☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½
David Holzman’s Diary (1967) – J.
McBride
Like a shot in the arm, this pseudo-cinema-verite experimental film from
director Jim McBride is exhilerating and refreshing about the possibilities of
the form. The set-up is this: David Holzman is confused about his life’s
meaning and decides to record everything on film (not video, this is 1967) so
he can rewatch it and work things out.
However, his girlfriend Penny is not so keen on this process. Tackling all sorts of themes but primarily
voyeurism (as you might suspect) and laced with a sly sense of humor, McBride
and stand-in Kit Carson show us New York City life and some real
characters. For me, having been born in
NYC in 1967, there’s an added relevance, but for all cinema devotees, it is
great to see the various experiments with sound and vision (including a montage
of every shot on a TV screen during one evening – with Star Trek prominent) and
the various pokes in the eye that McBride offers up as he weaves together
fiction and reality and experimentation (hello Kiarostami!).
No comments:
Post a Comment