These (red alligator skin) shoes were made for...

I got me a new hat in Mobile today, but what I really wanted was in the next aisle:



I didn't know jack about Mobile before today, and it really seems like a fascinating place. As all the other filmmakers have noted, there's the same French influence as New Orleans, and some very similar architecture, like the wrought iron balconies. Coming into town on I-165, it seems like you're coming into the Land of Oz. The emerald tops of large trees peek over the elevated roadbed on both sides, and a couple of post-modern skyscrapers beckon on the horizon. Here's another view of one of them:



Then there's the ubiquitous "revitalization"--seems like a lot of cities on the circuit (and back home in Durham) are experiencing the same thing. I have heard from a lot of folks on the tour a variation on the theme that downtowns are going from abandoned to $400,000 condos in the blink of an eye. Seems like everyone is in a big hurry to get to the final chapter of Richard Florida's book without the intervening steps. There's a new independent movie theater being built in downtown Mobile right now though, so who knows what the scene will be like in a couple of years.


Charlie and Bob from the Mobile Arts Council were terrific and generous hosts, showing me around and pointing out many interesting sites, like the former Masonic Temple with the Jayne Mansfield sphinxes out front. Charlie and Bob are an even more dynamic duo, having built some incredible excitement in the community for Southern Circuit--the screening was packed, as it has been for all their shows so far, and they're drumming up support for next season's run too.

A special treat was the dinner at the legendary Wintzell's Oyster House (your choice of Fried, Stewed, or Nude) and our fabulous waitress, Ms. Pinky. As she said a couple of times, the food there is so good, it'll make you want to push your grandmother in the creek. I have no idea what that means, but I'd agree.

Plus there's all the signs on the wall. Like the man says, "Give a book a bad name and it becomes a movie!" (click to embiggen)

Lost highway

Pulling in to the Capri Theatre in Montgomery was a moment you dream about--the film's name up on a real marquee! I am taking lots of photos for Don Henderson Baker, the co-director and the writer of "Willow Garden." A brilliant (though thoroughly twisted) man.

What does it take to keep a single screen "art house" theater alive these days? I think the first thing you need someone like Martin McCaffery, the Director of the Capri, at the helm. Martin's 22 years at the theater have been fraught with perils for movie houses in general, yet Montgomery has rallied around the theater and it has found and remained on solid financial ground (though I'm sure Martin could use another "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" to bank a year's worth of receipts in 6 weeks again).

Traveling on the circuit has really brought home the fact that there are people who will go to extraordinary lengths to support low budget independent filmmaking. The fact that people will take a risk and come to see movies by people they've never heard of, about all kinds of strange subject matter, is astounding. Getting to talk to people after the show is probably the best part of the tour. In Beaufort, Orangeburg, and last night in Montgomery, folks stayed after to talk about the films and what connections they made with them. What a luxury that is for a small filmmaker, and what a shot in the arm.

The audiences for this kind of work aren't huge, of course. For one thing, there aren't that many towns that have a venue that will support something like this. The tour has really shown me how important a community-based theater or college venue or arts council is--somebody has to be willing to try and present this kind of thing. Martin cracks a lot of jokes about how insane it is to try and run an indie theater, and of course he's right--nobody ever gets rich doing it, and never will. It's depressing when six people in a city of 200,000 show up for the latest Gus Van Sant film. And then you think that if the Capri wasn't around, would those six even have had a chance to see it at all?

I keep coming back to the notion that somebody has to be willing to take a chance. Small, local theaters are one of the things that really give a community a unique identity. They're a total pain in the ass to run, program, raise money for, keep alive. The trade-off has to be that the experience of seeing a film there is so totally different that it makes the intense hardship worth it.

I guess it's like going to a local restaurant versus McDonald's. I definitely get the hankerin' for a greasy Mickey D cheeseburger, but then I also want to eat something that isn't made of plastic. The multiplex will always be good to see "Iron Man," and hopefully there will be something like the Capri around to give folks something to really chew on.

I have been tossing around the idea of trying to start a microcinema back home in Durham. This tour might be the thing that pushes me over the edge (of insanity, Martin might say).

Fun fact of the day:
Martin worked briefly for Roger Corman, and revealed the secret for creating a realistic sound effect for a drill going through a human body: take a whole grapefruit and a 2x4, put the grapefruit in a blender, turn it on (this gives you the soft, gushy sound of guts), then push it down with the 2x4 (for the bone crunching). Ah, movie magic.


Winner of the Best Hotel Room Art Award (so far).

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This mall's got everything

Southern gothic (with boiled peanuts)

From upstate hijinx (Columbia) to lowcountry atmoshpere (Beaufort) today.

Yesterday we had two terrific screenings in Columbia, SC at the incomparable Nickelodeon Theatre, a truly groovy independent cinema that would make any city proud. In between the shows, Larry Hembree (pictured at right with Columbia superstar filmmaker Steve Daniels, DP for "Willow Garden") and Andy Smith, the Nick's resident ringmasters and astrology gurus, took me on a tour of the art deco theater downtown that they will be renovating and moving into in the next couple of years.

I cursed myself for not taking a photo, but imagine walking into the dusty balcony of a theater that has been abandoned for 20 years. Tattered 1970s curtains reveal faded art deco wallpaper underneath. Pigeon feathers fill the empty spaces of the antique carbon arc lamp projectors. Steve plans to film a music video/horror movie in the space, which should be incredible. I hope that he'll employ the mad skills of Randy Schrader, another virtuoso Columbia filmmaker, who lit "Willow Garden" using only baling wire and chewing gum.

Because Steve knows so much about the fantastic landscape of the Palmetto State, he directed me to some amazing church ruins just outside Beaufort. The Sheldon Church was built in 1748 and was burned down twice by invading armies--the British in 1780 and Sherman's troops in 1865. It's quite a sight. I'm trying not to read too much into the fact that my super 8 camera mysteriously stopped functioning while trying to shoot the ruins...

Things I learned today:
1) Boiled peanuts sound gross, but are really good. Wet, mushy, and packed with peanuty flavor.
2) If you're jonesing for Wi-Fi while traveling, just pull into the parking lot of any chain hotel that advertises "free wireless" on its marquee! Schwing!

Looking forward to the screening in Beaufort tonight, though it will be hard to tear myself away from the great scenery and cool breeze of the waterfront. Hey folks at Southern Circuit, will you sponsor the rest of my life? I'll wash your cars. Thanks.

Athens, GA: back to the future

Hello, Jim Haverkamp here. I'm waking up in Athens, GA after the first stop on my Southern Circuit tour last night.

Appropriately, a lot of R.E.M. songs popped up on my iPod on the drive down. The local music scene still seems to be going strong, confirmed by Steve and Jeff, a security guard and the projectionist at the Georgia Museum of Art, the tour site, who are also working musicians. Both of them had to leave immediately after the show to go to band practice. Jeff said the hardest part about living the dual lifestyle is running sound for a band late into a Saturday night and then coming to work for a lecture early Sunday morning. 

Athens is also known for its local film scene, and I got to go to the legendary Flicker Bar downtown, which has a small movie theater attached to it. This is the place that Norwood Cheek, a Chapel Hill resident, visited in the mid-'90s and that inspired him to start a local film screening series back home, which he called Flicker. Flicker is still going strong, and now there are almost a dozen more Flickers around the world. Just goes to show how a good idea can spread. It's a funny that both Roger Beebe and I, the bookends of this year's circuit, were both organizers of the Chapel Hill Flicker for a couple of years. 

There are also some great thrift stores in Athens, and guess what you can buy there?

home stretch

it's been a far-flung last couple days. charlotte and the
light factory a wonderful discovery. a place for contemporary
photography and film in facilities that were hosting charlie
rose the same night. i like the thought that my swing through
the south is parallel to martha stewart and charlie rose!
thanks to wendy for her hospitality and vision. again, a wonderful discussion
which touched on the visionary experience of the
mystical encounter. hoping to stay in contact with a
woman who teaches opera and hopes to explore this in
a film. last night's screening in louisville was also quite
wonderful with tamara lee fulkerson from the bluegrass
international film festival leading an engaged q&a. thanks
to tom for setting that up. the projection was beautiful! and
tamara's thorough engagement with my film's formal experiment-
setting out to chart the psychic space of weil's thought rather
than the events of her biography helped immensely to ground
the conversation. thanks to stephen and brannan for their
amusing company...the kentucky cinematography club! fantastic
how in so many pockets of this country people are devoted to
film as an art form. does my heart good. hoping the salt water
of the florida ocean does too! abientot. cathy

the otters, finally

great to present the film to an audience of students and professors.
always an engaging conversation. finally, a professor of philosophy
at milsapps asks about the otters, a found footage piece i bought on
ebay that finishes the film. up against weil's description of the "feeling
for beauty" as a trap from her marseilles notebooks, the "soul caught
up in a terrible adventure, quite against its will", the images of
otters in pursuit of a crab on shore left defending itself while weil
speaks "it belongs to death" is to me the perfect metaphor for her
understanding of playing hide and seek with god. to say nothing of
what a relief those animals are after all the mind twists wrought by
the films mise-en-scene of live rear screen and minimalist/theatrical
staging of actors...unlike other filmmakers, i don't leave the room when
my work plays...i still see so much in it. last night's revelation:
how precise the editing is, especially when tracked through
the frame (first cut), the vertical (frame within frame=second cut), then
to the actual horizontal/sequential cut. it's downright vertiginous at times.
and now off the highway and into the air. see you soon. cathy

new orleans morning

a great day off on the last day of the french quarter fest...free
music pouring out every pore of this town.
including the chance encounter with a new orleans jazz band
from sweden. canal creepers. they were fantastic. would be
great to have a presenter on the tour in this town! hats
off to the brave instigators in lake charles who are trying to
build an audience for independent cinema, including an up-
coming film festival. first person to notice that the archival
footage in my film can also be seen in marcel ophuls'
"the sorrow and the pity" and wants to steal my experimental
use of rear screen projection. i say, steal away. ideas are
best when they are free to circulate. i myself borrowed ideas
from cocteau and hitchcock. happy to be participating in the
discussion of cinematic form. cathy

through the bayou

lovely is how it's going.
now a solid fan base in charleston, south carolina.
a mutual adoration society actually.
thanks mark, brian and lindy at halsey!
we had a discussion last night that extended (by chance
meeting folks from the screening on the street) over
a beer and still had us writing notes on essays to read:
paul tillich on grace, for instance well past 11pm. i went so far at one
point to enact benjamin's angel of history. it's a good thing
i'm interested in absurdity. hopefully in my upcoming work, at least
present in life, that much is certain. the reliability of mapquest has always
be dubious and now i can say, it is useless. practically drove to
georgia on my way out of clemson which, by the way, was
fairly well-attended and my hosts (aga and amy and jonathan too)
were wonderful. brave to take me to a taco shop but when you
know good food, you know good food. flautas! but there's no
stopping now, i've driven through the bayou and after tonight's
screening finally get to see new orleans. cajun cooking. i'm ready.
more soon. cathy

humid black mountains

hello readers,
or strollers through internet ether...
get up and go outside. i should. it's 78 degrees here in clemson.
asheville was lovely. one audience member was there at the fine
arts theater after a migraine, hoping to see paranoid park and
for some bizarre reason, was not disappointed to watch my film instead.
though grateful, i hope we both get to see gus van's latest soon. i'm loving
that people come out of the woodwork for this piece, having read
(having been stung by, really) some simone weil. we get to talk about
christianity, the spanish civil war, resistance. somehow relevant
to have the public excuse to discuss historical precedents of fascism.
i am driven to step back into black mountain while downtown (not THE,
but the receptacle mini-museum) and be reminded of experiments of
all kinds; education, living, art-making. apparently they attempted to
revive the college in the early 80s but it didn't work...maybe pre-Reagan
it couldn't, but post-Bush? seems timely to me. alternatives in
all possible senses of that word. right, here i go again, that crazy idea
of vaclav havel's the "parallel polis". read his essay "the power of the powerless"
and let's get started. even strangers (who i meet) recognize one another.
i'm happy when warm air is just thick enough to get me to slow down. as
weil wrote (one of my favorite quotes from the film) "when there's no room for
reflection between the impulse and the act, neither is there room for justice."
more coming on down the road, see you soon. - cathy

driving through dogwood

hello circuit afficionados,
greensboro was a wonderful start to the tour. thanks to phyllis and
the high point theatre staff as well as filmmaker chris holmes who
made me feel right at home with a first meal at "pastabilities."
an intimate group assembled at the high point museum ground
floor having braved the downtown crowds for the furniture market
which brought martha stewart to the high point theatre instead
of my film about philosopher simone weil. but those
of us more interested in the latter radical had an in-depth discussion
about the film's form, how i came to weil and even a suggestion that
a sequel should be produced: "the impossible meaning of simone weil."
i'm afraid someone else will have to take that on but i'm happy to
make my film, the world's first inroad into the contradictory thought of
the 20th century's most interesting polemicist, available to that
brave soul. after all that, a local brew entitled "full moon ale" was a
fine finisher. today, a long npr-guided drive on I-40
that included the terri gross interview with rem and the ongoing
refusal before congress to pull-out of iraq. radio (my favorite
media) brought me to asheville on the billy graham freeway with guns
and roses doing "knock-knock-knocking on heaven's door." it's great
to be back down south! more to come...cathy