Event

The Windmill Movie

(ALexander Olch, USA, 2008, 82 min)

Preceeded by Quarry
(Richard P. Rogers, USA, 1970, 12 min)

What do you call a documentary composed of elements of somebody else's unfinished diary film? Homage? Portrait? Assemblage? Case study? Richard Rogers was a NYC baby boomer, born to privilege: Harvard-educated, he became a first-rate independent director and a gifted film teacher. But he was also a tortured neurotic soul torn between narrow class loyalties and broader professional goals and political values. Though Rogers found the time to juggle multiple relationships with the skill of a world-class Lothario, he was unable to complete an autobiographical film he had worked on for 25 years. His former student Alexander Olch brings together a trove of leftover material, including extraordinary scenes of Rogers's mink-coated, domineering mother, along with fictional sequences with Wallace Shawn as Richard. The Windmill Movie is a heady, fascinating brew that brings together one mans parentage, culture, education and ambition--letting the chips fall where they may.

Shown along with Richard Rogers' first film Quarry, a black and white short made near Quincy, MA with beautifully composed rocky landscapes and shots of young people worthy of Robert Frank's The Americans.

"It's a reconstructed depiction of a contradictory artist and man, an act of memory preservation and facilitation whose eloquence, largely free of pat analysis, captures the messy, paradoxical emotions that often remain irreconcilable to the grave." --Slant