Ah, how time flies. I can recall when Ruthe Stein’s Mostly British Film Festival was nothing more than a wee tyke. The festival has all grown up now and turned into a proper little adult as it blooms into its 18th edition at San Francisco’s Vogue Theater (February 5-12, 2026) with an array of award-winning movies from the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India. Further, the festival has entered into a prestigious partnership with the British Film Institute (BFI), which has provided the program with three films that BFI helped complete.
Opening night for Mostly British commemorates the life and talent of Richard Burton with a double bill comprised of a revival screening of Tony Richardson’s Look Back In Anger (1959) coupled with an advance screening of Marc Evans’ Mr. Burton (2025), the revelatory British biopic about the early life of Welsh actor Richard Burton and his relationship with his insinuated gay mentor Philip Burton. Harry Lawtey convincingly channels the commanding sensuality of the impoverished young Richard Jenkins, who under the tutelage of his high school teacher Mr. Burton (in a compassionately restrained performance by Toby Jones), discovers his considerable acting talent under Mr. Burton’s guidance, with his career insured and furthered by being adopted and supplied with Mr. Burton’s last name. Second fathers rarely achieve such a vital role in releasing the potential of their adopted sons. As value added, Kate Burton will reminisce on the Vogue stage about life with her famous father and what it was like to be parented by Elizabeth Taylor.
Producer, director, actor, fashion designer and author Sadie Frost brought her first directorial feature-length documentary Quant (2021) to Mostly British editions back and now returns with Twiggy (2024), likewise screening on the festival’s opening day. In London’s “swinging sixties” Twiggy, aka Dame Lesley Lawson (née Hornby), burst onto the scene at 16 as the waifish androgynous model with the Raggedy Ann eyes. She was the first model that I ever knew by name and for a while she seemed to be everywhere (here in the United States at least due to the marketing prescience of Diana Vreeland). But after she retired from her modeling career, I lost track of her and so it has been illuminating to see how she carried on over the decades, successfully amplifying her persona into movies, Broadway, the recording industry and subsequent fashion and modeling endeavors. Her more recent appearances in Frost’s documentary, as well as in the soon-to-be-distributed Everywhere Man: The Lives and Times of Peter Asher (2025), reveals a seasoned personage comfortable in her own fame and fascinating in her familiarity.
Frost, whose father David Vaughan was a psychedelic artist who did work for the Beatles in the 1960s, has an experiential grasp of the era that revolutionized my generation, bringing it all to the foreground with entertaining dexterity and a heady ensemble of talking heads: Paul McCartney, Lulu, Dustin Hoffman, Joanna Lumley, Brooke Shields, Tommy Tune, Ken Russell, and on and on.
The History of Sound (2025) directed by Oliver Hermanus and starring Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor (“two of the hottest young actors across the pond”) is, arguably, one of my favorite films, if not my favorite, from the last year and I was crestfallen that it didn’t receive a single Oscar® nomination, not only for its heartfelt performances but its stellar score.
This haunting ode to synesthesia wounded my heart with its regretful practices of longing and unfulfilled desires and is not to be missed at the festival for fear of your own regrets. It offers the story of two young men, a musical prodigy (Mescal) and a musicologist (O’Connor) whose mutual love for the folk songs of New England and their efforts to record them for posterity provide a temporal overlap that gives shape to their physical intimacy. Which is to say that sound provides form. In this incandescent film memory is shaped by sound.
Both My Father’s Shadow (2025) and Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight (2024) are children-in-peril narratives situated in Africa during the political tumult of the Nigerian 1993 presidential election and war-torn Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1980. Perhaps, because of the severity of the atrocities at play, both films lean into magical realism through the point of view of children victimized by external circumstances they can’t fully comprehend.
Akinola Davies Jr.’s feature length film debut My Father’s Shadow, co-written by his brother Wale Davies, stars Sope Dirisu as Folarin, the father whose frequent absence has elevated him into a mythic stature by his two sons Aki and Remi. Joining him on a day trip into the city of Lagos in southwestern Nigeria, the two boys are forced to inadvertently confront the dark secrets their father harbors; both his involvement with a woman other than their mother, and revolutionary activities that presage his ultimate absence. The film had its world premiere at the Un Certain Regard section of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, becoming the first Nigerian film to be selected for the festival's Official Selection. It won the Special Mention for the Caméra d'Or. Critically acclaimed, My Father’s Shadow received numerous awards and nominations, including a British Independent Film Award and two Gotham Independent Film Awards. It was also selected as the UK's entry for Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards, though it did not make the final shortlist.
Embeth Davidtz’s feature directorial debut Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight is seen through the eyes of eight-year-old Alexandra “Bobo” Fuller (in a remarkably embodied and feral performance by Lexi Venter) and is based on Alexandra Fuller’s 2001 memoir about the experiences of her White Zimbabwean family following the Rhodesian Bush War.
"Don't let's go to the dogs tonight" is an idiom meaning "let's not ruin our evening" or "let's not let things fall apart," often implying the avoidance of rowdy, messy, or excessive behavior. It originates from a poem by A.P. Herbert which describes avoiding a night out for fear of encountering older, rowdy people ("mother will be there") and is commonly used as the title for Alexandra Fuller’s memoir, suggesting a chaotic, dysfunctional, or deteriorating situation, often in the context of partying or personal decline. Not only does this incriminate Bobo’s mother, Nicola Fuller (Davidtz adds her acting chops to the project), whose sketchy alcoholic behavior signals a psychological doom spiral, but likewise reflects the chaotic, unsettled, and often desperate life of Bobo’s white family in ‘80s Rhodesia, highlighting themes of dysfunction, political instability, and the decline of colonial life. It bravely tackles the difficult subject of how colonial practices of racism are learned. As value added to the festival, Embeth Davidtz will be Zoom interviewed before the screening. And as an aside, for those unable to attend the festival, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight has been recently added to stream at Netflix.
As a so-called “gay” man watching so-called “gay” narratives, I frequently wonder how much cultural subtext and subcultural humor is truly being appreciated by so-called “straight” audiences? For example, Darren Thornton’s Four Mothers (2025) centers a middle-aged man in an exasperated scenario caring for four elderly women. Even before the AIDS pandemic anointed gay men with the near-archetypal role of caregiver, gender-variant individuals in multiple cultures throughout the world and over time have traditionally been assigned the onerous tasks of caring for the sick and tending to the dead. That’s a historical fact most folks might be completely unaware of and have little concern about, but that’s where queer humor—specifically, queer gallows humor—can win over even the coldest of hearts, eliciting compassion for such burdensome responsibilities. Four Mothers’ script, co-written by Darren and Colin Thornton with Gianni Di Gregorio, deftly lets audiences in on all the gay jokes while opening the story out into a wide-eyed observation of mother-son relations and the dangers of forgetting to care for oneself while caring for others. A script, however, even as clever a script as this one, is only as good as its performances and this ensemble—headed by the ever-delightful Fionnula Flanagan—effectively mines every laugh and every insight without much to-do. You won’t know whether to cry with exhaustion or laugh with relief, but the filmmakers have insured you’ll combine the two.
You never know which pub Willy the Shake will haul himself up to for a pint. It happens to be Kenny’s Bar in Paul Kennedy’s Dead Man’s Money (2024), his droll and lilting reimagining of Shakespeare’s MacBeth where Young Henry (Ciarán McMenamin) and his wife Pauline (Judith Roddy) become concerned that Old Henry will write them out of his will and hand their inheritance over to his new lady friend the Widow Tweed. Worried that they’re not going to get what’s coming to them, Young Henry and Pauline—ignoring the pricking in their thumbs—get far more than they bargained for in this dark hard-hearted comedy of errors.
Harris Dickinson’s swoonworthy performances in The Triangle of Sadness (2022) and Babygirl (2024) didn’t prepare me for his confident and credible feature film directorial debut Urchin (2025), which premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival and won him the FIPRESCI Prize and Frank Dillane the section’s Best Actor Award for his portrayal of Mike, a young homeless man struggling with poverty and drug addiction.
With unflinching observation coupled with keen compassion, Dickinson ushers in a new generation of British realism, taking viewers into a world from which they would customarily look away. In an interview with Dazed magazine, Dickinson has described Urchin (originally entitled Dream Space) as being about mental health and "people who fall between the cracks" and "the ways in which the system fails people in certain ways.”
Frank Dillane, who I know from the television series Fear the Walking Dead (where he plays Nick Clark, a similarly deadbeat character recovering from drug addiction) strengthens what could hazardously become type-casting with a fierce quality of wanting to overcome the thrall of recidivism, opening our hearts to how difficult it truly is to overcome shadows in a world where you’ve been cast away and denied entrance to normality.
Mostly British closes with I Swear (2025), which tells the true story of John Davidson who has Tourette syndrome but doesn't know it. In fact no one in his small Scottish hometown of Galashiels knows it or is even aware of it as a medical condition—they deem him rude and ripe for the nuthouse—until after being interviewed at the age of 16 for the 1989 BBC documentary series Q.E.D. (John’s Not Mad), then again at age 30 for The Boy Can't Help It (2002), and yet again at 37 for Tourettes: I Swear I Can't Help It (2009), his activism on behalf of those with Tourettes kicks into high gear. The BBC describes him as “a nationally known ambassador for the condition."
Robert Aramayo won Best Lead Performance at the British Independent Film Awards for his perfectly-pitched portrayal of Davidson, learning how to become independent in the world and then advocating for the independence and acceptance of others. En route is perhaps one of the most ribald and hilarious meet-cutes I’ve ever seen on-screen when John meets a young woman with Tourettes for the first time.
There is no question that Mamoru Hosoda’s Scarlet (2026) is as beautiful as it is sentimental, which poses a query as to the association between beauty and sentiment. At a 1998 symposium entitled “Beauty: A Conference in the Healing Arts” sponsored by the Pacifica Graduate Institute, panelists James Hillman, Ursula K. LeGuin, Ciel Bergman (née Cheryl Bowers), Suzi Gablik and Julian White circumambulated that query.
American painter Ciel Bergman outlined her approach to beauty as rooted in a post-modern, environmentally conscious, and deeply subjective framework that moved away from traditional irony (i.e., Warhol’s soup cans) toward an emotional, and symbolic reclamation of beauty. The basic premises of her attachment of sentimentality to beauty included what she termed “objectifying the subjective”, reclaiming beauty as meaningful and transcendent, engaging in passionate “environmental affinities”, and using a symbolic visual language intended to convey deep feeling. In essence, Bergman did not view beauty as mere decoration, but as a "passionate" tool to (re)connect with the world, nature, and the human spirit.
Julian White described sentimentality as the frontage road to the highway of true emotion: both going in the same frenzied direction. Ursula LeGuin defined sentimentality as the obverse of cynicism. In notable contrast to Bergman, James Hillman viewed beauty not as a sentimental, subjective emotion, but as an inherent, objective, and cosmological force. He argued that true beauty is often mistaken for, or reduced to, mere "prettiness" or sentimentality. Instead, Hillman proposed beauty is a "visceral" aesthetic response that grabs us, commanding attention, and connecting the individual soul to the world.
Which brings us to Scarlet. In his director’s statement Hosoda explains earnestly: “As we witness heartbreaking conflicts around the world, I believe that finding love and choosing to live together in unity is what will lead us towards something better. That’s why I want to share this new film with the world—now more than ever.” Using anime as his “passionate” tool “to (re)connect with the world, nature, and the human spirit”, Hosoda’s pitched sentiments come off as an overtly nostalgic response to a fractured, modern world. The balance between the sentimentality of his themes and the beauty of his animation is off just enough as to cheapen the sentiment and demean the beauty, which is unfortunate because the animation—especially in its landscapes—is epic in scale (if David Lean made anime….) and—in an evident citation to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey—I’m sure Scarlet will be a thrill ride on IMAX as the titular character springboards from death through time into a three-dimensional Otherworld where the photorealism of Hosoda’s animation seems an impressive simulation of beauty more than the cosmologically forceful beauty defined by Hillman.
Scarlet opens on Bay Area IMAX screens February 6, notably in San Francisco at the AMC Metreon 16 and the Apple Cinemas Van Ness IMAX. In Boise, Idaho, Scarlet opens on February 6 at the Regal Edwards IMAX.
During the October 2009 retrospective, I had the great fortune of interacting and, indeed, befriending Robert Beavers whose work had a tremendous impact upon my filmic sensibility. I regret not being able to befriend him further but have decided to repost my voluminous response to the 2009 retrospective in hopes that it will be interpreted as a gesture of friendship to promote the upcoming series at BAMPFA. It further provides the opportunity to offset the ravages of time engineered by the internet where broken links and extinct websites have made my writings at the time a series of skips and hiccoughs. Further, by including YouTube clips of his films this go-round, I hope I’m not betraying his belief in “film events”. My reasoning for doing so is—for those who cannot travel to Berkeley, California for the retrospective / residency, let alone to Temenos in Greece—that the YouTube clips might provide a glimpse into Robert Beavers’ singularly unique filmmaking and supplement his comments below (which I will distinguish through italicization).
I will begin with an essay I wrote entitled “Winged Distance / Sightless Measure: Robert Beavers On….”. As I wrote on The Evening Class back on October 25, 2009:
It's difficult not to associate Robert Beavers's creative sensibility with Greece, not only the ochre-toned landscapes of the films he constructed on his rocky and beloved island Hydra, but the pantheonic influence of its ancient capricious gods. Apollo is there, of course, soteriologically dispensing and relieving disease and angling in on rays of light to focus affection or affliction on the skin of men. Eros is there holding the world’s molecular manifestation together through the binding gravity of desire and tactility. And Narcissus in a glade of echoes and shadows indulges his penchant for self-reflexivity. Yet, somehow the mythic personage I most associate with Beavers—especially with regard to his public presentations—is that of the purposely elusive Proteus.
When P. Adams Sitney writes in Eyes Upside Down: Visionary Filmmakers and the Heritage of Emerson (Oxford University Press, 2008:351) that "the filmmaker has taken pains to avoid so literal an interpretation", I smile to myself not so much for the comment's specificity, as for its conjuration of the essential mytheme of Proteus: that he can foretell the future, but will change his shape to avoid having to do so; answering only to someone who is capable of capturing him.
Faced with the broken statue of Apollo, Rainer Maria Rilke concluded: "You must change your life." Commensurately, to grasp Robert Beavers' answers, you must be awake and attentive and prepared to change your life.
Anaïs Nin once wrote that writing allows an individual to savor life twice. This is undoubtedly the manic impulse behind my compulsive transcriptions of film events. Especially regarding Robert Beavers, transcribing the many Q&A sessions conducted during his two-week residency in the San Francisco Bay Area (October 8-20, 2009) has afforded the opportunity to track how frequently (if not skillfully) Beavers slips away from the grasp of a spectator's literal question by responding indirectly, often elliptically. Direct answers would nowhere near the mutable, flexible, adaptable and versatile truths offered by his indirect responses that feel to be just beyond your grasp. There is a profound and—referencing yet one more Greek legend—tantalizing wisdom to his indirection.
Like the strong-shouldered stonemason with his red chisel shaping the stones to build a wall, this entry has been cobbled together from Robert Beavers's generous encounters with his audiences during the two-week period in which his films were shown at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the Pacific Film Archive, in partnership with the San Francisco Cinematheque. I’ve tried to somewhat follow the intended chronology of the films. Where similar questions elicited slightly dissimilar responses, I have conflated same for clarity. Mine is not a construction fixed with mortar but more of a xerolithye in the Greek countryside: a wall constructed from piling stones upon each other. Feel free to carry a stone away for your own construction.
On the Films That Influenced Him To Become A Filmmaker
[San Francisco Cinematheque Executive Director Jonathan Marlow mentioned that it had been somewhat disorienting to see Robert Beavers in one of Tom Chomont’s early films, to which Beavers wryly quipped that it would have been disorienting for him as well. He confirmed that Chomont’s film, along with Gregory Markopoulos’s Eros O Basileus (1967)—another film in which he was the featured subject—were both made during his late teens in New York.]
It was these New York filmmakers who made me a filmmaker. I grew up watching films on television and—because of my generation—in the small town south of Boston where I lived, we still had five cinemas when I was a child. I went to the cinema two or three times a week and saw first runs of Douglas Sirk’s films; they impressed me. But those classic American films would never have made me a filmmaker. It was Markopoulos and silent films that made me a filmmaker.
During that period in New York when I had the opportunity to see films at the Museum of Modern Art and the Cinematheque, they were showing a lot of silent films. For instance, I saw—almost immediately after my arrival in New York—a retrospective of Fritz Lang's silent films at the Filmmaker's Cinematheque. That impressed me greatly because I had never seen what appeared to be such a slow film as "Die Nibelungen: Siegfried" and "Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge". It awakened me. It's a kind of threshold. You wonder, "What is it?" It gives you time to think. Those films were really important, as were Abel Gance, and of course Dreyer and Stroheim. That experience of silent film has stayed with me. I am a filmmaker because of the so-called New American Cinema and silent film.
Also, there were the repertory houses that existed in New York at that time, such as the Bleecker Street Cinema, which I went to most frequently and which was owned by the documentary filmmaker Lionel Rogosin; he kept it going. I looked carefully and was going to cinematheques often for a certain number of years then somehow I reached a point where—because I was moving so much—it wasn't possible. But in Brussels they had great films and I had the opportunity during one month to see all the films of Mizoguchi.
On First Encountering Greece
So many responses and developments are unconscious. Basically, there was a euphoria in encountering Greece. I still think of Greece as the country with the nature most suitable for youth. It was, of course, a wonderful piece of good luck.
On the European Avant-Garde Scene
There was a lot of 16mm work in England, Germany, even Italy and Austria, and France also (though I was not as aware of it). I remember in 1968 I went to a European meeting of about 300 filmmakers in Munich.
[P. Adams Sitney recalled that 1968 was, in fact, the high point of the European avant-garde film movement: "It was enthusiastic and at its most optimistic. There was a sense that something enormous was about to happen. Historically, this happens every now and then; but, it takes the very persistent, those willing to starve, to keep it going after a couple of years. There were filmmaker cooperatives in virtually every capital of Europe but they collapsed after a couple of years."]
On Using Framing Masks As a Focusing Device
All of my early films use a series of different spaces, which are created by the camera. For color, I am using the space between the film and the lens. In other words, I am actually placing color inside the camera and this has a particular organic quality. It breathes in a special way because it is not in front of the lens. It is behind the lens and in front of the aperture. I use this very narrow space and place a compendium in front of the camera. A compendium is a small box, almost like a theater space, a mini-theater in front of the lens. The compendium is where these masking shapes are being placed. I use two parts of the compendium, the front and the back. So within this space you have the camera, the filter slot for some colors, in front of the camera the compendium box, and both the mattes and other filters in this box. As a young filmmaker, I was crazy for all these different spaces between the filmmaker and the figures who were in the films or the locations. The movement of the focus back and forth with a voice, for instance, suggests something of the breathing of focus, and the breathing of the voice.
This could all be sustained only as long as I felt connected to it; but, there is a danger in this playfulness. As I watch the films now, I think, "What are the qualities?" The qualities are a young filmmaker's fascination with technique, his intellect, and the confusion of psyche and eroticism, all of these together as a unity. Then there's the searching for order through the filmmaking. All of that has a strength as long as it does not become a manner. That's why “From the Notebook Of…” (1971/98) is almost the last time, for instance, that I use filters. I am returning to filters a little bit in my present filmmaking; but I found at a certain point you have to stop some things; you can’t continue with everything. It’s important to know what still has a life.
[As synopsized by BAMPFA: “From the Notebook Of… is a masterful work of structural harmony, binary oppositions, and self-reflexive form. The title refers to Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook and to the filmmaker’s own written observations on filmmaking techniques. The filmmaker’s view of the world (in this case, Florence) is mediated by a careful sequencing of moving mattes, which split the screen vertically, giving the effect of a page turning in a book.”]
On Where Chance Enters His Edited Constructions
There is a great deal of chance to what I'm doing. I can try to sum it up by saying that I leave almost everything open until the film is completed. Somehow, “From the Notebook Of…” shows you how I make films. For instance, there is a notebook for every film that I have made. It begins with some notes that are made before I begin filming and it continues until the film is finished. Then there happens to also be a notebook when I re-edit it. These notes serve a number of purposes. They allow me to think through, to speculate, and they allow me to hold the continuity of what I am doing. Those are the two purposes. Because I am leaving the final form of the film until it is finished and allow myself to develop any possible new element while I am in the process of making the film, that is the chance. You don't see that in the surface of the film because that's my choice; that's the kind of filmmaker I am. It's my background that I want to create a form that I think will go into the future. This is the way I do it. Other filmmakers, other artists, would have other means to think about this; but this is how I have done it.
While I am looking at my films—because this is an occasion for me to reflect and, at this particular moment, to bring the films into connection with what I am holding up—for me, that is interesting; but, I see in almost each film (or I hope I'm seeing this) that I am taking a step forward and taking a step backward at the same time in different ways and on different levels. Sometimes it is a formal step forward whereas the step backward is in content. I’ve known this for a long time. It used to be that in these years I would often make two films in a year. In each of those films there was a repetition in the first one and something new in the second but still using something from the earlier one.
There is a constellation of concerns that have fed me almost since the beginning of my filmmaking to the present. For instance, there were a couple of notes in “From the Notebook Of…” where I thought, "My goodness. That's what I've written in the notebook that I'm writing right now" and one of those is shadows. I have always been fascinated by the richness of light and shadow and the idea of moving between constant points. In one way, I'm not a great traveler; I am circling between a certain number of fixed points. Of course, the relation to Greece is constant and other points are coming out and become more at certain points and certain times. But it's all being seen with the same eye.
You've probably had this experience yourself if you've gone to a museum and suddenly a painter allows you to see something that you've never seen and then you walk out of the museum and suddenly you're seeing everything with that eye that he or she has given you. That's a wonderful thing.
On the Rectangular Mask in Still Light (1970/2001)
This is balanced between formal and psychological concerns. Of course, in “Diminished Frame” [1970/2001] it has a different meaning than it does in relation to the face in “Still Light”. If the rectangular mask is in front of a view of a city, it has a more architectural connection in some ways. It's always playing with the film frame itself and in certain moments, minimally, just beginning to think about a placement of sound. Often in this period—which may be a little overdone—I was interested in a sense of breath in focus. In this square in the middle of the frame, this is more active perhaps.
On Finding the Rhythm to Editing
When I think of rhythm, I think that the rhythm is already germinating in the filming. Or rather, that there is one part of the rhythm that is created in the filming—whether it’s the turning of the lens or the camera movements or whatever elements are done during the filming—these create a rhythm, which is then defined more carefully when it’s combined with other elements. Finding the rhythm is a process that begins at the onset of filming and—because in recent years I'm filming over longer periods—it means I'm also considering making decisions during the filming and seeing parts of the filming as I continue, then reaching a certain point when I know that the film that I have is completed. Then I either decide to edit or to leave the material until I know how to edit it. But when I'm editing, I’m already usually thinking about sound or have already recorded sound. I do tend to edit the image first. Except there is one film where the sound came first; a film in two parts in which the sounds I created for the first part then generated the images of the second part. But in most instances, I edit the image first. On some occasions I have re-edited the sound and then re-edit the image after I've approached the sound. It's back and forth.
On Improvised Composition
[A young woman commented that Beavers’ films felt like improvised music; even as she was aware that his films were tightly structured and measured.]
It's both. First of all, I have been editing since I was 16 years old. It's something that gives me a lot of pleasure, even when it's difficult. Someone asked me the other night about the rhythm in my editing and I said the rhythm begins in the filming. And I am quite improvisational in my filming. Really. You would be surprised. Compared to what you are seeing. My editing creates certain qualities which do not suggest that. The rhythm is already evolving in the filming. When I am looking at my rushes—so-called rushes—I'm looking at my footage and I am editing by remembering the image and looking at one frame of it; but I'm not using an editing table where I would be seeing the moving image. I am editing by hand with rewinds and I am checking sometimes. I will put what I have taped together through a projector, but I am also editing by my developed physical sense of the length, which is not the same thing as the time of seeing the image. That's a kind of speculative element, a chance element also, or I’m relying on what I know.
On How He Felt Returning To the Films To Edit Them For the Cycle
It varied. It was interesting on a number of levels. I felt that with this kind of filmmaking—filmmakers whose work is being self-produced—they have this possibility to go back to a film that they've made and decide, perhaps, something could be done better. I was urged by what I had seen in my early work that it could not be seen the way it was. The films were too long. The sound was very much that of a younger filmmaker, an aggressive sound. I had the possibility to go back to my earlier films and work on them, which film directors in other areas of film wouldn't be able to do. I took the time. I took 10 years to work on the sound of these feature films. During that period, I didn't film much because I was so involved with re-editing the earlier films. This re-editing also freed me from all the lengths. Some of the early films I reduced to one third of their original length.
On the other side, an early work has an energy from the filmmaker at a certain age, and I hope that in most cases I didn't damage that. In some cases, I looked at the early version, then looked at the late version, and—even though it was one third the length—it was somehow the same! All of those things I learned in the process of this re-edit. I drifted into it actually. I began by doing one or two films and that led to my having to work on the third. But now it's done. Now I'm finished. All of the early versions, however, are in certain archives where they are protected.
[P. Adams Sitney has suggested we might "read 'chance', as so many American artists have, as a near synonym for its apparent opposite, Necessity." (2008:360)]
On the Unity of Human Beings
I had read a short text by poet William Butler Yeats, and he was describing how he was in the audience at a political gathering. He listened to the people who were speaking, and he wrote that they said everything that he would have said. This idea of the basic unity of human beings, that we experience—I don't know, what should I say?—98%, or at least 90% somehow the same; this was a diametrical change in my filmmaking because all of my earlier work was based on the opposite. There is a central figure in many of my early films which is an isolated figure.
Having looked very carefully at paintings in Florence, somehow there's a connection between the seriousness of what the image can represent, and what it can contain at this level, within this idea of the unity of human beings. That's the basis. And the object. I had edited all of the early films by measuring numbers. It was like composing a musical score in which I balanced the numbers. Superimposed images and phrases were all measured very carefully, very quickly. With this reverse thought, I tried to film each object thinking through the editing while I was filming, choosing the image and thinking of the image from one to the next.
On The Count of Days (1969/2001) and Palinode (1970/2001)
The context is different because it is Zurich for both films and I am encountering a different social and psychological geography than in Greece or Brussels. Again, the abstraction is developing in relation to isolated individuals so there are these two levels: an isolated individual at the center of the film—in one case a writer, in the other an elderly singer. There is this curious relation between the way I try to represent the psyche of these individuals and the abstraction of color and other elements in the film.
[“The Count of Days is not an account so much as an accounting of the days in which three separate persons are related at points” (Tom Chomont). “In Palinode a disk-shaped matte continually shifting in and out of focus alternately blocks part of the image or contains it. Its respiratory rhythm matches musical fragments of Wladimir Vogel’s ‘Wagadu’, as the camera studies a middle-aged male singer in Zurich, singing, eating, window shopping, meeting a young girl” (P. Adams Sitney).]
On the Critic in Still Light
Filming Nigel Gosling in “Still Light” is probably one of the few times I’ve filmed someone who represents the critical archetype. However, my filming of the singer also has some of this to a smaller degree. I did film Gosling in opposition, but only on one level. I was probably more engaged with the idea of placing my images in the corners of his room. This was also the only time I expressed my fascination with re-filming projection, up until the film that I'm working on right now. But it really was a youthful reaction to a different environment. I was fascinated in my first visit to London by such a person and he really was good-humored, actually making fun of himself in a way. All he said at the time was, "I should have brushed my hair differently." His inclusion in “Still Light” is really a youthful response to such a personality. Still, there are points he is making that have an interest.
Also, to create a different perspective. I have always been so frontal, in “Diminished Frame” (1970/2001), in “Palinode”, and in “Still Light”, very central and frontal in composition and suddenly I thought, "Yes, but for the critic I will go into the corners as opposed to frontal and use this perspective with the corner that has fascinated me also. This corner idea and the critic has some interest to it."
[“The first half of Still Light explores delicate nuances of lighting, color, and depth as Beavers shoots the face of a young man in various locales on the Greek island of Hydra.... The second half was shot in the London flat of Nigel Gosling” (Ed Halter, New York Press).
“There is a balance in Diminished Frame between a sense of the past seen in the views of West Berlin, filmed in black-and-white, and a sense of the present in which I filmed myself showing how the color is being created by placing filters in the camera’s aperture” (Robert Beavers).]
On From the Notebook Of…, Ruskin (1974), and The Hedge Theater (1986-90/2002)
The Stones of Venice was given to me as a very young student by an elderly woman who was important in my life. She must have given me an edition that was given to her, perhaps, by her parents. I had this book from her and, at a certain point, I read it. It's curious because—in that particular case—I followed very carefully locations that he mentions in the book. I even followed drawings that he did; the watercolors that he did to illustrate it. The edition that was given to me was illustrated by his own illustrations. The black and white in the film comes from seeing these illustrations. Ruskin was an early photographer also so I thought I would try to relate the quality of the filming to the period in which he was in Venice and to that period of photography.
Then I chose something which is a little more difficult. I filmed in color at times of the day that you're not supposed to film in color: very early in the morning and towards dusk. Then the processes of film added something also, meaning that film ages and so forth. Developing also. You're always at the mercy of the laboratory that develops your material. With film, everything is so precarious. “Ruskin” was restored by a film lab in New York. They helped to make it possible. I paid for half and they covered the other half.
On Meeting Ernie Gehr
After I made “From the Notebook Of…” and “The Painting”, I went to New York in 1972 and I met Ernie Gehr. We walked around New York for hours and hours after I had shown him “Notebook” and he had shown me “Reverberation” (1969). Coming from these different directions—he from the non-editing school at that time, and I from the editing—we still became friends.
On Perceptions of Violence in Work Done (1973)
There are two groups of people in how they react to “Work Done”. One is the spectator who finds that it is violent and the others are the ones who don't and who find it more about the processes of making. There is a quality of what I'm doing—also maybe even in the way the book is moved from vertical to horizontal—that's a certain psychic element of violence and strength that I am dealing with within myself. When I am making the film, however, I am not thinking of violence.
On How Ruskin (1974) Moves Away From From the Notebook Of…
To move away from, yes. And of course, I didn't use filters in “Ruskin” and I'm showing much more of the text that I'm actually following and reading, of the book that I'm not showing. In “From the Notebook Of…” I'm involved much more with my own notes. In both films these are individual artists: one a very great artist and one a kind of prophetic critic and social reformer. I always had the idea that I would not make a film by trying to show these individuals directly, but to show my involvement with them. My films are a kind of homage to these people; but I'm not trying to usurp what their body of work presents in its finest form. I'm simply trying to make use of what inspires me.
On The Role of the London Intersection in Ruskin
It's just one location in London. The film is built out of these three locations: the Venetian locations, the Alpine location, and this place in London. The text that is the foundation under the film is constantly making a parallel between what was modern London then and Venice. For me, I am using it as a point of chance. The movement of the traffic and the rhythm that I am creating by the movement of the lens is constantly a matter of chance and how much I am measuring these lengths of the traffic.
In “The Painting” [1972/99], the original editing of that film was modular in the sense that I would choose a length for the image that came from the painting, and then I would make double the length of the traffic location. It's an exact measure. The painting is in the middle and the pieces of broken glass are the shortest units. It was one, two, three. Each time I chose a length for the painting, the glass was half of that and the traffic site was twice as long. When I re-edited, those measures are still there but they are not as strict. I added other elements. I added the footage from the room and I did not keep this order so strictly.
[BAMPFA states: “The Painting uses masking and rack focus techniques to disclose portions of ‘The Martyrdom of Saint Hippolytus’, a fifteenth-century altarpiece. Robert ‘Beavers gives a . . . rarefied psychodramatic jolt, juxtaposing shots of Gregory J. Markopoulos, bisected by shafts of light, with a torn photo of himself and the recurring image of a shattered windowpane’ (J. Hoberman).”]
On Variations of Pattern
This is central. It has to do with music, but not modern music so much. When I think of the central question of pattern, repetition, and so forth, I think of Scarlatti and Handel or Mozart and how diametrically opposite results can be created. This is also true of film. It's such a subtle thing but film can very suddenly slide into its opposite. That answers the greater question I tried to answer of how to know the length of a film—this point of how much and when to stop?—in relation to these questions. In “The Ground” [1993-2001], for instance, the elements are limited. How do you express difference with the same elements? I'm thinking more in poetic terms than musical terms. Quite frankly, I'm thinking in cinematic terms, which have their own ways of developing because it has so much to do with light.
When I use the idea of the phrase, one very important element is color. There are moments in my films where the entire edited phrase is developed out of variations on the color. That is sometimes a key to the emotional value.
On Texture
I am constantly gaining nourishment from textures; but not textures simply shown in themselves. I'm using textures to create rhymes and as one element that I'm bringing into relation with other elements; but strong on sensuous qualities of the film image and sound, trying to keep these elements alive and inspired on that level, and then in relation to certain emotions. These emotions are kept close to the sensuous qualities. They are not being brought to the spectator in a dramatic way. I'm trying to stay as close as I can to these sensuous qualities in the medium.
On Inferred Autobiography In Sotiros (1976-78/1996)
First of all, of course I am drawing from my own experience; but I've always felt that I built the films from my own experience but didn't want to limit the emotions that I wanted to express through the images to biographical facts. That is why I tried to create a special voice in “Sotiros”, which is both an "I" and a "he" within—you could say—the same pronoun. The "he"—whether it's one or two—and this dialogue that I am creating, which is an unspoken dialogue, is both personal and impersonal. For myself, I have always been able to reach something that is more personal by keeping it impersonal.
“Sotiros” is one of a number of films that is dealing with a kind of secret language, which is also open. It's open but still there's a secret to it. That's what I wanted to touch in the film. I am still interested in and still searching for what the connections are between all the elements of the human psyche and not wanting to limit them. Even other points of what might have been called—and which is a very old-fashioned word—"fate"; an intuitive touching of this. That's what connects me to the Greek also; but not only.
The entire development of the film and of my own life at that moment was touched upon hearing those fragments from Alban Berg's “Wozzeck” on the radio while I was editing. At all of those different levels I have tried to bring them into a form. When I watched the film again in San Francisco, I thought how the film elements that I'm trying to use to express and to hold the film together are so at an angle. Also the editing form: the curious movements where you have these static images and suddenly they move at the edges. This is all related. The power that is then given to this single image. At the same time, for instance, the blind man who is standing and begging or the fellow in the village who is perhaps drunk and dancing around: these are elements within this voice for the whole film.
[BAMPFA synopsizes: “Sotiros incorporates narrative film devices such as intertitle cards into a metaphorical dialogue between two male lovers, revealed largely through the luminous depiction of everyday objects in their shared world. A color palette of pastels and golden hues and the strains of Alban Berg’s opera ‘Wozzeck’ enrich the film’s emotional character.”]
On the Importance of Location for The Ground (1993-2001)
It became important. Because it is the same location that you see in the very first short film “Winged Dialogue” [1967/2000]. I began with a relation to death and asceticism. There were a number of sources for “The Ground”. When I am making a film, I take some notes. Sometimes I see something that interests me. For instance, there was an exhibition in Switzerland about asceticism and there was something about St. Jerome. I had always been fascinated by Da Vinci's one painting he did in the Vatican that's unfinished—it's a drawing—of St. Jerome. I must have seen that at a very early age. But in this exhibition there was also an unusual lithograph or drawing by the artist Redon of a centaur. The centaur is lying against some rocks looking at a cloud. It was so extraordinary to see this very large horse-man looking at a cloud. That's why I included the close-up of the cloud in my film and, perhaps also, the hooves.
There are two films I've made on that island Hydra. Also “Still Light”. When I was watching them, I was thinking this is still one of the places that I hold most dear.
[“Winged Dialogue details with growing clarity the desperate beauty and sexuality of the body animated by its soul” (Tom Chomont).]
On Knowing When to End A Film
That's a challenge. For instance, in “Pitcher of Colored Light” (2000-07) I edited the image and then I showed it to someone and decided some points were not right so I eliminated five minutes after I thought the film was finished. I even took off the first image and then—when I was editing the sound—I had to stop the mixing of the sound with the editing because I realized that I needed one more sound before the next to last image. I stopped, went to where I was living, and recorded that sound. The patience that is necessary is a key element to know that—until the very last moment—one doesn’t know when one has to decide. One has to be capable of stopping until one knows. The general point of how long something should be is something I think about all the time and my way of thinking about that changes because that's one of the key questions for any filmmaker.
[BAMPFA synopsizes: “Pitcher of Colored Light is a loving portrait of his mother filmed through the seasons at her home in East Falmouth, Massachusetts.”]
On Working With His Mother For Pitcher of Colored Light (2000-07)
The film was made over a number of visits [to my mother's home]. Even though I edited the film as if you are seeing one cycle of the year, it was actually filmed over a number of years. The only time I was able to film was when I was in the States. I am very attached to the region that I grew up in. Of course, filming one's parent is a challenge. It's a very difficult thing to do. During the period when I was filming, I had burning questions about how to do it, what was appropriate, what was not. I must say my mother helped me simply by ignoring me, in the sense of finding it completely natural that I was there and not worrying about what I was doing. She pushed aside the fact that the film might be a public film. She actually has allergies so there are no animals living in the house; but she is still living in the house. She's not seen the film because at this period she was actually losing her eyesight.
On Self-Distribution
"Self-distributing" is the reality of the present situation. It's complicated. It's the history of my involvement with Gregory Markopoulos, the removal of the films from distribution, and the vision of a place in which the films would be shown; that people should come to this place to see this work. Self-distributing is also a reaction or response to the position of the kind of filmmaker that I am and how to present the work in the way that I want it presented and how to develop the public for this work. It is the position of a filmmaker who is neither taking a direction that is developing now in an art context nor within a normal theatrical context. I am interested in developing the film-event as the best event for the moving image. What context or what form it will take, I am involved with. That's why—when it's described as self-distribution—it has a vision behind it, and it also has to do with the fact that I've built up a small archive from which this work is being distributed. My vision towards the future is to see how this body of work will find its final home, where it will be, and how to bring it to a future generation. All of that is mixed together. It's a wonderful fact that the work is all together, complete with the documentation and papers for the work, and that it hasn't been crushed by commercial pressures. My vision is how to give this and that's what I'm still working on. The question also for me is technological support and how to create a balance between what can be done with other technology without harming my objective, which is the film-event.
On Presentation
For my kind of filmmaking and for the filmmakers who tend to work the way I do, we are not part of the more recent development in the art galleries and, of course, we are not part of the cinemas. That's quite clear. That has a possibility—if one has the strength to realize it—to create film-events that are as much in harmony with the film as possible; either the individual film or the body of work. This can be done in various ways; but one existential choice by Markopoulos and myself was to create the site of Temenos in the Peloponnese. I must say this was Gregory's choice. It was combined with the idea to remove his work from everywhere else and to show it only at that site. That's a strong and decisive choice. It had to do also with his not printing the films he was making in the last 15 years of his life.
This location, and the screenings that have already taken place there—and which I hope will continue—I believe have a nourishing value in the sense that they can strengthen other individuals, perhaps not even just filmmakers but other creative individuals to be in such a location and to feel both the extraordinary nature and the clarity and serenity of the work, to draw from that possibilities for their own processes. This freedom that can exist also has to do with the fact that this location is cut off from the normal economic advanced world. In some way we are taking advantage of what still exists from an archaic society.
As I have continued and as I have tried to learn from my own existence and Markopoulos's very special personality and struggle, I saw that for this type of filmmaking there probably had to develop a unity between the filming, the preservation and restoration, the printing, and the event. This unity is what—within the concept of Temenos—has personal worth. When you believe in someone else's work and you want it to not be lost but to be realized, this is an added incentive. But of course that's only one side. There's also the other side of how complex everything is, how one moves into the future, and how so much is unpredictable, and how no one is here to fulfill the objectives that should be fulfilled by the individual himself. This extraordinary speculative development for film is a treasure for all of us. I hope to bring it to a point where it can be given into the future to the next generation.
Another point in this is how to not make it too exclusive? You could say this is an egotistical development and I don't want to stand there alone. We had 250 guests in 2008. There is the incredible obstacle that you have to pay for your travel; but, once you are there, once you reach the airport in Athens, there is practically no expense. In both events I organized, the governor of the region provided buses that transported participants from the airport to the host village, the village gave a wonderful banquet, and bed and board each day cost about 20 Euros.
On Temenos
The intention of Temenos was to create a place where the films in the archive Markopoulos was creating that had been intended at a certain point only to be shown at one site would be shown at that site and that people should travel to that site to see the work. It actually makes most sense for his final work, which was so long. The idea was linked to Greece because of the background of the films; but, also, my own idea was to build upon that intention. It's part of the same intention but my perspective on it is that such a location—and there are places in the United States that could be put to the same purpose—which is to remove people from the pressures they are under and to put them in a context which gives them strength through the film viewing. It could be specifically for young filmmakers or young artists but really it's for everyone. But in the case of young filmmakers or young artists, I was thinking—because I had visited some art schools—I know the kind of pressure they're under, partly from the family where the parents have a responsibility to think of how their child who wants to be an artist will live. By this, there is a pressure put on the young person.
I have thought that these kinds of projections in such a location, if you have this experience at a certain age, it has a great worth. I'm thinking of this in connection to my own experience, which was not to have this viewing experience but to live in a certain way and to have someone who said to me: "Just do the work and don't worry about the costs. They will be somehow finagled." It's important to have this kind of fanatic development or support. Obviously the San Francisco Cinematheque and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts are committed to this work and—without these very small groups—there would be no possibility because of the larger context and the larger institutions which do not have the commitment. We can find a place in larger institutions, but it is always somehow compromised. This is the balance that always has to be struck; but it’s possible. So that's something about how the films were intended to be shown.
Even the event that I do in Greece, I have created an event which takes place once every four years and it is for three days, perhaps a little longer, and people come from great distances. In recent years they have seen the films I am printing of Markoupolos that were never printed in his lifetime. It's a wonderful occasion that brings a very special group of people together. They, of course, have a tremendous cost to travel but this location in the Peloponnese has extraordinary qualities and is still very poor. It's in the mountains. A room costs, maximum, $20; a meal, perhaps, $6. The projections are given free and the publication that we do is also given free.
I first saw Humoresque (1946) projected large at the Castro Theatre at the 14th edition of Noir City (2016) and never got around to transcribing Eddie Muller’s introductory remarks; but, as it has been included on the program roster for Noir City 23, now’s as good a time as any to look back in order to look forward.
As synopsized by Noir City: “John Garfield and Joan Crawford make the screen crackle as a gifted violinist and his patroness who fall in love. The passion that drives the violinist sours, however, when Crawford’s character begins to exert her will in domineering and detrimental ways. A profoundly affecting film with an awe-inspiring score.”
I’ll start straight off by lowering my fedora to my chest to belatedly honor Bill Arney—“The Voice of Noir City”—whose jesting emceeship welcomed Film Noir Foundation’s founder and President Eddie Muller to the Castro Theater stage, often with a baritone bit of sardonic wit. Arney passed away on September 27, 2021 and was honored in memoriam by Muller, and it will be sad and admittedly disorienting to return to Noir City without his voice booming out over the audience. In retrospect, I am so glad I have his voice recorded so I can listen to it in perpetuity.
At the Noir City 14 screening of Humoresque, Arney welcomed the audience with his signature wry, wisecracking persona: “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Noir City’s first classical music recital. Y’know, some local writers have been touting this year’s festival as an example of film programming genius, to which I say it doesn’t take a genius to show a Joan Crawford movie at the Castro Theatre. But seriously, here to explain why the film you are about to see is not a camp classic, the Czar of Noir himself—Eddie Muller!”
Hoping we were enjoying the afternoon’s “classical music recital”, Eddie relayed that Humoresque is one of his favorite Crawford movies and though, yes, Joan Crawford is the Queen of Camp, he doesn’t consider Humoresque to be campy. Instead, he finds it pretty serious.
Joan Crawford had just completed Mildred Pierce (1945) at Warner Brothers, which won her the Oscar®; her big comeback after having been kicked to the curb by Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Warner Brothers picked her up and resurrected her career. As production began on Humoresque, Crawford was perceived to be the second banana to the soaring popularity of her co-star John Garfield; but, during production, she won the Oscar®. Jerry Wald, the producer of Humoresque, was also the producer of Mildred Pierce, and—on the tailcoats of Crawford’s Oscar® win—was able to get Humoresque’s budget increased. Her role as Helen Wright was expanded so that Crawford became the dominant figure in this film. “No surprise,” Eddie quipped, “if you understand the history of Joan Crawford.”
Humoresque was based on a very unwieldy screenplay Clifford Odets had written. He was also the author for Golden Boy (1939), which was similar to Humoresque in many ways. He had written a screenplay called Rhapsody in Blue about George Gershwin, but it was a little bit too unwieldy, so they incorporated a lot of Odets’ story that pertained to the character played by Crawford in Humoresque and combined it with an eponymous short story Fannie Hurst had written. That was how the screenplay emerged.
Eddie drew attention to the way that Hollywood treated modern art in movies, with great irreverence, and poking holes in the pretensions of modern art and all that; but, they revered classical music. They treated classical music in the movies as if it was the highest form of art. That seriousness permeated movies made about classical musicians, as seen in Humoresque. They might have poked fun at the ego of the artist, but never at the art itself, which Hollywood presented as the highest form of artistic achievement. As an example of that, Warner Brothers paid Isaac Stern $25,000 to compose the score for Humoresque, and to be a musical consultant on the film. John Garfield studied with Stern so he could learn to play the violin for the film’s long shots. Eddie didn’t want to reveal how they accomplished the close-ups because he didn’t want to “spoil the magic.” [What Eddie didn’t want to reveal was that it was Isaac Stern’s hands filmed in the close-ups of Garfield’s character playing the violin.]
Eddie recalled that when he first screened a noir film in Portland, Oregon, and took to the stage afterwards to talk about it, there was a guy in the audience who—before he could say anything—stood up and shouted, “That was not film noir! That was romantic melodrama!” He stormed out of the theater. Humoresqueis a romantic melodrama, Eddie conceded, making no bones about it; but, the way this romantic melodrama is presented, he explained, fits right into the high water era of the noir movement. Jerry Wald specifically asked for Humoresque to recapture the look of Mildred Pierce, which was what so many cinematographers and directors were doing at the time.
The last bit of business about Humoresque that Eddie offered apropos of Noir City 14’s overall art theme was that director Jean Negulesco was an art director, a painter and a popular photographer who, regardless, was unable to direct actors like some actors wanted to be directed, including Joan Crawford. She cried to Jerry Wald that she was not getting the direction that she needed out of Negulesco because he just let actors rehearse, watched, and said, “I like what you’re doing there” instead of actually coaching and directing them and not giving needy actors [Eddie cleared his throat to humorous effect] the kind of attention they deserved.
When Negulesco learned of Crawford’s reaction to his seeming lack of direction, he went home and illustrated her character, he drew it and then presented his drawings to Crawford. He said, “This is my vision of Helen Wright.” Crawford completely understood her character from that point on. Jean Negulesco is a terrific director, Eddie asserted, who has made many noir films that have been under the radar because he didn’t have the A-scripts. But he got one here. Though some think Mildred Pierce is the high mark of Hollywood melodrama, Eddie suggests Humoresque gives it a good run for its money.
* * *
Following up with some research of my own, Joan Crawford actively pursued the role of Helen Wright. When producer Jerry Wald warned her it was not the major role in the film, she responded, "I don't care, it's a delicious part". She viewed the role as a great supporting part and was confident in her performance, which is often cited by critics as one of her best onscreen works. In general, she was very proud of her screen creations and felt she gave one of her most nuanced performances in Humoresque. The role forced her to be subtle, a quality noted by critics in contrast to some of her more dramatic work.
Crawford contributed to the character's presentation, notably suggesting the idea for her entrance scene where she takes a cigarette and is immediately surrounded by men offering a light, an incident she had observed with Tallulah Bankhead.
An interview snippet from the set noted her efficiency, juggling a fitting and telephone calls simultaneously, leading director Jean Bernhart to jokingly compare her to Napoleon.
“Humoresque: A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It”, the short story by Fannie Hurst on which the 1946 film was partially based, was first published in the March 1919 issue of Cosmopolitan with illustrations by T.D. Skidmore and later that year in the collection Humoresque and Other Stories. The plot focuses on a tale of young Jewish violinist caught between ghetto and salon. It was adapted into stage plays (1923, directed by J. Hartley Manners) and films (1920, directed by Frank Borzage; 1946, directed by Jean Negulesco) of the same name.
Humoresque screens Sunday, January 18, 2026 at Noir City 23 on a Warner Brothers double-bill with Young Man With A Horn (1950) both as a matinée (1:15PM) and an evening presentation (6:00PM).
It was sometime in the 1990s that I first became aware of the Koch Brothers’ involvement in local school board races, often electing candidates who aligned with their education reform agenda; an agenda whose primary goal has been to promote alternatives to traditional public school systems, such as charter schools and private school voucher programs, as part of a long-term strategy to fundamentally change the perception of and reliance on public institutions, in favor of private, market-based solutions.
Up until I became informed about the Koch Network’s investment in public education, I never paid much mind to who was elected to school boards; but, have become increasingly aware that such disinterest was misguided and that vigilance is requisite. Though national front runner politics tend to dominate the news cycles, it’s at the granular level of state and local initiatives that public education is at risk from this danger hidden in plain sight.
Idaho has seen its own share of significant book challenges and bans, particularly driven by a 2024 state law (HB 710) that requires public libraries to move materials deemed "harmful to minors," including content about sexual conduct and homosexuality, to adult-only sections, allowing lawsuits against libraries for non-compliance, leading to removals of diverse and classic titles, despite legal challenges questioning its constitutionality and impact on free speech.
Equally controversial and divisive has been a Parental Choice Tax Credit, signed into law in early 2025 (HB93), despite significant public opposition, with thousands contacting the Governor's office against it. A lawsuit is in place challenging that law’s state constitutionality.
Most recently, a controversy over an "everyone is welcome here" sign displayed in the class room of a West Ada County school district centers on a new state law (HB 41) banning political/ideological displays in K-12 schools, leading to state officials and the Attorney General's office declaring the inclusive sign political and prohibiting it, sparking debate over free speech, inclusion, and the law's vague definition of "political".
So, firsthand experience in my home state of Idaho underscores my appreciation for Academy Award® nominee and Peabody Award winner Kim Snyder’s The Librarians (2025), which had its World Premiere at Sundance, and has gone on to win an Honorable Mention for Outstanding Documentary at San Francisco’s Frameline Film Festival; the Victor Rabinowitz and Joanne Grant Award for Social Justice at the Hamptons International Film Festival; the Lena Sharpe Award for Persistence of Vision at the Seattle International Film Festival; and Jury Prizes for Best Documentary Feature at the Sarasota Film Festival, the Dallas International Film Festival, and Atlanta’s Out On Film Festival.
With all those awards under its belt, and audiences choosing it as the best of their fests, The Librarians rolls out theatrically in the Bay Area at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco, Rialto Cinemas Elmwood in Berkeley, Rialto Cinemas in Sebastopol and the Smith Rafael Film Center, San Rafael. Snyder is accompanying most of those screenings, with several already sold out. Meanwhile, it’s crickets here in Boise, even at The Flicks. What with all the attacks on public education in force here in Idaho, you would think….?
The film’s tagline—"America’s war on books is more than a war on words”—emphasizes the fascist undertones of a Christian Nationalist movement in the United States funding efforts to undermine and take over control of public schools and libraries.
As synopsized by the filmmakers: “In Texas, the Krause List targets 850 books focused on race and LGBTQIA+ stories—triggering sweeping book bans across the U.S. at an unprecedented rate. As tensions escalate, librarians connect the dots from heated school and library board meetings nationwide to lay bare the underpinnings of extremism fueling the censorship efforts. Despite facing harassment, threats, and laws aimed at criminalizing their work—the librarians’ rallying cry for freedom to read is a chilling cautionary tale. Librarians emerge as first responders in the fight for democracy and our First Amendment Rights. As they well know, controlling the flow of ideas means control over communities.”
Their bravery on display enforces The Hollywood Reporter’s assessment that The Librarians is “a different kind of superhero movie.” One such hero opposing the book bans is Weston Brown who travels from San Diego to his hometown of Glanbury, Texas to speak at a school board meeting against his mother Monica Brown’s relentlessly righteous crusade to repress LGBTQIA+ material in particular and to file criminal charges against librarians. Having been ousted from the Brown family once he came out, and forbidden to interact with his eight siblings, Brown’s depiction of his mother as a religious fanatic imprisoned in fear is especially heartbreaking, even as she weirdly insists on filming everything on her cellphone and makes no bones about photobombing her son when he is being interviewed by a local television anchorman.
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