Our friend Bob had seen the opening screening of Ed Radtke’s The Speed of Life and talked all week that it was absolutely wonderful and that it was his favorite film of the festival (which he was uncharacteristically referring to as a “fabulous festival” starting on about Day 4).  Although it had not been on my “dance card” at the start of the festival, I decided to see it largely based on Bob’s glowing account.  Several of us even decided to confront Bob to tell him that what he had told us had convinced us to see the film and that we were going to hold him “personally responsible” should our own satisfaction turn out to be wanting.  Though Bob—in typical Bob-fashion—retorted that something must be wrong with us should we fail to like The Speed of Life, Bob’s culpability for so many folks seeing the film was confirmed when festival programmer Alan Sanborn asked how many in the screening were there based on Bob’s recommendation and several raised their hands.  Despite our implicit threat, we later admitted to Bob that he was “off the hook.”  The Speed of Life is an engaging little film, but it definitely takes awhile to get its “ducks in a row.”  One festivalgoer mentioned he considered leaving the screening as it didn’t seem to be going anywhere, but noted it was worth-while to stick around.  The film has a lot of seemingly disparate and somewhat disturbing parts that it eventually ties together.  It has some important lessons to impart about what we see and how we see.  This is less about what our retinas take in and much more about what we truly observe and understand.  I don’t know how many people liked The Speed of Life as well as Bob did, but even those of us who didn’t appreciate it as much as he did had to admit that he was onto something.    

The final film of MIFF’s tribute to Arthur Penn was his most famous.  Bonnie and Clyde (1967) won two Oscars (Best Supporting Actress to Estelle Parsons and Best Cinematography to Burnett Guffey) and was nominated for a total of 10 (Best Film, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Costumes, Best Actor, Best Actress, and two for Best Supporting Actor).  This film has long been touted as a breakthrough film that changed the movie business.  At 13 years old, I’m pretty sure that I was not aware of the transition then underway in Hollywood.  I do recall the controversy of its sympathetic portrayal of bank robbers and murderers.  How the film was perceived depended on one’s age since it tapped directly into the widening chasm as to how the Vietnam War, popular music, hairstyles, drugs, civil rights, sex, and obeying rules were seen by the over/under 30 crowds. The film is famous for its brutal ending with Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) and Clyde Barrow(Warren Beatty) silently flailing with the impact of each bullet wound in a roadside ambush.  The fury of the final shootout and the vivid wounds inflicted are in stark contrast to the quick and almost bloodless dispatches in The Left-Handed Gun including a victim blown completely out of his boot by a shotgun blast.  Penn’s dramatic technique of cutting the sound during violent sequences has since been oft-repeated including by himself in both Little Big Man and Night Moves.  This scene is effective, but not quite as powerful 40+ years later.  The film is notable for its subtext of sexuality sublimated into violence.  Belying the sun shining overhead, it was a dark day in 1931 when the bored and brazen Texas hottie spied an ex-con petty criminal sizing up her mother’s car.  Their inability to fully articulate their attraction into sexual expression dooms them and has dire consequences for those affected by their robberies and murders.  Along the way, it is a wild ride—often literally with vintage automobiles in hot pursuit both on- and off-road—presenting the infamous couple the way that they may have seen themselves.  There are several lighthearted scenes and even much of the not so good-natured action is accompanied by playful banjo music.  Two sequences show banks oppressing folks down-on-their-luck during the Depression and the robbers’ sympathy for those experiencing hard times.  However, the public perception of the Barrow Gang or anyone knowingly helping them based on shared antipathy toward banks is not shown.  The gang seems pretty much on their own for food and shelter.  The gang sometimes has shootouts with police while at a hideout.  One could conclude that suspicions of the gang’s whereabouts were given to the police, but little insight is provided on the efforts to bring them to justice. The film boasts several quality performances beginning with the Oscar-nominated leads Dunaway and Beatty.  Estelle Parsons earns her Oscar for her tragicomic portrayal of a law-abiding preacher’s daughter whose life is irrevocably changed when her husband Buck (Gene Hackman) impulsively fires back during a police raid.  Hackman, earning the first of his five Oscar nominations, is terrific as Clyde’s brother and Michael J. Pollard, who specialized in roles as a troubled youth, received an Oscar nomination as the gang’s diver and mechanic C. W. Moss.  Character actors Denver Pyle (as Texas Ranger Frank Hamer) and Dub Taylor (as C. W.’s father Ivan) sparkle in two small, but critical roles.  Gene Wilder, in his first movie role, goes on an afternoon romp with the gang until Bonnie learns he is an undertaker.  Penn’s film may not stand out today as the bellwether of a film industry in transition but regardless it still holds up as a compelling and remarkable filmmaking.

For the Love of Movies’ title does say it all for why film festivals exist and why people go to them.  The film is about that subset of people who are both cinephiles and write critiques of the films: film critics.  This film is a natural for the festival circuit even though a film about film critics seems vaguely transgressive of the way things should be.   This is a little like news reporters and journalist not just presenting the news—but being the news.  OK, these film critics do seem to be reveling in the attention and not strangely sheepish like the newspaper people whose fights with management over wages and benefits as if how business is conducted in the vital fourth estate should not be newsworthy.  Of course, film critics are in the midst of those fights and several have become casualties of them.  These battles are mentioned and may have provided some of the impetus for making this film, but the film is a general history of film criticism which developed somewhat haphazardly in the wake of the emergence of motion pictures as a means of communication and an artform.  While this film is quite accessible to the casual filmgoer, it is a must-see for people like me who not only see lots of movies each year, but dabble in critiquing them.  The small Waterville Opera House audience included several people who either professionally or as an amateur (like me) offer film criticism to the public.  Although it does name the names of pioneering film critics who first offered opinions of what filmmakers were producing a hundred years ago, the film spends much more time with contemporary film critics—both for insight on the development of film criticism and on their work today.  The film adopts the historian’s technique of artificially dividing up the story of film criticism into discrete periods from 1907 to the present.  While this process is helpful in providing signposts for the transitions that are underway, film criticism—like all human endeavors—is part of a flow of human activity that resists being defined and catalogued in one way today and another way tomorrow.  The film does introduce us to those most influential in establishing the critical consensus and public perception of films during each period. There is a life cycle to the career of influential arbiters of public taste.  Young (or at least younger) critics challenge the opinions offered by the preceding generation of critics, having won the arguments or at least better articulated an understanding of the public’s appreciation of key films the young critics supplant the older ones, and then they face younger challengers who suggest that their views have ossified and they are no longer in touch with public sentiment.  Tribalism emerges as well with some influential critics scholarly codifying their work and recruiting burgeoning film critics to their causes.  The general public may have been oblivious, but Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris and their followers engaged in a long-running battle for the hearts and minds of individual movie-goers.  The film does address how film criticism is provided to the public.  Television emerged as an outlet in the mid-70’s with dueling Chicago critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert.  The program they founded lives on even though Gene has passed away and Roger’s speaking voice—if not his criticism—has been silenced by cancer surgery.  Other critics followed their wake in expanding from print to television.  Many of the newer voices today offer film criticism—like me—on the internet.  The film features excerpts from many notable movies of the last hundred years.  MIFF audiences have recently been treated to a surprising number of them.  Film noirs The Big Combo (last year) and Detour (this year) were featured as well as the film that several in the audience had just finished watching—Bonnie and Clyde.  This film definitely helped change the guard differentiating those who were in touch with the new generation coming of age and those who were not.  In addition to excerpts from a variety of films, the film uses snippets of countless interviews with film critics as well as a number of directors and actors whose work has been dissected by critics.  There is archive footage of some of yesteryear’s influential critics and, where necessary, still pictures have been used.  Patricia Clarkson’s literate, yet casual narration helps to tie it all together.  While the oft-heard criticism of too much reliance on “talking heads” certainly could be leveled at this film, it isn’t always that the heads just talk that’s the problem—it’s what they say.  Here the critics provide insight, wit, and charm that should sustain audience interest.  This was especially true for an audience self-selected for both passion for movies and the desire to talk and write about them.