I’ve long loved anything that gives me a window into the minds and creative processes of my heroes. This is one of the reasons I’ve come to love the documentary medium so much. No revisionist history, no dramatic embellishments (though certainly there’s always a bit of fudging reality in the editing process) to embrace a cliché. To put it simply, docs keep it real.
When a doc deals with a subject who defines the phrase “warts and all,” it always gets my attention. I particularly relish it when a doc deals with a person whose work I admire but who has always seemed like something of an enigma to me. For example, a week or two ago I wrote my “From the Vault” column about the film “Jandek on Corwood” and the film’s subject, the mysterious Jandek, is a perfect example. Ondi Timoner’s film “Dig” is another perfect example—a portrait of wild man revivalist rocker Anton Newcombe and his friends/rivals The Dandy Warhols.
Another example is Todd Philips or Kirby Dick’s films about GG Allin and Bob Flanagan, respectively. The subjects are too interesting to look away, but they aren’t the kind of guys you’d like to invite into your home for a mug of hot cocoa.
When I heard that brave filmmaker Erik Nelson–whose additional credits include executive producing films such as “The U.S. Vs. John Lennon” and “Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man”—had taken on the mammoth task of making a doc about Harlan Ellison (one of the most notoriously cantankerous authors ever to put pen to paper), I knew I had to see it.
So there you have it folks—the next film I’m on a quest to track down. I’ll keep you posted, and if and when I see the film, I’m sure you can expect at the very least another blog entry laced to the gills with fan boyish praise. I do loves me some Ellison.