Day: August 17, 2015

LFM Reviews Being Evel

By Joe Bendel. If you were kid growing up in the late Seventies, you were probably all about Stars Wars, but if you were carrying a lunch box to school before 1976, there is a good chance Evel Knievel was on it. Subsequent decades were hard on the self-styled daredevil, but fans like skateboarding champion Tony Hawk and Jackass’s Johnny Knoxville still remembered the tarnished icon. Daniel Junge revisits the highs and lows of Knievel’s story in the Knoxville-produced Being Evel, which opens this Friday in select theaters.

Butte, Montana was still a bit of a rugged frontier town when young Knievel grew up there, but their cops were pretty funny. According to legend, Knievel once spent a night in the holding cell with a fellow troublemaker named Knoffle, prompting a deputy to dub them “Evil Knievel and Awful Knoffle.” That worked for Knievel, after softening the “Evil” with a second e.

One can find barnstorming precedents for Knievel’s death-defying stunts, but Knievel came up at the perfect time to most fully exploit the media. There were only three real networks in the 1970s, so just about every sports fan watched the buffet-style coverage of ABC’s Wide World of Sports on Sunday mornings. Somehow Knievel talked his way on as the opener for a dirt track race and quickly became a media phenomenon.

Seeing docs like Being Evel reminds us just how much the media landscape has changed within our lifetimes. It also explains the influence Knievel had on the culture, inspiring the extreme sports movement of the 1990s and perfecting an unparalleled personal merchandising machine. You will not see a lot of documentaries co-produced by Knoxville and George Hamilton (who played Knievel in the John Milius-scripted 1971 film), but here it is.

While carefully tracking Knievel’s cultural significance, Junge never loses sight of the outrageousness of his stunts. Frankly, he crashed out more often than his fans probably remember, which still makes for voyeuristically compelling viewing. Junge talks to just about all of Knievel’s surviving family and associates, including his much neglected first wife and his former promoter, Shelly Saltman. Despite being on the business end of Knievel’s notorious baseball bat attack, the latter is remarkably gracious, all things considered.

In many ways, Evel Knievel exemplified American self-invention. Being Evel clearly establishes his many flaws, but the risks he ran were still very real. Junge assembled some spectacularly dramatic and telling footage that evokes an era that is no so long ago, but feels so very far away. Briskly paced and stylishly constructed, it is one of the more watchable documentaries of the year. Recommended beyond the Knievel-extreme sports fanbase, Being Evel opens this Friday (8/21) in select theaters, including the Roxie in San Francisco, and also releases on iTunes.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on August 17th, 2015 at 9:26pm.

LFM Reviews Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery

By Joe Bendel. Family is important to notorious art forger Wolfgang Beltracchi. His closest accomplice was his wife Helene and his documentarian is the son of his lawyer, Reinhard Birkenstock. Beltracchi’s best forgeries were not copies of known works, but rather “newly discovered” works from important early Modernists, designed to fill holes in their oeuvres. This was not a new approach to art fraud, but Beltracchi was unusually successful at it. Even now, the art world still does not know how many of his “originals” have penetrated into museums and galleries. The rather unrepentant forger has no intention of revealing those secrets in Arne Birkenstock’s Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery, which opens this Wednesday in New York at Film Forum.

Thanks to a lenient work release program, the Beltracchis still enjoyed the fruits of their criminal endeavors during the day, puttering around their villa before returning to prison in the evening (supposedly they are employed by a friend’s photography studio). Wolfgang Beltracchi is now required to paint solely under his own name, but he shows Birkenstock how it is done, for old times’ sake. He is happy to explain the process, but plays it coy when asking for specifics on his past forgeries.

It is a shame Art of Forgery was not released while the Beltracchis were serving their sentences, because it could have spurred the court to revoke their privileges. Clearly, Birkenstock expects viewers to consider Beltracchi a roguishly jolly Falstaffian fellow, but instead we see someone who always manages to flaunt the rules. Frankly, it is annoying. There are also predictable questions raised regarding the fundamental value of art. Beltracchi and Birkenstock are definitely right about one thing, the current market climate gave experts every incentive to give his forgeries a pass, rather than digging into them with a fine tooth comb.

From "Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery."

There is no question Art of Forgery would have been a more compelling film if it had taken a more narrative-focused true crime approach, in the tradition of Smash & Grab and The Life and Crimes of Doris Payne. Art and Craft, the documentary profile of the socially awkward forger Mark Landis might be an obvious comparative film, but filmmakers Sam Cullman & Jennifer Grausman give nearly equal time to Landis’s Javert, thereby establishing conflict. Instead, Birkenstock’s film is like one long boasting session for Beltracchi.

Between Beltracchi and Landis, it is hard to have confidence in the integrity of any art you might find in most respectable institutions. That is not good for fine art’s place in the wider universe. Beltracchi’s story is indeed fascinating, but Birkenstock never fully tells it, omitting for instance a former business partner’s allegations he burgled their gallery (a nice bit of sensationalism surely worth re-dredging). Unfortunately, Birkenstock is just too thoroughly charmed by his subject. Beltracchi: the Art of Forgery has its intriguing moments, but it is too much like an artist’s working process doc, like Gerhard Richter Painter, which is a tad problematic for a film about a convicted forger. A mixed bag best enjoyed by those who bear a grudge against the established art world, it opens this Wednesday (8/19) at New York’s Film Forum.

LFM GRADE: C+

Posted on August 17th, 2015 at 9:25pm.

LFM Reviews Cut Out the Eyes @ Cinema on the Edge

From "Cut Out the Eyes."

By Joe Bendel. He is part ancient troubadour and part Andrew Dice Clay. Er Housheng is a rambling performer of Er Ren Tai “folk opera,” who has something of a folk following in Inner Mongolia. The instrumentation is different, but American audiences well-steeped in rap music should be able to relate to the sexually charged, one-upping duets the blind Er performs with his ambiguous partner. Xu Fong follows Er through the unhomogenized, rough-and-tumble Northern Chinese province in Cut Out the Eyes, which screens as part of Cinema on the Edge, the retrospective tribute to the Beijing Independent Film Festival.

Before he was blinded, Er Housheng was apparently quite the ladies’ man. There was indeed a cause-and-effect relationship between these two states of being, as the title suggests and Er himself explains in a no-holds-barred closing performance. He is still a dirty old man, who excels at improvising lyrics so suggestive they really do not qualify as double entendre. He also talks pretty explicitly to his various lovers. His relationships are rather complex, but informal. That definitely includes the arrangements with his current duet partner, Liu Lanlan.

If Er Housheng were not such a salty old dog, one might be tempted to describe him as an inspirational figure. However, Er does not want anyone’s sympathy and he hardly sees himself as a role model. He is an unrepentant scoundrel and he is not done yet. One could probably make an epic Flashman-like film out of his exploits, but Xu opts for an intimate approach. Logically, it is through his revealing lyrics that we can best get to know the earthy raconteur.

Seriously, this is not a film for children or the easily offended. Er could go toe-to-toe with 2 Live Crew. Yet, his life of passion and lawlessness seems like a throwback to the Wild West. Some of his makeshift performance stages even have a medicine show vibe. Needless to say, Er might not be the most reliable of narrators, but the most significant parts of his story are obviously true.

Accompanied by the dizi flute, hammered yangqin, and sometimes the trumpet like suona, Er Ren Tai clearly privileges lyrical interpretation and extemporization over instrumental virtuosity, which is unfortunate for some of the very talented musicians who get brief solo spotlights in Eyes. World music listeners should nonetheless find plenty to enjoy, but Xu’s doc is more of a character study—and Er is quite the character.

It is hard to believe an itinerant musician and self-styled reprobate like Er can still exist in modern China. The fact that he does is strangely reassuring. It is a big country that remains highly diverse, despite the Party’s long campaign to wash away cultural differences. Xu documents the flinty edge and idiosyncrasies of Er and his Er Ren Tai colleagues with appropriate irony and sensitivity. Recommended for adventurous patrons of world music and music documentaries, Cut Out the Eyes screens this Tuesday (8/18) at the Maysles Documentary Center, as part of Cinema on the Edge.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on August 17th, 2015 at 9:25pm.