Just like in my other fifty-two posts in this series, I want to take a second to single out the highlights of my recent film viewing. Most of the films I have been glad to see but only very few have stayed with me. This series is my filter for those and my hope is one or two will be good to you as well.
Zachary Treitz's Men Go To Battle
The kind of imaginative lo-fi work that makes me rethink my normal skepticism around low budget digital filmmaking. It feels like the cinematic equivalent to something Will Oldham might author. It is quiet and earthy and comfortable just being pure and unadorned. The acting is tremendous, and its restraint from using much light or music refreshing. As strong of an American micro-indy as I have seen since Blue Ruin.
Frederick Wiseman's Law and Order
Aside from Wiseman's complete formal discipline, what might be most impressive about his work are the moments he is able to capture. Whether it is the angry father at the end or the belligerent juvenile early on, the characters he finds in the scenes he shows us feel so raw, so real, and so rich it is like we have never seen humans going through real emotions on film before. It is such pure cinema, Wiseman's work, and such a successful approach. For anyone that wants to see moments deflected exactly as the artist found them, without any fluff and without any fear that the sheer moment would have enough heft or interest on its own, these are hours full of reward.
Kasper Collins' I Called Him Morgan
An unusually absorbing doc that not only gives us Morgan's greatness but also gives us other dimensions like a deeper understanding of jazz as black classical music or of the human capacity to forgive even in the midst of great anger. Collins' most impressive achievement might be his ability to take a paucity of Morgan footage and supplement it with shots of skylines and nature without making it all feel like hollow re-enactments.
Peter Kunhardt's King in the Wilderness
Kunhardt's style is nothing remarkable and the music can be overdone and cloying at times, but Kunhardt reveals sides of King's life that adds dimensions to my understanding of him. Most remarkable to me was the idea of non-violence as the more radical response, as compared to retaliation, to hatred and racism. According to King, "...if you're really going to be free, you have to overcome the love of wealth and the fear of death."
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