Mr. Hoover and I

For the most part, the documentaries of Emile De Antonio tend to be abstract and withdrawn from any sense of personal expression or feeling. Point of Order and In the Year of the Pig may have dialectic meanings that show the radical left wing politics of De Antonio, but the viewer never actually sees the soul of De himself. After a brilliant and subversive career, De died in 1989, but he first completed his final act to the play of his life- Mr. Hoover and I. Mr. Hoover and I is an autobiography, there is no way around that, but it is a different form of autobiography. It is a biography of images and explanations all told behind the backdrop of the life of J.Edgar Hoover and why not. It is Hoover and the establishment that he represents that De fought for so many years against. Although De's life had taken many different shapes- from art patron to radical filmmaker- one thing always haunted him- the spectre of the establishment, an establishment that personified itself through Hoover. Where the attacks of In the Year of the Pig and Point of Order arise from an intellectual sense of montage- the attacks in Hoover are direct. This is De telling us what he believes, not relying on a montage of found army footage. Hoover presents the side of De we never see- the man- the man who loves his wife (wives), has his haircut, likes to poke fun at himself ("anyone who knows me, knows that the only time I empty my wallet is at a bar" on charges that he donated money to Soviet causes), and most of all is a many of passion for what he believes in. Knowing that De passed away only months after finishing Hoover, it almost brings tears to the eyes of harden De fans for it wasn't until he left us that we got to see the real Emile De Antonio.

My review was written in March 1990 after a screening at Public Theater in Greenwich Village.

Emile DeAntonio's final film is a thought-provoking form of "meta-film", the type of rumination that preoccupied Orson Welles in his later work. It's a must for fans of the late artist and anyone interested in the cutting edge of documentaries.

Basically consisting of DeAntonio addressing the camera with a feisty recounting of his memoirs (coming off oddly like another late rebel, I. F. Stone), film moves beyond talking head format into other realms signaled by guest star John Cage. The avant-garde composer is a close friend of DeAntonio's and he's seen cooking in the kitchen and simultaneously discussing his methods of using random processes in his music.

DeAnonio takes this to heart with editing reminiscent not only of Cage's structuralism but also William Burroughs', as scenes alternate in clockwork yet seemingly random fashion. The director also keeps calling attention to the filmmaking process, and uses the whir of the camera motor as part of his method.

Aim is to debunk myths about FBI major domo J. Edgar Hoover and to fill in, often with rancor, blanks about this shadowy figure. DeAntonio talks with authority, but there is never any pretense about "documentary reality". It's a given this is one man's highly opinionated view of history.

DeAntonio used the Freedom of Information Act to get tons of government files about himself, but points out emphatically that this somewhat useful gimmick has an important loophole: many key documents are routinely suppressed (by clever misfiling) to circumvent the public's right to know. He discusses other cases, particularly the FBI's persecution and dirty tricks against the late Jean Seberg, to make his point. Film however, is mainly a personal history.

Made last year, much of the film's pronouncements not only ring true but have a prophetic value given subsequent world events. It also has a cutting to the heart of the matter quality, especially when DeAntonio discusses censorship in the land of the free as illustrated with his own works.