Three Thumbs Up
reviews AIDS: A News Demonstration,
James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket, & Yaaba
Festival International du Nouveau Cinéma et de la vidéo de Montréal
Montreal probably hosts more film and video festivals than any other Canadian city. At last count, the figure was over 100. Of those, about 12 major festivals continue to pursue the eyes and wallets of cinephiles and non-cinephiles alike with big brassy ad campaigns. The Festival International du Nouveau Cinéma et de la vidéo de Montréal is the oldest of this eclectic group. The 18th edition took place this year from the 19th to the 29th of October in four cinemas in the city's core. Directors Claude Chamberlain and Dimitri Epides attempted to put the festival at the vanguard of the Montreal scene. A component of that effort was the screening of high definition productions. That is the medium that purportedly contains at least five times the visual information of regular TV. It is being described as the film of the future. Yet despite the festival's commitment to new technology, screenings got off to a rock start because of (you guess it!) technical problems.
Opening with Atom Egoyan's much awaited (and over-exposed film), Speaking Parts and ending with Peter Brook's The Mahabharata, the 1989 Festival did manage to include quite a number of interesting, if not fascinating films and videos.
Opening with Atom Egoyan's much awaited (and over-exposed film), Speaking Parts and ending with Peter Brook's The Mahabharata, the 1989 Festival did manage to include quite a number of interesting, if not fascinating films and videos.
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AIDS: A News Demonstration
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The ingredients of network news coverage are all here—the standup, the cut-away, the archive footage, the expert(s), and the (objective) reporter. For anyone who has ever wanted to better understand how netowrk news manufactures consent and consutructs a mirage of objectivity, athis is the video to see. Director Bob Huff has taken a prime time news item on AIDS funding and deconstructed it. The "event"—a demonstration protecting the underfunding of AIDS research—had taken place on Wall Street (NYC) earlier that day.
The tape opens with the above item, which one assumes appears as it was broadcast, at regular speed. The female anchor for News 4 introduces the report and we cut to a woman News 4 reporter who takes the viewer to the demonstration. The news clip shows irate commuters complaining about the inconvenience (the protesters at one point block the street), police hassling the demonstrators, and the generic "AIDS policy expert"—a straight white male.
At the end of the item, the viewer sees it being rewound and then re-screened with some minor but very significant changes. Using the original reporter's voice-over describing the demonstration, Huff's rendition shows archival footage of a civil right demonstration. Police are beating the demonstrators with batons. Continuity is maintained because the visuals last no longer than the voice-over. As in the original version, this change whizzes by with just enough time for the viewer to understand what it is.
Huff uses computer-generated graphics of the Reagan administration's Star Wars plan to replace the original news item's footage of a research lab. The voice-over remains unchanged—a doctor saying the country is doing the best it can. Aside from the obvious irony, the Star Wars footage looks as if it was taken from another network news item.
In the original version the reporter intervenes at this point asking if the amount of funding already being channelled into AIDS research is not sufficient. Freezing the frame on the right-hand side of the screen, Huff puts a question on the left-hand side, "Isn't that a lot of money spent on homosexuals?"
Huff inserts other footage and alters the original voice-over in the rest of his version. It all happens so quickly—at the same speed as the original item—that I began to realize just how quickly these items go by.
In this short work, Hugg makes all his points without using a sledgehammer and without frustrating or boring viewers with a standard dogmatic critique. What is particularly laudable about AIDS: News Demonstration is that it makes connections between different struggles in both a contemporary and ahistorical context. Finally as the title suggests, the piece accurately describes how network news is a demonstration of what the mainstream media machine can do. Representation(s) in news items can be and are scripted and constructed in various ways—with new and improved biases built in before the event(s) the item attempts to inform us of. Finally, the tape ingeniously illuminates the manner in which network news pays no attention to processes. By altering the original tape, Huff creates a context for the discrimination against people living with AIDS and also for their friends and supporters—something network news almost by definition and by its structure will always fail to do.
The tape opens with the above item, which one assumes appears as it was broadcast, at regular speed. The female anchor for News 4 introduces the report and we cut to a woman News 4 reporter who takes the viewer to the demonstration. The news clip shows irate commuters complaining about the inconvenience (the protesters at one point block the street), police hassling the demonstrators, and the generic "AIDS policy expert"—a straight white male.
At the end of the item, the viewer sees it being rewound and then re-screened with some minor but very significant changes. Using the original reporter's voice-over describing the demonstration, Huff's rendition shows archival footage of a civil right demonstration. Police are beating the demonstrators with batons. Continuity is maintained because the visuals last no longer than the voice-over. As in the original version, this change whizzes by with just enough time for the viewer to understand what it is.
Huff uses computer-generated graphics of the Reagan administration's Star Wars plan to replace the original news item's footage of a research lab. The voice-over remains unchanged—a doctor saying the country is doing the best it can. Aside from the obvious irony, the Star Wars footage looks as if it was taken from another network news item.
In the original version the reporter intervenes at this point asking if the amount of funding already being channelled into AIDS research is not sufficient. Freezing the frame on the right-hand side of the screen, Huff puts a question on the left-hand side, "Isn't that a lot of money spent on homosexuals?"
Huff inserts other footage and alters the original voice-over in the rest of his version. It all happens so quickly—at the same speed as the original item—that I began to realize just how quickly these items go by.
In this short work, Hugg makes all his points without using a sledgehammer and without frustrating or boring viewers with a standard dogmatic critique. What is particularly laudable about AIDS: News Demonstration is that it makes connections between different struggles in both a contemporary and ahistorical context. Finally as the title suggests, the piece accurately describes how network news is a demonstration of what the mainstream media machine can do. Representation(s) in news items can be and are scripted and constructed in various ways—with new and improved biases built in before the event(s) the item attempts to inform us of. Finally, the tape ingeniously illuminates the manner in which network news pays no attention to processes. By altering the original tape, Huff creates a context for the discrimination against people living with AIDS and also for their friends and supporters—something network news almost by definition and by its structure will always fail to do.
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James Baldwin, a Black American gay writer died of stomach cancer in 1987. Karen Thorsen, a white American writer, originally intended to make a film focusing on Baldwin's book Remember This House. The book, which was never completed, was to be Baldwin's scrutiny of the past, an observation of the United States a couple of decades after the civil rights movement. Some of his source material was to have consisted of interviews with the children of assassinated civil rights leaders.
After absorbing the shock of Baldwin's death, Thorsen said only two possibilities remained for her—to make a film "preaching to the converted" or to make a biographical film about Baldwin's life and work. She chose the latter. James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket is the result.
Many Montrealers already familiar with the film after its recent screening on PBS waited patiently for its screening here. Both festival screenings were sold out a couple of hours before showtiime, with people outside still hoping to get in.
To the extent that one can make a film that encompasses the life of such a revered writer, the film is more or less successful, however, it suffers from a resemblance to made-for-TV documentaries, largely because of the more than liberal use of a series of talking heads.
Still, some aspects of the film establish it as a truly outstanding work. I am referring in particular to the arduous labour of the researchers. collectively they found archival footage from no less than 107 different sources in nine countries.
This footage is not only singular because of its quantity and rarity, but more importantly, because of the kind of glimpses of Balwin's life that re-present themselves to an audience that probably never dreamed these incidents could have been recorded: Baldwin on The Dick Cavet Show, Baldwin walking in a market in Turkey, Baldwin—being very camp—giving the camera a tour of one of his homes, Baldwin on his return to America. The film almost rotates around this archival footage. It's all in a film, and it is wonderful.
The remainder of the film contains scenes of the writer's extraordinary funeral, interviews with his brother David, writers Maya Angelou, William Styron, Amiri Baraka, Ishmael Reed and Yashar Kemal, painter Lucien Happersberger, entertainer Bobby Short, and his biographer David Leeming. The testimony of David Baldwin, in particular, illustrates the depth of James Baldwin's relationships with those he loved—friends, family and lovers.
For example, in a sequence remarkable for the intimacy it reveals, David Baldwin describes the agony his brother went through in writing Another Country, the novel often called his masterwork. David would gently ask him whenever he emerged from his work room how the characters were doing. His brother did not always have an encouraging response.
Upon the book's completion, James Baldwin was to meet his biographer, David Leeming. Leeming claims he met Baldwin while attending a party at Baldwin's house. He walked in, asking where James could be found. After being pointed in the right direction, Leeming entered the room. The first thing Baldwin said to him was, "It's finished, baby." Leeming smiles as he recounts the story.
Representation around Baldwin's sexual identity, and the painful experiences he had to face with regard to it, receive scant attention. In the film, interviewers of Baldwin refer to it but in no great detail. The dominant discourse of this film revolves around race. Thorsen says that at its different stages, the film was shown to different "camps." She made some changes after these screenings, but her initial concern was the response of Baldwin's mother to the film. Mrs. Baldwin liked the final result.
After absorbing the shock of Baldwin's death, Thorsen said only two possibilities remained for her—to make a film "preaching to the converted" or to make a biographical film about Baldwin's life and work. She chose the latter. James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket is the result.
Many Montrealers already familiar with the film after its recent screening on PBS waited patiently for its screening here. Both festival screenings were sold out a couple of hours before showtiime, with people outside still hoping to get in.
To the extent that one can make a film that encompasses the life of such a revered writer, the film is more or less successful, however, it suffers from a resemblance to made-for-TV documentaries, largely because of the more than liberal use of a series of talking heads.
Still, some aspects of the film establish it as a truly outstanding work. I am referring in particular to the arduous labour of the researchers. collectively they found archival footage from no less than 107 different sources in nine countries.
This footage is not only singular because of its quantity and rarity, but more importantly, because of the kind of glimpses of Balwin's life that re-present themselves to an audience that probably never dreamed these incidents could have been recorded: Baldwin on The Dick Cavet Show, Baldwin walking in a market in Turkey, Baldwin—being very camp—giving the camera a tour of one of his homes, Baldwin on his return to America. The film almost rotates around this archival footage. It's all in a film, and it is wonderful.
The remainder of the film contains scenes of the writer's extraordinary funeral, interviews with his brother David, writers Maya Angelou, William Styron, Amiri Baraka, Ishmael Reed and Yashar Kemal, painter Lucien Happersberger, entertainer Bobby Short, and his biographer David Leeming. The testimony of David Baldwin, in particular, illustrates the depth of James Baldwin's relationships with those he loved—friends, family and lovers.
For example, in a sequence remarkable for the intimacy it reveals, David Baldwin describes the agony his brother went through in writing Another Country, the novel often called his masterwork. David would gently ask him whenever he emerged from his work room how the characters were doing. His brother did not always have an encouraging response.
Upon the book's completion, James Baldwin was to meet his biographer, David Leeming. Leeming claims he met Baldwin while attending a party at Baldwin's house. He walked in, asking where James could be found. After being pointed in the right direction, Leeming entered the room. The first thing Baldwin said to him was, "It's finished, baby." Leeming smiles as he recounts the story.
Representation around Baldwin's sexual identity, and the painful experiences he had to face with regard to it, receive scant attention. In the film, interviewers of Baldwin refer to it but in no great detail. The dominant discourse of this film revolves around race. Thorsen says that at its different stages, the film was shown to different "camps." She made some changes after these screenings, but her initial concern was the response of Baldwin's mother to the film. Mrs. Baldwin liked the final result.
Yaaba
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Part of the film's accomplishment comes through the use of so-called "non-professional" actors and actresses. A number of them are memebers of director Idriss Ouedraogo's own family.
The relationships between the principal characters—Sana, Bila, Bila's mother, and Nopoko—draw the viewer into the film and show the complexities of life in a small village in Burkina Faso. Sana's influence on Bila is revealed to us almost like a song in which the melody remains the same but all other elements are in a state o flux. From the beginning we know that Bila has taken a great risk in befriending Sana and that risk continues to increase.
When Nopoko develops a fever that threatens to kill her, and the medicines of the local healers do not cure her, Bila sets off in search of Sana. It is only with her cure that Nopoko recovers.
Born in 1954 in what was then Upper Volta, now Burkina Faso, director Idrissa Ouedraogo has directed several short films and the feature, Yam Daabo (1986). In committing Yaaba's story to film, Ouedraogo does not stumble into the rut of showing only positive images. Other narratives wend their way through the film, exposing varied levels and types of oppression. For example, the expulsion of a woman and her children from her husband's home, and the manifest hypocrisy of the villagers with regard to their united condemnation of Sana. Magnificently shot and paced. Yaaba is constructed to allow the viewer to savour every moment of the film as it unfolds.
Published in Fuse Magazine, Spring 1990
The relationships between the principal characters—Sana, Bila, Bila's mother, and Nopoko—draw the viewer into the film and show the complexities of life in a small village in Burkina Faso. Sana's influence on Bila is revealed to us almost like a song in which the melody remains the same but all other elements are in a state o flux. From the beginning we know that Bila has taken a great risk in befriending Sana and that risk continues to increase.
When Nopoko develops a fever that threatens to kill her, and the medicines of the local healers do not cure her, Bila sets off in search of Sana. It is only with her cure that Nopoko recovers.
Born in 1954 in what was then Upper Volta, now Burkina Faso, director Idrissa Ouedraogo has directed several short films and the feature, Yam Daabo (1986). In committing Yaaba's story to film, Ouedraogo does not stumble into the rut of showing only positive images. Other narratives wend their way through the film, exposing varied levels and types of oppression. For example, the expulsion of a woman and her children from her husband's home, and the manifest hypocrisy of the villagers with regard to their united condemnation of Sana. Magnificently shot and paced. Yaaba is constructed to allow the viewer to savour every moment of the film as it unfolds.
Published in Fuse Magazine, Spring 1990
