Still plugging

I have two more new documentaries to cite. From “Independent Lens” on PBS, I tuned in tentatively to No Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo and Vilmos (2008), and found myself more and more engaged. I certainly knew Kovacs and Zsigmond as names to conjure with, cinematographers for many of the most memorable American films from the Sixties on, but nothing more. In this film, they emerge from behind the camera as interesting characters in their own right. Though it’s impossible to keep track of who did what, if you remember the look of any movie from Easy Rider on, chances are it was shot by one of them, so this documentary works as a clips reel if nothing else. But there was a brotherhood between these two film students who escaped Hungary together in 1956, smuggling out amazing on-the-scene footage of the Uprising stomped out by the heavy foot of Russian tanks. Together they made their way to Hollywood and wormed their way into filmmaking, by working fast, cheap, and beautiful, virtually sharing a 50-year career. Based on their blithe spirits, this documentary has some of the expected platitudinous Hollywood back-patting, but something more comes through.

Another film I gave a chance and found myself watching through with a grudging fascination was Audience of One (2007) on the Sundance Channel (also on Netflix). In the tradition of films about filmmaking gone bad, Mark Jacobs has found himself a doozy of a subject in a Pentecostal preacher in whom God (that “Audience of One”) has inspired Cecil B. Demille dreams. He embarks on what he, aflame with faith, believes will be the biggest movie ever, Star Wars meets The Ten Commandments. Bringing his own special brand of craziness to the crazy business of filmmaking, he displays a flabbergasting confidence, as the project just keeps getting bigger, the more his complete incompetence is being revealed. Maybe it’s just me, but I came to see him as indicative of Bush in Iraq. Once you replace fact with faith, you believe you can do anything you want. It’s hilarious until it’s chilling. The beauty of this documentary is that the preacher could be happy with it as an honest portrait, not regret the access he gave the documentarists, while the audience is free to take it as total satire and a cautionary tale on many levels.