La splendeur des McElwee

A sensitive treatment of the complex relationship between people, economics and a health hazard; it gives an accurate shapshot of the region (tobacco road), its views, the concerns of its people. The locations are real. The people are real. The accents are real. View this film and you are home.

Ross McElwee consistently entertains us with his unique sense of humor as he explores the possible connections between his great grandfather and the main character in Foster FitzSimons' novel "Bright Leaf." Anyone who is a lover of movies, history, and appreciates a good yarn will enjoy this film. If you are interested in the South, this film, along with McElwee's classic "Sherman's March," will give you significant insights into this region.

I loved McElwee's unique documentary odyssey SHERMAN'S MARCH (1986), so I was curious about his other work. This time he follows the trail of his great-grandfather, who was in the tobacco business. McElwee's family legend has it that the Hollywood melodrama BRIGHT LEAF(1950) by Michael Curtiz, starring Gary Cooper as a 19th century tobacco grower is based on filmmaker Ross McElwee's great-grandfather, who created the Bull Durham brand. Using this legacy as a jumping off point, McElwee reaches back to his roots in this wry, witty rumination on the history of American tobacco and the myth of cinema.

Easily the funniest moment in the film is when noted (and dreaded) film theorist, and historian Vladar Petric, assaults the poor McElwee, while he's being driven round the block in a wheelchair. Long live the dreaded Vladar Petric!

Not a complete success; sometimes McElwee's odyssey becomes dreary when he tracks down some his father's patients, who was a doctor and treated many tobacco-related illnesses. His reflections on family and the relationship with his son are somewhat self-indulgent at times, but definitely has its moments with an honest look at The South, Hollywood and his family's relation with tobacco.

Camera Obscura --- 7/10

Bright Leaves is Ross McElwee at his best, part discovery, part diary, filled with humor, and overflowing with humanity. The basic premise, that he is searching for a possible connection between the Michael Curtiz/Gary Cooper/Patricia Neal/Lauren Bacall film 'Bright Leaf' and his own family history is fascinating but merely a starting point for a film that discovers its layers as it goes. Set in North Carolina, the home of bright leaf tobacco, he traces the story passed down through generations of the battle for tobacco supremacy between McElwees and the Dukes. The latter become the multi millionaires of tobacco, while the MacElwees were hypothetically shut out of a possible tobacco fortune, taking on lives as doctors, filmmakers, and in the case of his 2nd cousin – a curator of rare film prints and posters. The film is a colorful portrait of family, friends, and plain folks, filled with serendipitous plot moments, permeated with the wonder of living and being human.

While his initial 'search' seeks parallels between his ancestry and the story in film Bright Leaf , McElwee widens into the larger paradox of tobacco farming as a way of life vs. the deleterious effects of smoking.

Yet the heart of the film is in the smaller details and his supporting characters. McElwee has a remarkable genius for weaving what seems to be a discursive collection of real people into a film tapestry that meditates on work, love, hope, charity, the passage of time, growing up, family, mortality and more. His deadpan narration is at once humorous and ruminative. The writing leaps about pulling the ends together, considering ideas, speculating. His choices for subjects move from cousins, friends, past acquaintances to home movies and remarkably poignant moments with his son (who closes the film in a wonderful final sequence). There is a hilarious scene with film historian (former Harvard colleague) Vlada Petric who does an outrageous monologue riffing on both the McElwee and Curtiz films. Bright Leaves then becomes about film-making and memory itself.

Like the great documentary classics of Cinema Verite we discover so much in the small moments and passing images that the film stays with you long after you leave the theater. It should be seen on the big screen, as it is all shot on film and not video and the images resonate like film. Get to it before you can only see it on video. The bigheartedness of his vision deserves to be seen large.

While it is still a personal documentary from McElwee, the master of the form, "Bright Leaves" is a film that speaks far beyond the personal. As McElwee films across the south, it seems everyone-- smoker or nonsmoker-- has a relationship with tobacco. The most amazing thing about the film is the filmmaker's even handedness and understanding for the pull that cigarette smoking has on his subjects, even though the filmmaker himself has never had a tobacco habit to peak of. Given Michael Moore's work and other popular documentaries of the day, the expectation is that "Bright Leaves" would have a stern and condemning view of the tobacco industry. On the contrary, he gives humorous insight on the age-old habit. McElwee's writing, as found in his narration, is incredibly poetic as it rolls along the blue hills of North Carolina. Even weeks later, I think of that last sequence of shots, the tanker of tobacco heading off to far lands, the shots of his son, and understand why I myself, like so many, have this attraction to smoking, or what McElwee calls the urge to give pause to time, and likens to his own filmmaking and photography.

The most how genius moment features Vlada Petric, and McElwee's long standing side character, Charlene, is still a gift. The film really does stick with you for a long, long time, and deserves lots of exposure and great distribution.

It was about 15 years ago that I first saw Ross McElwee's quasi-autobiographical documentary about his quest to trace General Sherman's unsuccessful campaign through the South during the Civil War. "Sherman's March" was a film which showed the delightful disconnect between McElwee's memories of vestigial Southern culture, with the man he had become. Just as the American South exemplifies the Sublime to the Ridiculous, McElwee's ostensible journey to follow the trail of Sherman's March was really an excuse to visit old girlfriends and childhood memories along the way.

"Bright Leaves" is so good a follow up to McElwee's earlier film about his search to understand his Southern roots that, rather than inviting a comparison with "Sherman's March," it simply picks up his story with a new quest. This time it's his search to understand the history of North Carolina tobacco farming, which was also a part of his family's history three generations before.

The film is at least two hours long, but not one extraneous frame is included. In McElwee's typical style, he presents us with a meandering, quiet, thoughtful and extremely funny unfolding of the tobacco story, and his signature pacing perfectly highlights the layers and layers of meaning he wants to get across.

As a Northerner and unashamed Yankee who has lived in the South for 13 years (which is 12 years too long), I can vouch that McElwee's films have just as much value for those of us who lack the DNA required to understand the South. His films are not just for born and bred Southerners who see themselves as special members of a unique and proudly eccentric group.

On a practical level, "Bright Leaves" may be the best anti-smoking film ever made, just as "Supersize Me" was the most convincing argument about the dangers of fast food. I highly recommend you take your kids to see it, too.