"Nobody's Business" dir. Alan Berliner Oct 22

In the documentary film “Nobody’s Business,” I was really surprised that the father, Oscar, was uninterested in his ancestry. I think ancestry is one of the most profound and complicated thing in our lives. There is so much history that with every new generation is lost. I met three of my great grandparents. My mother’s grandparents were French and didn’t speak any English. As a child, I remember playing games with my great grandfather. I remember how old he looked, I remember his big smile and his big hands. I don’t remember if I understood him. I don’t remember much more about him or my great grandmothers. They died when I was old enough to have met them and make memories with them but there is still so much about their lives I will never know. (picture: my great grandparent's- mom's side, Laurette & Lionel)

I really appreciated that Alan tried to revisit his family’s past. Maybe this is a more recent phenomena, where people are seeking to have a connection with their past. In Oscar’s interview it didn’t sound like that was something the people of the times ever really talked about. Like Oscar said, “I’m just an ordinary guy, with an ordinary life.” For him, life was just life, and the memory of other ordinary people was redundant.

What I found most interesting in the film was Alan’s reference to the Vaults in the Salt Lake City mountains. I actually decided to do some research on them and find out what they were. Here are some links:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.07/mormons.htmlons.html

http://www.lig/htplanet.com/mormons/daily/family_history/granite_mountain_eom.htm

Although there is religious connotations to the purpose of the collection, I think this is an amazing opportunity for people to find out specifics about their past. The collection as Alan says holds birth, death and marriage certificates. It has immigration and other government documents all on microfilm available for viewing by the general public. My great grandfather on my dad’s dad side (where I get my Lewis name) was actually adopted and thus the last name would be his adoptive parent’s name. I find it fascinating and unfortunate that all the records of his adoption are no longer available, because it would have a big impact on my identity. I don’t know if Canada has values similar to those in Salt Lake City but if I was researching my genealogy, these vaults would be an amazing resource I would take advantage of. I think this is why I was surprised that Oscar didn’t want to know his past.

picture: My grandpa (Arseneault/mom's side) and me, he's 83!

Alan used a lot of symbolism in his film in different ways. One way was through sound. There was the constant clicking sound that was both distracting and annoying. I would interpret this as being representative of how Oscar viewed life. He knew time was passing, he watched his eleven siblings complete their lives and he was distracted by their deaths and reminded how little time he had left. I’m guessing this made enjoying life more difficult and the thought of the past just started to annoy him because it reminded him how little time he could spend with his great granddaughter.

Alan also used visual symbolism to show his fathers frustration (the boxing match) with the questions being posed. I thought this was clever, but it also made light of how his father did feel.

To View Clips: http://www.alanberliner.com/flashdev3/viewing.html

“Tarnation,” dir. Jonathan Caouette Oct 16

The film “Tarnation” was an amazing tour-de-force of personal struggle and growth. It was one of the most moving films I had ever seen. A collaboration of home videos, recorded messages, horror film/television/commercial footage, photography and music which were constructed and edited on iMovie to create a biographical documentary of the director’s life and his relationship with his family.

I found myself summarizing the film for a lot of my friends and family. I was intrigued by Caouette’s journey and how he was able to cope with a family that was not the American Dream ideal.

In the opening scenes of the film, I felt that it was a little stagy. Jonathan and his partner, David wake up and Jonathan tells him he’s had a bad dream. That whole scene until he goes to the bathroom and starts crying looks very scripted and fake. I initially wasn’t very impressed with the film because of the staginess. However, the performance aspect of the beginning and ending scenes are representative of the director’s identity. He was a performer, an actor, even from the age of eleven. It wasn’t until Jonathan showed his ability to be a performer and show how his performances were used to understand and cope with his problems, did the film really grab me emotionally.

Overall, I liked how the film didn’t use a narrator or a voice over that told the story. I thought that Jonathan’s use of text to explain what was happening and to move the story along was really interesting and it made the viewer pay attention that much closer. I don’t know much about movie editing but I really like the sort of psychedelic spin he added to many of the scenes where 4 different screens had different things going on at once with a multitude of colours and sounds. This experience was probably Jonathan’s way of portraying the disorder he experienced called depersonalization disorder, described as a “feeling of disconnection from the body and a constant sense of unreality” (Arthur, 19) The music also played an important part in setting the tone to how the director and the other characters were feeling in the film. It was a mélange of softer as well as faster music.

In Paul Arthur’s article, “Feel the Pain: First-person docs are soothing the angst of their makers. What do they do for us?” he discusses how filmmakers are “eager to tell their own stories in feature-length treatments” (17); Similar to a therapist session but on screen. Ideally the film would create clarity for the filmmaker and help them to resolve the problems they’ve experienced throughout their lives. I agree that there has been an upsurge of films that are dominated by the voice of the filmmaker and actually portray their opinions and ideas, but I also think that this is a valuable way of getting the filmmakers message across, even if it’s a personal therapeutic message to themselves.

One of the most moving scenes in the film, is in the end when Jonathan admits that he doesn’t want to become like his mother. I know that Arthur also talks about this in his piece, but I think this is the crux of the film and the most important message Jonathan gives to himself. I think he tries to show his journey into becoming more than what his mother was. In the film you meet the grandmother and you see how her mental state has deteriorated and has led to her becoming mentally unstable, and then you see the mother in one of the final scenes (after her Lithium overdose) with the pumpkin, and she acts almost identically to the mother. It makes sense that he would draw this parallel between them, and then make a point of saying he doesn’t want to become like them.

I think overall, that this film is an important artifact and story for Jonathan to tell and remind himself of. His life wasn’t easy, and it seems like he was still able to make something out of himself (a filmmaker); his story is an inspirational one.


Citation:
Arthur, Paul. “Feel the Pain: First-person docs are soothing the angst of their makers. What do they do for us?” Film Comment. Sept/Oct 2004; 40, 5. 17-20.

“Working,” Studs Terkel Oct 9

Terkel’s documentary collaboration of interviews is a telling and descriptive look into the lives of those we usually overlook in the workspace (steelworker, farm worker, domestic workers) as well as those we idolize, worship and dream to become (actress, model, baseball player).

One entry that stood out to me the most was “Who Built the Pyramids?” The first preface is an interview with Mike Lefevre, a steelworker from “somewhere in Cicero” (xxxi). He talks about those in our everyday, the laborers, who are ignored or not given any credit for the line of work they take on. He points to the work of the Egyptian slaves who built the pyramids but are ignored when people marvel over the enormity and beauty of the project.

Lefevre talks about the hopes he has for his children, the emergence and threat technology has on his job, the difference between being a thinker and a doer and about leaving a mark on your work (so people remember you). He uses a lot of jokes and makes a lot of sincere comments about these things. Overall, he seems like a father who would like to spend more time with his kids and give them more and better opportunities than he’s had.

I appreciate his interview a lot and I connect with this entry because I belong to a family of labourers: not very educated, but very intelligent people who must use their physical strength to make their daily pay. Most of the men in my family work in some form of construction, or metal stripping while my mother & grandmother are cleaners. While I’ve been fortunate to come to university and utilize a different kind of learning (analysis, critical discussion, etc), a more valued type of learning, I can’t forget where I’ve come from and the struggles I’ve seen my family endure by having a very physically draining lifestyle. Lefevre admits, “Somebody has to do this work. If my kid ever goes to college, I just want him to have a little respect, to realize that his dad is one of those somebodies” (xxxv). I may not have to use my hands to make ends meet, but I appreciate the people who do, because they are doing the real ground work for our society, doing the work that us on our pedal stools refuse to submit ourselves to.

One of Lefevre’s most thoughtful remarks says, “If you can’t improve yourself, you improve your posterity. Otherwise life isn’t worth nothing. You might as well go back to the cave and stay there. I’m sure the first caveman who went over the hill to see what was on the other side—I don’t think he went there wholly out of curiousity. He went there because he wanted to get his son out of the cave. Just the same way I want to send my kid to college” (xxxii). Similarly to what I was saying above, my family has worked hard to push me to do more with my life, especially knowing the hardships they’ve had to endure living a difficult and hard lifestyle.

I like how Terkel connected the stories of all these people, how he gave a voice to the previously ignored and how he allowed people like Lefevre to leave a mark somewhere, where someone could remember him.