Following the 1867 arrest on lunacy charges of Joshua Norton, the self-proclaimed Emperor of the United States, the Daily Alta California newspaper responded: “The Emperor Norton has never shed blood. He has robbed no one, and despoiled no country. And that, gentlemen, is a hell of a lot more than can be said for anyone else in the king line.” Jody Shapiro, the director of How to Start Your Own Country, makes a solid case in his film that these days, there are at least a few other rulers who could join Norton’s ranks. A series of profiles of those people eccentric—or brave—enough to start their own “micronations,” the film makes the implicit argument that the state ultimately derives its power from the people, in either their acquiescence or their willingness to be governed. The discussion over what grants a government its legitimacy has come front and center since Shapiro finished his film in 2010, following the revolutions of the Arab Spring/Summer. Amid that violence and turmoil, How to Start Your Own Country is a great reminder that the establishment of some countries can be peaceful, and even funny. Following the screening Stranger Than Fiction Artistic Director Thom Powers spoke with Shapiro; Erwin Strauss, the author of the book on which the film was based; producer Denis Seguin; and film subject Gregory Green. Click “Read more” below for the Q&A.
[Photo: From left, author Erwin Strauss and filmmaker Jody Shapiro, courtesy of Simon Luethi]
Although she is perhaps best known for her Oscar-nominated 2002 film Daughter From Danang, director and producer Gail Dolgin created a body of work that spanned generations and continents, comfortably combined the large issues and with the narratives of individuals. Thematically, Dolgin’s work embraces those people entrenched in an ongoing struggle to rectify the perceived injustices of the world. Raised in the suburban enclave of Great Neck in Long Island, Dolgin came of age during the socially turbulent 1960s, and her work was clearly forever shaped by the social justice issues at the fore of youth culture during that time. On Tuesday Dolgin’s family, friends and colleagues gathered to celebrate her work and her life, following her passing in October 2010 from breast cancer. A tribute to Gail edited by Ken Schneider was screened, along with excerpts from two Dolgin-directed films, Daughter from Danang and Summer of Love. Also shown in its entirety was Dolgin’s last work, the short film The Barber of Birmingham, which she directed with Robin Fryday. Afterwards, friends took the stage to share their memories of Dolgin. Click “Read more” below.
What first struck me while viewing Marc Singer’s film Dark Days are the touches that mark it as of its period—cars, the way passersby wear their hats, subtle changes in the sonic texture of the city—while the struggle of its subjects still feels very modern. If you’re broke, the future doesn’t change much. The daily grind of survival remains the same.
Survival is the main action in this film, a survey of lives lived underground in Amtrak tunnels in the mid-90s. (While the film was released in 2000, Singer says shooting finished in 1996.) The tunnel residents open their homes to the camera and discuss their home improvement projects in their shanties like any other homesteader or renovator. As above, life goes on with the locals going about chores and errands, gathering up for bull sessions about pets, past lives, security and the various hustles that keep them alive on the outside of the formal economy.
Shot on high speed black and white stock, the images are contrasty and thick grained, a style that Singer brings above-ground whenever a talking head comments on the situation, in a nice bit of image equality. These intrusions of the above-ground world are rare. Amtrak trains with their bright lights and clean lines look like interlopers when they rush through the frame. Singer mostly alternates between fly on the wall intimacy and scenes that look shot from a sniper’s distance, isolating figures at the far end of a long zoom.
Singer says he first heard of the tunnels as part of New York’s street mythology, a place that the homeless he met referred to like a den of monsters. He heard, “They eat people down there.” So
naturally, he had to check it out, soon moving into a shack down there among his eventual subjects, who he later enlisted as his crew. “I made a lot of friends and wanted to get some of them out,” he says. Having no idea how to make a film, Singer stumbled through the process with a mixture of extraordinary good luck and hard-headed perseverance. At times during editing, the money ran out and Singer was back on the street or staying on a couch with someone from the tunnels who’d made it into housing. At one point Singer walked away from $750,000 from a cable network who wanted a recut with more drugs and violence for their male 18-25 demographic. “What attracted me to [the people in the tunnel] is that they made the very best out of a bad situation. If they didn’t quit, I couldn’t quit,” he says.
Dark Days stands as the only film Marc Singer has made. After it’s initial success, he found a variety of commercial projects, but the sticking point always was being told by higher ups what sort of film he should be making. “I know what I’m good at… and I’m not good at that.”
Oscar-winner Alex Gibney’s latest doc, The Last Gladiators, opens with a close-up of hockey enforcer Chris Nilan’s scarred, broken hands. In a matter-of-fact voiceover, Nilan systematically ticks through the injuries his fleshy mitts saw over the course of his career, hammering home the casual relationship the former Montreal Canadien developed with violence early in life. The role of enforcer is unique in the world of U.S. professional sports, lacking an analog in any of the other major professional leagues. Charged with provoking violence to deter the game plan of their opponents, or to protect the interests of star players on their own team, enforcers are a rare breed, and it could be argued that Nilan is their beau ideal. But the lifestyle of being a hired gun on the ice clearly takes its toll on the psyches of these men. There’s an eerie parallel between the enforcers of the NHL and soldiers at war. Both are trained to cultivate their most aggressive character traits, thereby improving their chances of survival in their respective environments. But neither is taught how to reintegrate into wider society when the fighting is over, maybe because no one knows how. Following the screening, Stranger Than Fiction Artistic Director Thom Powers spoke with director Alex Gibney and producer Larry Weitzman. Click “Read more” below for the Q&A.
[Photo courtesy of Jigsaw Productions]
STF is having a special eight-week fall season that kicks off next Tues. Sept. 27 and runs through Nov. 22 (note – we skip a week on Nov. 8 for DOC NYC). Early-bird season passes are available through Sept. 27 and cost $80 ($60 for IFC members). We hope you join us!
Full line-up below:
THE LAST GLADIATORS (2011)
FALL SEASON OPENING NIGHT – Tues. Sept. 27 @ 8pm
Q&A with director Alex Gibney
Following the 1867 arrest on lunacy charges of Joshua Norton, the self-proclaimed Emperor of the United States, the Daily Alta California newspaper responded: “The Emperor Norton has never shed blood. He has robbed no one, and despoiled no country. And that, gentlemen, is a hell of a lot more than can be said for anyone else in the king line.” Jody Shapiro, the director of How to Start Your Own Country, makes a solid case in his film that these days, there are at least a few other rulers who could join Norton’s ranks. A series of profiles of those people eccentric—or brave—enough to start their own “micronations,” the film makes the implicit argument that the state ultimately derives its power from the people, in either their acquiescence or their willingness to be governed. The discussion over what grants a government its legitimacy has come front and center since Shapiro finished his film in 2010, following the revolutions of the Arab Spring/Summer. Amid that violence and turmoil, How to Start Your Own Country is a great reminder that the establishment of some countries can be peaceful, and even funny. Following the screening Stranger Than Fiction Artistic Director Thom Powers spoke with Shapiro; Erwin Strauss, the author of the book on which the film was based; producer Denis Seguin; and film subject Gregory Green. Click “Read more” below for the Q&A.
Although she is perhaps best known for her Oscar-nominated 2002 film 
What first struck me while viewing Marc Singer’s film 
Oscar-winner Alex Gibney’s latest doc, 