LES GIRLS, and AN AMERICAN IN PARIS – he himself is largely forgotten. Faced with a dearth of archival material featuring her protagonist, Armstrong opts for an audacious solution: casting an actor to embody Orry-Kelly in deliberately over-the-top, theatrical settings. As this avatar relates the designer’s life story, the director uses clips from his many films, as well as interviews with several notables – from actresses like Angela Lansbury and Jane Fonda, to fellow costume designers such as Ann Roth, and critics like Leonard Maltin. In the process, this affectionate film pulls back the curtain on old Hollywood, with a particular contemplation of what Orry-Kelly’s experiences as a closeted gay man in a very different time might have been like.

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, August 9: KOKO: THE GORILLA WHO TALKS

Jonathan Taylor’s profile of a long-running human/simian communication experiment had its premiere on British television earlier this year. It made its stateside debut last week on PBS.

I previously wrote about the doc here,

Coming to HBO tonight, Monday, August 8: HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT

Kent Jones’ revisitation of a legendary interview debuted at Cannes last year. It went on to screen at DOC NYC, Telluride, Deauville, Toronto, San Sebastian, London, Mill Valley, Tallgrass, Chicago, AFI Fest, Tallinn Black Nights, and Denver, among others.

I previously wrote about the doc here,

Coming to theatres today, Friday, August 5: OLYMPIC PRIDE, AMERICAN PREJUDICE

Deborah Riley Draper’s look at the experiences of African American athletes at the 1936 Olympics made its bow at Los Angeles earlier this Summer. The doc also screened at the American Black Film Festival and the recently wrapped Traverse City Film Festival.

In 1936, just three years into the Nazi regime, Germany hosted the Olympic Games, and saw it as an propagandistic opportunity to take to the world stage and prove Aryan superiority. As popular memory would have it, Hitler’s plan was foiled by one pioneering athlete: African-American track-and-field wonder Jesse Owens, emblematic of America’s melting pot. Draper’s film serves as a corrective to this simplistic and partial history, turning her attention to the other seventeen African-American athletes who also traveled to Berlin to compete for Team USA. Importantly, the film is more than an argument to celebrate their long-forgotten achievements, as notable as they were; instead it contextualizes their participation in the Olympics within a still racially segregated America and which turned its collective back on the champions upon their return. While fairly conventional in its approach, the doc incorporates revealing archival footage as well as audio interviews with some of the athletes, as none is still surviving. Draper successfully conveys the controversies at play in the lead-up and throughout the controversial Games, which the US came close to boycotting; the Olympians’ surprising welcome reception in the Olympic Village; and the sad fates that befell many back home, decades before the struggle for Civil Rights firmly took hold.