DAVID HOLZMAN’S DIARY

image from DAVID HOLZMAN’S DIARY

Q&A with L.M. Kit Carson

Buy Tickets

This landmark work blending fiction and reality made a deep impression on the 1970s generation of filmmakers. STF is pleased to show this rare big screen appearance, accompanied by a Q&A with the L.M. Kit Carson - aka David Holzman - who went on to have an eclectic career including credits as the screenwriter of PARIS, TEXAS and executive producer of Wes Anderson’s breakthrough BOTTLE ROCKET.

Here’s an excerpt from the New York Times review, published when the film was shown in 1973:

“Life as a work of art”—at least once a decade that ancient concept seduces some members of yet another generation, and inspires them to hash up their lives in the name of truth or beauty. Jim McBride’s “David Holzman’s Diary,” a totally delightful satire on “the blubber about cinéma vérité,” mocks those ghastly reels from the nineteen-sixties, when various film makers immortalized themselves or their friends by trying and failing to be spontaneous….

Holzman, an earnest young Godard-hound, decides to film his life in order to understand it—and only succeeds in ruining it. As a voyeur, a gentle intruder into other people’s lives, he can’t understand that the filming makes his subjects feel self-conscious, or that “reality” is altered by the presence of his camera and his tape recorder and his lavalier mike, which he calls his “friends.”
...

“Diary” was made in 1967, and time has served it very well. We get a pungent flash on the past when a radio announces the numbers killed in the Newark riots, or refers to “the new Israel-Egyptian cease-fire,” or quotes the Pentagon on the probable increase of American forces in Vietnam next year. But aside from politics, that period now seems a rather innocent one in retrospect, and the character of David Holzman (admirably played by L. M. Kit Carson) distills the eager naiveté that accompanied the zest for technology, deliberate inarticulation and the mistrust of words, the vibes and the hoaxes and all the lighter put-ons of 1967….

Director: Jim McBride
Running time: 74 minutes
Release date: 1967
Screened: WINTER 2010 March 16, 2010 8:00 pm





Tell a friend about this film






Please enter the word you see in the image below:



Upcoming Screenings

Sep 20: THE HOUSE OF STEINBRENNER

image from THE HOUSE OF STEINBRENNER by Barbara Kopple
STF pre-season MONDAY SPECIAL (Season passes now on sale at early bird rate through Thurs. Sept. 16; Individual tickets go on sale Fri. Sept. 17, subject to availability) Love them or hate them, ...
Get More info or Buy Tickets »

Sep 28: MARWENCOL

image from MARWENCOL by Jeff Malmberg
STF Fall Season Opening Night (Season passes now on sale at early bird rate through Thurs. Sept. 16; Individual tickets go on sale later in Sept.) STF kicks off its fall season with MARWENCOL, ...
Get More info or Buy Tickets »

Oct 5: AMERICAN SPLENDOR

image from AMERICAN SPLENDOR by Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini
(Season passes now on sale at early bird rate through Thurs. Sept. 16; Individual tickets go on sale later in Sept.) STF pays tribute to Harvey Pekar, who recently died, with this special screening ...
Get More info or Buy Tickets »

Oct 12: ON COAL RIVER

image from ON COAL RIVER by Francine Cavanaugh & Adams Wood
ON COAL RIVER takes viewers on a gripping emotional journey into the Coal River Valley of West Virginia, where longtime local residents begin to uncover the toxic effects of America’s increased ...
Get More info or Buy Tickets »

Oct 19: THE CANAL STREET MADAM

image from THE CANAL STREET MADAM by Cameron Yates
Until an FBI bust upended her life, Jeanette Maier was a successful New Orleans madam. Her discreet clientele included a number of powerful, high-ranking politicians. The ensuing very public trial - ...
Get More info or Buy Tickets »

Oct 26: TAKING ON THE KENNEDYS

image from TAKING ON THE KENNEDYS by Joshua Seftel
“A film that would be mistaken for a Robert Altman political satire if it weren’t absolutely and horribly true.” —USA TODAY When Kevin Vigilante took on Patrick Kennedy for a seat in the U.S. House ...
Get More info or Buy Tickets »

Nov 2: WO AI NI MOMMY (I LOVE YOU MOMMY)

image from WO AI NI MOMMY (I LOVE YOU MOMMY) by Stephanie Wang-Breal
In presenting WO AI NI MOMMY with the Sterling Award for Best US Feature this past June, the jury at Silverdocs noted: “The film dives so deeply into its story that the filmmaker’s hands disappear. ...
Get More info or Buy Tickets »

Nov 9: WAR DON DON

image from WAR DON DON by Rebecca Richman Cohen
Profiled in Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces in Independent Film as an “up-and-comer poised to shape the next generation of independent film”, Rebecca Richman Cohen won Special Jury at SXSW and the ...
Get More info or Buy Tickets »

Nov 16: 12TH & DELAWARE

image from 12TH & DELAWARE by Heidi Ewing & Rachel Grady
Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, the filmmaking team behind the 2006 Oscar-nominated doc JESUS CAMP, take us on another controversial journey with 12TH & DELAWARE.  Description from Sundance 2010 ...
Get More info or Buy Tickets »

Nov 23: MARLENE

image from MARLENE by Maximilian Schell
Director Maximilian Schell got the reclusive Marlene Dietrich to agree to appear in this documentary only on the stipulation that she not be photographed as she looked today. Instead, we only hear ...
Get More info or Buy Tickets »

Nov 30: SURVIVING HITLER: A LOVE STORY

image from SURVIVING HITLER: A LOVE STORY by John-Keith Wasson
Winner of the Inspiration Award at the 2010 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival As a teenager in Nazi Germany, Jutta is shocked to discover she is Jewish. She joins the German resistance and meets ...
Get More info or Buy Tickets »