DVD Review:Norman Mailer: The American

It would probably be impossible to make an uninteresting documentary about the life of Norman Mailer, director Joe Mantegna's Norman Mailer: The American is not interesting.   It is absolutely fascinating.  Relying on a wealth of film of the never camera shy author himself interwoven with revealing commentary from wives and lovers, friends and enemies, he creates a  warts and all portrait of a complex man who at times managed to be a writer of genius, at times an egomaniacal reprobate.  For all his flaws, and there were many of them, he had the kind of personality that could infatuate some, infuriate others.  Those that loved him seemed to love him no matter what he might do; for those that hated him, he could do nothing worthwhile.

Mantegna begins with some information about Mailer's parents, his childhood, and even his early writing success with a prize winning short story while at Harvard, but the real focus of the film is the prominence that he achieved with his debut novel The Naked and the Dead, a book many people still consider his finest piece of work and his life and work until his death in 2007.  This is a man who had six wives, nine children, and who knows how many mistresses.  This is a man who managed to get a murderer freed from prison only to have him murder again, a who man stabbed his second wife and persuaded her not to press charges, a man who marched on Washington to end the Viet Nam War, and can be seen in a movie doing his best to bite off Rip Torn's ear.

There is a good deal about Mailer's writing.  "Why do I write?"  He has said: "Why did I start to write?  Because it was the only thing I was good at and I wanted to be more attractive to the girls." That's Mailer at his best, a little false modesty, a bit of a wink, and you know damn well he doesn't mean a word of it.  The critical failure of the novels he wrote after the phenomenal success of his first book left him seriously depressed.  He turned to journalism and non-fiction and in effect invented his own new genre for his reportage--History as a Novel/The Novel as History, creative non-fiction. He wrote about people and he wrote about events.  Eventually he returned to the novel, and once a again found acclaim. He won two Pulitzer Prizes and was still writing up to his death.  This is not a man who took his craft casually.

There is a good deal about his personal life.  His sexual peccadilloes are trotted out with gusto.  His brawls, both physical and intellectual, are itemized with special emphasis on the film of the fight with Torn and the contretemps with Gore Vidal on Dick Cavett's TV show.  His career as a political provocateur, from his anti-war activities to his race for mayor in New York, is illustrated.  He is shown in the context of the sweeping societal changes that were shaping the country in the latter half of the 20^th century.  The major figures and events of the period, whether the presidency of LBJ or the emergence of Muhammad Ali, are always cited to provide the background needed to understand how the times helped to make the man.

There are touching moments.  Mailer looks back on a copy of his bar mitzvah speech. His wife Adele reads from a letter he sent from the Pacific during the war.  There are moments that make you cringe.  His wife describes the crude language he used where his mother was bound to hear.  There is film of screaming quarrels with his fourth wife.  He can be witty and urbane.  He can be gross and boorish, but he can never be boring, and neither can any decent documentary of his life.  Montegna hasn't merely brought the man to the screen, he has brought him to life.

Cinema Libre's DVD runs 85 minutes.  Bonus features include the film's trailer, a gallery of letters from Mailer to his wife Adele, and some further interview material with Mailer. 

This article was first published at Blogcritics

DVD Review:Incendiary

This article was first published at Blogcritics

On February 17, 2004 the state of Texas executed Cameron Todd Willingham for the arson murder of his three children in 1991.  By that time the scientific evidence upon which Willingham had been convicted had been challenged by experts in fire science, the case had become something of a cause célèbre for anti-death penalty advocates, and perhaps most importantly it was a political football of epic proportions.  All his appeals denied, clemency, and even a 30 day stay to investigate the scientific challenges denied by hard line law and order Governor Rick Perry, Willingham ate his last meal and was executed by lethal injection. 

Incendiary, the award winning documentary directed by Steve Mims and Joe Bailey, Jr., is the disturbing account of the Willingham case and its aftermath.  Although the film comes to no absolute conclusion about the man's guilt or innocence, it makes clear that the evidence upon which he was convicted was flawed—a combination of junk science and unreliable witness testimony.  Moreover the legal representation he was afforded by the state was something less than stellar.  Though the film does leave the question of guilt open, it seems clear where the film maker's sympathies lie.  At the very least in refusing to take an objective look at the new scientific evidence the powers that be in the state of Texas failed to give the accused a fair hearing, at worst they executed an innocent man. 

The film maker's interest in the case, as they explain in an interview included as a bonus on the newly released DVD, stemmed from a 2009 article in The New Yorker by David Grann, in which he vividly takes the reader from the house fire to the execution, and introduces all of the key players.  Recognizing a good story, Mims and Bailey began their own investigation.  They managed extensive interviews with those who questioned as well as those who supported the arson allegations so that they were able to create a complementary visual account of the history of the case to that of Grann.  Then when the Texas Forensic Science Commission began to look into the case after the adoption of new standards for fire investigations by the National Fire Protection Association they were able to follow the new attempts to clear Willingham's name.  It is a story that plays like a TV forensic drama.

It has a cast of characters made for TV.  Willingham, himself, as nearly everyone interviewed acknowledges was far from a nice guy.  Indeed, he comes off much better in Grann's article than he does in the film.  Elizabeth Gilbert, a volunteer with an anti-death penalty group, who befriended him in prison, gets much more time from Grann than she does in the film.  She is interviewed but not as extensively as the two major fire scientists, more than likely because she comes across rather blandly on screen, whereas the two scientists, Lentini and Hurst, are attention getters.

The film begins with Lentini ridiculing the original forensic investigation.  He is assertive and acerbic.  He comes across as a straight talker with no tolerance for fools.  Hurst, on the other hand, has the appearance of a street person—a long unkempt grey beard, stooped and thin, he looks in need of a good meal.  Yet when he speaks, he speaks with authority, and it turns out he has the credentials to back up what he says.  He explains the science with the kind of clarity that makes it intelligible even to scientific illiterates.

The other side has its dynamos too.  David Martin, Willingham's defense attorney is adamant both about the quality of the case he made for the man as well as his belief in his guilt.  He teasingly allows that were it not for attorney client privilege, he has enough damning information to prove Willingham's guilt.  Then there is John Bradley, the district attorney appointed by Governor Perry to chair the Forensic Science Committee, who seems to be doing his best to stall the hearings.  Although he is never interviewed for the film, his contretemps with Barry Scheck lawyer for the Innocence Project makes for some real life dramatic conflict.  Later reporting seems to indicate that Bradley is changing his opinions about reconsidering scientific evidence as a result of another case.

It is hard to come away from this film feeling that justice has been served in the Willingham case.  It is almost cliché to say that the death penalty once carried out doesn't give you the opportunity to correct mistakes.  You have to get it right.  There are those that believe that the evidence that convicted Cameron Todd Willingham was flawed; there are those that believe that flawed or not he was a guilty "monster."  Justice would seem to indicate that new exculpatory evidence should at least be considered and evaluated.  This is the message of the film.  It is an important message, powerfully delivered.

TV Review: Independent Lens - Donor Unknown

Article first published as TV Review: Independent Lens Presents Donor Unknown on Blogcritics.

More than likely the first thing that will occur to many viewers of Donor Unknown, the documentary scheduled to premiere October 20^th on the PBS series Independent Lens, will be last year's Oscar nominated comic drama, The Kids Are All Right. The Hollywood film is in many respects a spiced up fictionalization of some of the very issues raised in the documentary. Children of sperm donors eager to know something about their paternity manage to discover the donor's identity and arrange to meet him with interesting results. Certainly the film embroiders upon the basic theme moving into other issues as well, nonetheless the basic theme of sperm donors and their relation to the children they father is central to both.

Donor Unknown follows the 20 year old JoEllen Marsh the daughter of a lesbian couple from Erie, Pennsylvania as she learns about her 'father,' sperm donor 150, from the profile he submitted when he began donating sperm at a sperm bank in California and then discovers an organization, the Donor Sibling Registry, that helps children of donors locate half-siblings from the same donor. Soon when she discovers a half sister, their story hits the front page of the New York Times and a gaggle of other half siblings enter the scene. Donor 150, it seems was, something of a stud in the world of sperm donation—although it may well be that he is the norm. Records it seems are not very carefully kept.

Coincidently 150 who is living the life of a Beach Bum in Venice, California happens upon a copy of the Times front page in a coffee shop. He, it turns out, is something of a Bohemian. He lives in a broken down RV with four dogs and a pigeon, animals he treats like his children. Indeed, he calls them his family. He talks a lot about spirituality, and he is a believer in some very strange conspiracy theories. He seems a pleasant enough person as he is shown in the documentary, but not necessarily someone you would want as part of your life if you were planning to live more or less conventionally. After some thought, he decides to contact the Donor Sibling Registry and make himself available to the children. Some take the opportunity, some don't. The meeting between JoEllen, who chooses to take the opportunity and her 'father' as well as some of the other children makes for some touching TV.

Perhaps most interesting are some of the moral questions raised by the film. Some of these will be available for discussion on the Independent Lens website for the show. What are the implications of reproductive services sold for profit? The sperm bank shown in the film for all its seeming professionalism seems just a mite sleazy with its "wink wink" masturbatoriums" larded with a range of audio­-visual stimulants. Should sperm donors remain anonymous? What rights do the children of donors have? What, if any, are the obligations of the donor to the children? As far as secrecy is concerned, what are the obligations of the sperm bank to the donor, to the children? As Wendy Kramer, Executive Director of the Donor Sibling Registry, and the mother of a child fathered by a sperm donor, says in the film "secrecy implies shame." Clearly these are questions that have no easy answers.

Directed by Jerry Rothwell,Donor Unknown is a sensitive exploration of some growing social issues as they plays out for one young woman as she searches for her ancestry and her family. When the director of the California sperm bank glibly announces that his organization has probably been responsible for at least 60,000 births since its inception and in ten years it will probably be responsible for 60,000 more, the size and importance of the issues are clear. While Rothwell's film doesn't provide answers, it does highlight the issues, and this it does very effectively.

TV Review: My Collection Obsession

Article first published as TV Review: My Collection Obsession on Blogcritics.

If your acquaintance with women obsessed with shoes is limited to Imelda Marcos and Carrie Bradshaw, you may want to take some time to meet Darlene Flynn on the Sunday, August 21 premiere of the TLC special, My Collection Obsession. When you're talking shoes, this is the go to lady. We're not talking about a closet filled with shoes, we're talking about a house filled not only with shoes to wear, but miniature shoes, shoe ornaments, shoe decorated knick-knacks, a shoe lamp, and as she makes ready to purchase her 15,000^th shoe related collectable, a shoe shaped planter. A certificate from the Guinness Book of Records, attests to the fact that when it comes to shoe obsession, this woman is the champ.

She is the first of three individual and one pair of obsessive collectors featured on the special. Joining her are a vacuum cleaner collecting teenager, a doll collector, and a male couple who collect Dolly Parton memorabilia. Like Darlene they all live in houses stuffed to the rafters with the objects they have collected over the years, every piece, be it a Kirby Legend vacuum, a life like breathing new born doll, or a Mae West costume Parton wore on a TV show, as prized and beloved as if it were a piece of fine art or a family heirloom passed down from generation to generation.

We meet their families, supportive for the most part, although the vacuum cleaner collector's sister has trouble avoiding rolling her eyes talking about his "weird" obsession. We follow them as they pursue their passion. Marilyn goes shopping for shoes with a doll the size of a five year old in a stroller. Kyle spends his Saturdays running around to garage sales in search of a rare Kirby or Hoover. Patrick and Harold make weekly visits to Chasing Rainbows the Parton museum in Dollywood to see if they can get something from their collection put on display. Through it all we hear them explain how important, how fulfilling their collections are to them. If they feel that there is anything odd in their behavior, they never show any embarrassment. As Kyle says at one point, there is nothing stranger about collecting vacuum cleaners than there is about collecting rocks or baseball cards. And if you think about it he's right, except it may make sense to differentiate between collecting and obsessive collecting.

My Collection Obsession makes no judgments about these people and what they do. There are no talking heads describing the psychological stresses underlying their behavior. There are no narrative voiceovers editorializing about their obsession. There is no snarky commentary by people they come in contact with. Kyle gets called upon to help people repair their machines. Patrick and Harold get serious treatment from the Chasing Rainbows curator and one hell of a surprise visit. Marilyn takes her doll to the playground and attracts a few interested children. And if Darlene is dismayed, after an appraisal, to discover that her collection may not be worth what she had thought, that dismay doesn't last very long.

This is not to say that the viewer comes away from this show without making judgments. It is nearly impossible to watch these people and not at least smirk at them. When Marilyn treats the arrival of a new doll as though she were giving birth, the viewer has to wonder. When Darlene's boyfriend serves her breakfast in the form of a shoe, some viewers might think it cute, some might cringe. When Kyle shows off his ability to identify vacuum cleaners by their sounds, the viewer might find it hard not to agree with his sister. In some sense, you really don't need a talking head to tell you that these people have a problem.

In an environment where people—celebrities and ordinary folks--are more than willing to go on TV and parade their neuroses and behavioral problems before the public, these obsessive collectors are a lot closer to normal than many. Human beings do some odd things, and if these people are not necessarily doing the oddest things, what they are doing is certainly odd enough to be interesting. If you're looking for "oddest" on the other hand, you'd probably want to be watching My Strange Addiction.