Notfilm

The only thing that's clear from this film is that the narrator loves to hear himself talk. Another reviewer calls this film pretentious. That's being kind. The title card calling his film "A Kino-Essay" is just the beginning of this self indulgent jerk fest. "Blaahh blahh I'm so smart I'll do all the talking because I'm a horrible filmmaker and my kino-essay is a mess". God I'm wasting my life watching and writing about this. WTF am I doing? If you watch this, bring a pillow and a bag of heroin so you kill the pain and nod off.

I give this film 10 stars for efforts to create (from found audio & video) a glimpse into two important individuals in american culture. I subtract 5 stars for the final product that drags us through such a vapid documentary. This film might be an example of what people in several decades would experience if attempting to interpret the thoughts and meanings of a singular tweet of a current notable luminary of 2015. Probably has tremendous importance to someone, somewhere, at some time but it is lost on the masses.

Anybody interested in Samuel Beckett, Buster Keaton or simply literature and/or cinema will want to watch and possess this 2-disc set. Made by film restorer Ross Lipman, Notfilm is an extensive and intensive documentary about the production in 1964 New York of the short movie, Film, Beckett's only foray into the Seventh Art. Via a series of accidental, but seemingly fated, events, the mantle of leading and almost only actor in Film fell on the shoulders of Keaton, then poor in both funds and health. By a twist of irony straight out of Borges or Kafka, Keaton famous for his impassive face was required by Beckett's screenplay to keep that face out of shot for almost the entirety of the movie.

Lipman's documentary contains interviews with some of the principals of the 1964 production; archive material, including out-takes, and tapes of production meetings involving Beckett, director Alan Schneider and cinematographer Boris Kaufman; interviews with other relevant figures, especially actor James Karen who both appeared briefly in Film and had been instrumental in recruiting Keaton, actress Billie Whitelaw famed for her interpretations of Beckett's stage roles, and Beckett's biographer James Knowlson.

For me, two personal highlights of the DVDs are the sound of Beckett's rarely recorded voice in the production meeting tapes, higher pitched than one might have expected; and the interviews with a frail but still luminous Whitelaw. One sweetly sentimental postscript to the 1964 shoot was that it resulted in an acclaimed appearance by Keaton at the Cannes Film Festival, his first at such an event, and only a few months before his death.

Strictly speaking, one of the two discs is the actual documentary Notfilm; the other is bonus material; but both are of equal interest and essential viewing. The producer is Milestone Film & Video (who, in parallel have also issued a restored version of Film itself).

The Plot. NOTFILM is a feature-length experimental essay on FILM -- its author Samuel Beckett, its star Buster Keaton, its production and its philosophical implications -- utilizing additional outtakes, never before heard audio recordings of the production meetings, and other rare archival elements.

Wow what a pretentious load of garbage. Jerky Lipman narrative about nothing. That goes on and on with no direction for over 2 hours. This is a 20 minute movie expanded into a sleep fest.

Interviews with 900 year old clowns who remember nothing. This movie is a waste of video.

Ross Lipman's documentary offers itself as a 'kino-essay' on FILM, the fabulous collaboration between Samuel Beckett as writer and Buster Keaton as performer. Lipman noted the absurdity of producing a two-hour movie about a 20-minute movie, the ridiculous idea of a piece of art about art and not life. Yet, despite the storied nature of the collaborators and the people interviewed and caught on film for this film, the ultimate point of this work seems to be a contemplation of Beckett's work and what he was trying to accomplish. In Lipman's view -- or at least my interpretation of what his interpretation is -- is that Beckett's works are contemplations of the futility of life and and the nothingness that circles its little 0.

As such, it's a cogent and penetrating analysis of the creative process that Beckett went through, a partial listing of his chosen symbols offers a fulsome work about a major artist. Whether you enjoy his work -- in any sense of the word -- or, like me at a Magritte exhibit exhibit with a friend, think it's boring to see the contents of your own mind on the walls of the Museum of Modern Art or its screening rooms -- is up to you.