HelloAngel
ONE love, blood, life
By Jonathan Swartz
2006.11
The 2006 Williamstown Film Festival was held from October 19-29, 2006 in Williamstown, Massachusetts, a small town about 150 miles west of Boston. I attended the festival during the second weekend (26-29) and saw several films. Below are the few notable highlights.
The first night of the second weekend was a showing of “Wide Awake” a documentary by Alan Berliner about his struggles with sleep deprivation. This is the third film that I have seen in the past month that deals with sleep deprivation, following director Michel Gondry’s “The Science of Sleep” and “Who Needs Sleep” all three films touching on similar issues. “Wide Awake” describes living with insomnia using the scientific approach, as Berliner’s sleep habits are described as he is hooked up to a monitoring device used to check for sleep apnea. This is a serious disorder that occurs when a person repeatedly stops breathing or experiences shallow breath, while sleeping. The film follows a group of scientists who study sleep, as they explain how a lack of sleep can be hazardous to one’s health. The film educates people of all ages on the importance of good sleeping habits.
The second day of the festival started with “Off the Black” a film starring Nick Nolte as a baseball umpire who gets invited to his 40th high school reunion. He enlists the help of a pitcher who agrees to go to the reunion posing as Nolte’s son, with shocking results. The film works as a character study of a man clearly in the last days of his life and looking to make amends for the past. It also explores the idea of baseball as being a metaphor for the way of life. The film turns into a road picture exploring the dynamic of the father-son relationship, as well as putting the past behind you and looking to the future.
“Stephanie Daley,” which won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance, is a film that deals with the titular character (Amber Tamblyn from “Joan of Arcadia” and “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants”) and her struggles with mental illness. The film focuses on an incident in which Daley is accused of a crime, and is then sent to a psychiatrist (Tilda Swinton) who performs an evaluation of her ability to stand trial. As the film progresses, we witness tragic incidents from Daley’s past, including a rape at a party, and a ski trip where the crime for which she is accused occurred. Everything unfolds as a case study, and effectively forces the audience to make their own decisions about what actually happened, all the while focusing on the struggles of Daley to fit in with the crowd and cure her illness.
“The Treatment” was another festival entry about a psychological case study, but rather involving a teacher at a prep school in New York City, focusing more on the imagination. It stars Ian Holm as a psychiatrist who is assigned to the case of Jake Singer (Chris Eigeman) a teacher who is attempting to recover from divorcing his wife. The film employs the Freudian scholar approach, as Holm interprets Freudian methods in an attempt to help Singer cope with his past and look forward to the future. The story unfolds in a bizarre fashion, as the psychiatrist appears to Jake in several dreams and fantasy sequences. Rather than being a screwball comedy in the vein of “Analyze This,” “The Treatment” is a serious drama, focusing on Jake’s struggles to be himself and put his life back together.
Lastly, and perhaps oddly enough, two films entitled “Shut Up and Sing” featured at the festival. The first was a Dixie Chicks documentary, about the multi-platinum country group’s controversy surrounding anti-Bush sentiments singer Natalie Maines’ made at a concert in England. The second, which closed the festival, is an ensemble comedy in the vein of “The Big Chill,” “The Boys in the Band,” and “Love, Valour, Compassion.” “Shut Up and Sing” chronicles the adventures of a college a cappella singing group who reunite several years later when one of the members decides to get married. The film begins in 1991, when we are introduced to a college singing group who perform one last time before moving on with their lives, then flashing forward to 2006 where we meet each of the members, and finally moving on to the Hamptons, in Long Island, New York, where we begin to see how the events of the past 15 years have affected their everyday lives. Like “The Boys in the Band,” the landmark 1970 film about homosexuality and its effects on people, “Shut Up and Sing” explores similar issues, in a different way. The former film focused on what happens when one member of a gay group insists that he is not gay, and the latter film vaguely highlights what happens when one member of a heterosexual group is believed to be gay. Like most comedies of this genre, “Shut Up and Sing” follows the trials and tribulations of a group struggling to find their identities and the one event that attempts to bring them together and beautifully captures the alluring draw of the Hamptons which makes the viewer dream of being there, and it serves as the perfect location for the film. The obstacles that these characters have to overcome are very realistic, as the film is about rediscovering identity, where people come from, and looking toward the future.
For more information on the 2006 Williamstown Film Festival, visit the official website. For more information on “Shut Up and Sing” (the film about the a cappella singing group), visit its MySpace page.
2006.11
The 2006 Williamstown Film Festival was held from October 19-29, 2006 in Williamstown, Massachusetts, a small town about 150 miles west of Boston. I attended the festival during the second weekend (26-29) and saw several films. Below are the few notable highlights.
The first night of the second weekend was a showing of “Wide Awake” a documentary by Alan Berliner about his struggles with sleep deprivation. This is the third film that I have seen in the past month that deals with sleep deprivation, following director Michel Gondry’s “The Science of Sleep” and “Who Needs Sleep” all three films touching on similar issues. “Wide Awake” describes living with insomnia using the scientific approach, as Berliner’s sleep habits are described as he is hooked up to a monitoring device used to check for sleep apnea. This is a serious disorder that occurs when a person repeatedly stops breathing or experiences shallow breath, while sleeping. The film follows a group of scientists who study sleep, as they explain how a lack of sleep can be hazardous to one’s health. The film educates people of all ages on the importance of good sleeping habits.
The second day of the festival started with “Off the Black” a film starring Nick Nolte as a baseball umpire who gets invited to his 40th high school reunion. He enlists the help of a pitcher who agrees to go to the reunion posing as Nolte’s son, with shocking results. The film works as a character study of a man clearly in the last days of his life and looking to make amends for the past. It also explores the idea of baseball as being a metaphor for the way of life. The film turns into a road picture exploring the dynamic of the father-son relationship, as well as putting the past behind you and looking to the future.
“Stephanie Daley,” which won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance, is a film that deals with the titular character (Amber Tamblyn from “Joan of Arcadia” and “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants”) and her struggles with mental illness. The film focuses on an incident in which Daley is accused of a crime, and is then sent to a psychiatrist (Tilda Swinton) who performs an evaluation of her ability to stand trial. As the film progresses, we witness tragic incidents from Daley’s past, including a rape at a party, and a ski trip where the crime for which she is accused occurred. Everything unfolds as a case study, and effectively forces the audience to make their own decisions about what actually happened, all the while focusing on the struggles of Daley to fit in with the crowd and cure her illness.
“The Treatment” was another festival entry about a psychological case study, but rather involving a teacher at a prep school in New York City, focusing more on the imagination. It stars Ian Holm as a psychiatrist who is assigned to the case of Jake Singer (Chris Eigeman) a teacher who is attempting to recover from divorcing his wife. The film employs the Freudian scholar approach, as Holm interprets Freudian methods in an attempt to help Singer cope with his past and look forward to the future. The story unfolds in a bizarre fashion, as the psychiatrist appears to Jake in several dreams and fantasy sequences. Rather than being a screwball comedy in the vein of “Analyze This,” “The Treatment” is a serious drama, focusing on Jake’s struggles to be himself and put his life back together.
Lastly, and perhaps oddly enough, two films entitled “Shut Up and Sing” featured at the festival. The first was a Dixie Chicks documentary, about the multi-platinum country group’s controversy surrounding anti-Bush sentiments singer Natalie Maines’ made at a concert in England. The second, which closed the festival, is an ensemble comedy in the vein of “The Big Chill,” “The Boys in the Band,” and “Love, Valour, Compassion.” “Shut Up and Sing” chronicles the adventures of a college a cappella singing group who reunite several years later when one of the members decides to get married. The film begins in 1991, when we are introduced to a college singing group who perform one last time before moving on with their lives, then flashing forward to 2006 where we meet each of the members, and finally moving on to the Hamptons, in Long Island, New York, where we begin to see how the events of the past 15 years have affected their everyday lives. Like “The Boys in the Band,” the landmark 1970 film about homosexuality and its effects on people, “Shut Up and Sing” explores similar issues, in a different way. The former film focused on what happens when one member of a gay group insists that he is not gay, and the latter film vaguely highlights what happens when one member of a heterosexual group is believed to be gay. Like most comedies of this genre, “Shut Up and Sing” follows the trials and tribulations of a group struggling to find their identities and the one event that attempts to bring them together and beautifully captures the alluring draw of the Hamptons which makes the viewer dream of being there, and it serves as the perfect location for the film. The obstacles that these characters have to overcome are very realistic, as the film is about rediscovering identity, where people come from, and looking toward the future.
For more information on the 2006 Williamstown Film Festival, visit the official website. For more information on “Shut Up and Sing” (the film about the a cappella singing group), visit its MySpace page.
