“Les mots dont nous nous servons ne disent jamais exhaustivement tout ce que nous pourrions dire de l'expérience sensible. Ce que nous disons est plus abstrait que ce que nous voyons. Et l'expérience qui justifie notre énoncé n'est qu'une fraction de ce que nous éprouvons à ce moment, sauf dans des cas de concentration inaccoutumée”
— Bertrand RUSSELL ”Signification et vérité”Little Fugitive
Little Fugitive is one of cinema’s best movies about a kid, and also one of the films that has had the most impact on filmmakers ever. Without it, American indie filmmaking might not exist, and neither would the French New Wave. It’s playing at Cinefamily in LA on September 14th. Here’s my blurb:
Before Cassavetes, and before the French New Wave, there was this small miracle of a film — a low-budget, shot-without-sound, day-in-the-life portrait of a child that inadvertently started the global indie filmmaking movement. Far from Hollywood, Little Fugitive was born in ‘50s New York when a pair of married photographers (Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin) and a successful children’s book writer (Raymond Abrashkin) picked up a handheld 35mm camera and — without studio support or professional actors, but with an effortless blend of innovation and storytelling that has inspired filmmakers for generations — shot one of cinema’s most influential picaresque gems. Capturing childhood with humorous, compassionate lyricism, Little Fugitive follows an adorable little kid who, after his brother pulls a practical joke, goes on the lam to tough it out amidst the cotton candy and pony rides of Coney Island. It’s an undeniably timeless tale of sibling dynamics, but the proto-guerilla filmmaking techniques of the co-directors also capture the people and landscapes a long-gone Coney Island with such vivid documentary realism, you’ll swear you can smell the carnies.
Daniel Kraus's "Preacher" Premieres on Documentary Channel Tonight!
It’s the last Sunday of September, which means the fourth and (for now) final film in Daniel Kraus’s “Work Series” is debuting on Documentary Channel tonight. Hopefully you’ve been following this vérité series all month and are well-acquainted with “Sheriff” Ronald E. Hewett, “Musician” Ken Vandermark and “Professor” Jay Holstein. Now meet “Preacher” William Nowell, a self-taught Pentecostal bishop who heads a church and leads a community in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Once again, Kraus follows a worker whose job entails a kind of performance, and we get to observe plenty of Bishop Nowell’s lively sermons. It would seem this film is most related to “Professor” in that they both involve a religious leader, but I actually find it most like “Musician,” because the 71-year-old Nowell is often seen playing guitar, backing his gospel singers. In other scenes, he sings. But he does have some kindship with Holstein and even Hewett. I must agree somewhat with Chicagoist’s Steven Pate, who says the subject of “Preacher” is “an amalgam of the earlier three films’ roles.”
