La splendeur des McElwee

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.

Seen at NYFF. Ross McElwee has perfected a sui generis form of personal-confession, free-associating, voiced-over "documentary" (if that's the word) that isn't quite like anything else. (Comparisons will doubtless be made with Michael Moore, but the difference is obvious: Moore hammers his points home, while McElwee tries to pretend that he doesn't have any to make.) Five years, he tells us, in the making, the film mines his native North Carolina for musings on tabacco, its ravages, its sweet consolations, and the fact that his family lost its fortunes to the Duke clan and then made back a more modest one by treating the victims of the industry that that clan had perfected. Oh, and that he had a father and has a son he whom he loved and loves beyond all telling. And that there was a Michael Curtiz/Gary Cooper movie, "Bright Leaf", that may or may not be about his family, but that we all ought to go check out anyway, if only to see Cooper interact on screen with his then lover Patricia Neal, who turns up in the now-doughty flesh the better to frustrate McElwee in his attempts to validate his romantic notions, another theme. North Carolina is the main character here, or rather McElwee's complex relationship with it and feelings about it and about his own now-Yankeeized family. Charm and yarns, poignant reflections on time lost and time regained and how the home movies he and his family seem to have made with Friedmanesque compulsion may or may not interact with these, some pure and wonderful comedy on film itself, all come together in a rich stew.

If you expect movies to be "about" anything in particular, this film will doubtless leave you scratching your head in frustration and bafflement. If you can accept a movie that is a beautifully paced (quick/elegiac/quick) romp by a quirky mind with one of the sharpest eyes around, you'll have a great time. The festival audience (many of whom, unlike me, seemed to know what to expect) certainly did.

PS: In the Q&A, McElwee pointed out the obvious: that this film was actually made on film, not from digitized pixels. He wryly dismissed those who applauded this affirmation as flacks for Kodak, but the reason for the applause is real and obvious. What a joy it is once again to actually see detail in an image, to see faces in full and changing expression instead of in soupy facsimile. And to see real colors (and what an eye for color McElwee has) in all their changing subtlety, instead of vague planes of yellow or puce.

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.

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

A documentary full of selfpity in which the director gives us a look in his family history and their connection to the tobacco industry. It has it's funny moments but tends to drag a little. It helps if you've seen BRIGHT LEAF by Michael Curtiz, but how many people have?