Earlier this week, the Sundance Film Festival announced it is exploring its options to move to a new venue in 2027, after the prestigious festival was hosted in Park City, Utah for the last 43 of its 46 years. And SF will be throwing its hat in the ring.

“We are at a unique moment for our festival and our global film community, and with the contract up for renewal, this exploration allows us to think responsibly about how we can best continue to serve our community sustainably while preserving the essence of the festival experience,” festival director and head of public programs Eugene Hernandez said in a statement.

Hernandez doesn't say it, but it seems the festival's relationship with the small ski town of Park City has been strained in recent years, especially as the festival has grown in size and prestige. As the Chronicle notes, locals there complain about the noise of helicopters every January when Hollywood's elite helicopters arrive from Salt Lake City. And due to space constraints, the festival has in recent years held more programs in Salt Lake City itself.

Along with the festivals in Toronto, Berlin, Venice and Cannes, Sundance remains one of the “Big Five” of the annual film festival circuit.

And as the Chronicle's G. Allen Johnson writes, “Sundance belongs out West.” As for territory, if it were held in New York, it would get in the way of the Toronto and Tribeca film festivals. Austin already has South by Southwest. And San Francisco has already partnered with Sundance to host drive-ins at Fort Mason during the pandemic, along with the Roxie in the Mission. (The SF Film Festival may be less pleased about being overshadowed, though.)

Manijeh Fata, executive director of the San Francisco Film Commission, confirmed to the Chronicle that the city is applying to the Sundance Film Festival to host the film in future years. Letters of interest must be submitted by May 1, and the application process runs from May 7 to June 1.

We know that Minneapolis also wants to make a bid (brrr!), and we'll have to wait and see what happens with the other competitors.

Photo via Wikimedia

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Don't get too excited by the title of the new Norwegian film, “Sex.” The act itself is actually only briefly discussed in this fascinating film, the first in a new trilogy from writer-director Dag Johan Haugerud, relying mostly on the words and descriptions of the main characters rather than much visual information. Haugerud, winner of the Europa Cinemas label for best European film in the Panorama section of the current Berlin Film Festival, where it had its world premiere this week, has announced this as the first of three films – “Sex, Dreams” and then “Love” – ​​with the same cast and which, overall, will explore themes of desire, identity and freedom, not to mention sexuality and the place of gender in our lives and society. This first standalone film also leans heavily on masculinity in ways not usually discussed by men, but here they do in a profound way in this thought-provoking film that also puts Norway's most famous city, Oslo, in the spotlight.

Haugerud's dialogue-driven script is full of monologues delivered in conversational dialogues with either two male colleagues (never named) from a chimney sweeping company and/or their wives. It begins with the boss (Thorbjørn Harr) telling an unseen person about a dream in which he encounters David Bowie, who thinks he is a woman. The dream is described in detail and clearly disturbs him, as he has never experienced such a vivid depiction of gender, his sex and his image from the perspective of others, in such a graphic situation, whether in a dream or not. The camera soon reveals that he is not speaking to a therapist (my first thought) but to a colleague (Jan Gunnar Røise), who then decides, albeit hesitantly at first, to tell of a recent real-life encounter he had with a man in the kitchen of a house where he was working on the chimney, a stranger who, he says, saw him as an object of desire and asked him point blank if he wanted to have sex with him. He tells his colleague that he immediately refused – they are both married – but that he quickly returned after leaving and, he says, ended up having sex with the man. What's more, he even tells his wife (Siri Forberg) all about it in a matter-of-fact way afterwards.

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One can imagine that the story didn't go down well, and for the rest of the 2 hours and 5 minutes, her character is all about becoming more and more deeply disturbed about what this all means, not just for their marriage, but for her, her family, and whether her husband is actually gay. In these intimate and lengthy conversations, he assures everyone that just because he did it once with a man doesn't mean he's an alcoholic. Harr's character also confesses to his wife (a more understanding Birgitte Larsen) his own strange dreams in which David Bowie sees him as a woman, and has to digest the fact that this has more of an impact on his marriage than on his lifelong understanding of his identity and the way he is seen.

Once we're past these heavy, if sometimes tedious, discussions, Haugerud manages to lighten things up a bit, as Harr's character takes his son Hans Petter (Adrian Jenure Skaaland) to a doctor (a wonderfully incisive and natural Anne Marie Ottersen) to examine the boy's injured hand, but at the same time asks her about his own ailments. In a somewhat whimsical way, she begins a story about two young gay men, one of whom is seriously ill. Haugerud suddenly thrusts us into flashbacks to tell this story within a story. I, for one, was glad to get out of the claustrophobic conversations sparked by the chimney sweeps' revelations and into something else, anything else. The slow and deliberate pacing, with minimal camera movement in so many scenes between them and their wives, makes everything seem longer than it is.

Aside from that, Sex is full of wry observations about human behavior and life's unanswered questions about who we really are. The superbly chosen actors, especially Røise and Harr, tell the story in a subdued, almost deadpan style. The camerawork, which also puts Oslo himself in the spotlight, is masterfully executed by Cecile Semec. And as befits such a profound film, it all ends with a musical dance sequence – of course – in which Harr's character performs on stage with his choir while Røise's character and his entire family, now seemingly content to carry on with their lives as before, watch from the audience. No explanations are needed, but perhaps we'll get one as the trilogy moves into the next chapter.

Producers are Yngve Saether and Hege Hauff Hvattum.

Title: sex
Festival: Berlin (Panorama)
Director-Screenwriter: Tag Johan Haugerud
Pour: Jan Gunnar Roise, Thorbjörn Harr, Siri Forberg, Birgitte Larsen, Nasrin Khusrawy, Hadrian Jenure Skaaland, Theo Dahl, Anne Marie Ottersen
Sales agent: M Appeal
Duration: 2 hrs 5 mins

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SAN FRANCISCO – The Sundance Institute is considering a relocation after its current partnership with Park City, Utah, expires in 2026. The city of San Francisco will apply to be the new host.

Moviegoer and publicist Karen Larsen says she's not sure it's a good idea.

“I think San Francisco already has too many festivals,” Larsen said. “There is a festival for everything here, including dogs.”

The Sundance Institute opened a “request for information” this month, inviting cities to submit proposals explaining why they should host the festival starting in 2027.

San Francisco is expected to be one of many cities bidding for the role, but Larsen believes Park City is part of the festival's appeal.

“I thought it was strange because Sundance was founded in Utah. That was the whole point. It was a destination festival like Telluride, so it was kind of surprising news,” Larsen said.

She understands why they might consider other options. She used to attend Sundance, but hasn't been there in recent years.

“It’s really cold, really difficult to get around,” Larsen said. “It’s hard to work there.”

She admitted that San Francisco would have nicer weather and more hotels available for the festival.

Suzanne Pfeifer waited in line to see one of the films at the San Francisco International Film Festival. She says she has conflicting opinions.

“I think it would be wonderful. I just don’t want it to have a negative impact on the San Francisco Film Festival,” Pfeifer said. “But if it’s a different time of year, I think it would work well here. This festival sells out every year.”

In a statement, Gloria Chan of the SF Office of Economic and Workforce Development said, “The city can confirm that we will comply with the RFI (Request For Information) proposal. San Francisco is a center for artistic expression that offers a unique blend of urban sophistication and natural beauty, providing filmmakers and visitors with an unparalleled setting with the infrastructure and amenities to immerse themselves in the magic of cinema. From our bustling neighborhoods to the tranquil shores of the bay, every corner of the city pulses with energy and inspiration, capturing the imaginations of storytellers and audiences alike.

“San Francisco is one of the most cinematic cities in the world – one that showcases independent and innovative storytelling, cultural vibrancy and creativity from filmmakers like Joe Talbot (The Last Black Man of San Francisco), Marielle Heller (The Diary of a “Teenager Girl”) and Barry Jenkins (Medicine for Melancholy),” Chan said. “San Francisco is the perfect backdrop for the Sundance Film Festival and has a rich history of celebrating the groundbreaking works of independent filmmakers from around the world.”

Many films had their world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, which usually takes place in January. They then attend other festivals later in the year.

Larsen says if Sundance actually came to SF, she thinks it would impact the festivals already happening here.

“Like this festival, the Asian Film Festival, which is happening in two weeks, all the films will be picked up at Sundance,” Larsen noted.

The Sundance Institute continues to collect proposals through May 1.

The final location is expected to be announced in late 2024 or early 2025.

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Directors Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas and actors James Caan and Robert Duvall all spent several weeks in a western Nebraska. It was 1968, and while the movie got little attention at the time, it proved pivotal in the evolution of Hollywood.

Friday, August 18th 2023, 7:54 AM MDT

Updated: Sunday, August 20th 2023, 9:30 AM MDTBy Leo Adam Biga, Flatwater Free Press

Rex Peterson trick riding while on tour.

Provided by Stephen Mack via Flatwater Free Press

Four years before the release of “The Godfather,” a nearly unknown contingent consisting of director Francis Ford Coppola and actors Robert Duvall and James Caan rolled into a western Nebraska town. 

They weren’t alone. Future mega-director George Lucas, cinematographer Bill Butler and actress Shirley Knight joined them in Ogallala for the Coppola feature “The Rain People.” It was 1968, and though the resulting work received little attention at the time, it went on to play an outsized role in the evolution of Hollywood and cinema.

Three films, plus a TV miniseries, emerged from this Hollywood-Nebraska intersection, including a no-holds-barred documentary Duvall made about a rambunctious trick-riding rodeo family, the Petersons.

The film, “We’re Not the Jet Set,” premiered in New York City to good reviews but fell out of circulation due to subsequent rights issues. It paints an unvarnished family portrait, complete with coarse, politically incorrect language.

“It’s true to who we were,” said Kris Peterson Springer, who appears in the doc with her siblings, parents and paternal grandparents. “I’m in no way embarrassed or ashamed by it.”

K.C. Peterson, Kris’ brother, regards Duvall’s largely self-financed labor-of-love as a gift bestowed on the family, perhaps the ultimate home movie. 

The Petersons plan to organize a public screening of it at the Prairie Theatre in Ogallala during an upcoming family reunion. 

This incongruous melding of cowboy hospitality and high art originally happened by accident as the freewheeling production of “Rain People” wended its way from the East Coast to the South to the Midwest. The loose route left plenty of room for inspiration and discovery.

“We were on the road, God, for that whole picture. I had really no idea where we were going from day to day,” Caan said before his death in 2022.

The movie might never have ended up in Nebraska if a location scout traveling ahead didn’t happen upon Ogallala. After seeing it, Coppola decided that’s where the story would culminate. The last four weeks of shooting unfolded there. 

“Once there, we felt at home and there were many good places that suited our story,” said Coppola, 84. “The people were nice and … we were all happy there.”

The schedule paralleled the fictional road trip of its pregnant protagonist, Natalie (Knight). She flees suburban housewife life for the open road, traversing Long Island, Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri and Nebraska to “find herself.” She gets involved with a brain-damaged ex-football player (Caan) and a motorcycle cop (Duvall). The maternal and romantic entanglement ends in tragedy.

Though arriving by chance, Duvall and Caan formed enduring friendships with the Petersons and another ranch family, the Haythorns. The experience also reinforced relationships among the film artists that led to alliances and projects pivotal to “New Hollywood.” 

Coppola was still finding his way as a filmmaker. 

Duvall, now 92, was a last minute replacement for Rip Torn. 

Getting the short notice gig proved fortuitous for Duvall’s career, said Knight. 

“That changed a lot of film history actually, if you think about it, because he started doing all that work with Francis.” 

“Rain People” provided Caan with the most challenging role of his career until playing Brian Piccolo in “Brian’s Song.” “I was like depressed through that whole picture, mostly because of this character I played.” 

Despite his discomfort, Caan said it was a great opportunity. 

“Just from talking to him (Coppola), I knew he knew actors. When we started working together I knew he was something special. The guy pretty much knew about everything.”

New USC film school grad Lucas came along for the ride to document the making of the movie. His short doc chronicling “Rain People” was released as “Filmmaker – A Diary by George Lucas.” 

“George’s film is excellent – he caught the spirit of this exciting trip,” said Coppola, “which for us was an adventure into filmmaking.” 

Duvall and Caan remembered the quiet, scrawny Lucas wielding a camera and sound system strapped to his chest to capture behind the scenes moments. 

Knight, who thought Lucas “was adorable,” took away an important lesson.

“Be nice to everybody … because that assistant could turn out to be George Lucas.”

Soon after wrapping in Ogallala, Coppola and Lucas formed American Zoetrope in San Francisco. “Rain People” was the production company’s first release. Under the Zoetrope banner Coppola produced the younger filmmaker’s first two features: “THX 1138” in 1971, starring Duvall, and “American Graffiti” in 1973.

In between the Lucas films, Coppola made “The Godfather,” then “Godfather II” and “The Conversation,” cementing his reputation as a contemporary American master.

While Coppola slogged through “Apocalypse Now,” Lucas parlayed the unexpected popularity of “American Graffiti” to turn his Saturday matinee fantasy “Star Wars” into Hollywood’s biggest franchise and the foundation of his LucasFilm-SkyWalker Ranch production and effects empire. 

“George Lucas was, and still is, like a younger brother to me. I knew early on he was a great talent, and though a different personality to my own, one that was very helpful and stimulating to me,” Coppola said. 

The emergence of Coppola and Lucas marked a new wave encroaching on the failing old studio system out of touch with counter-culture youth audiences. Though “Rain People” did little business and received lukewarm reviews, it served as a bridge project for those involved. 

Butler, the cinematographer, contributed to “The Godfather” and replaced Haskell Wexler on “The Conversation.” He went on to photograph “Jaws” for yet another film school “brat,” Steven Spielberg. 

“Rain People” led Coppola to cast Duvall in “The Godfather” films, “The Conversation” and “Apocalypse Now” and to cast Caan in the first “Godfather” and later in “Gardens of Stone.” 

“I liked working with them very much, and yes, they were on all the early lists of names for ‘The Godfather,’” Coppola said.

“George (Lucas) got to meet Bobby and knew he should be in ‘THX 1138,’” he added. 

The many crosscurrents resulting from “Rain People” were rare for an art film, said film scholar Thomas Schatz, emeritus chair of the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of “Hollywood Genres.”

“The Rain People” was part of “a strain of offbeat off-Hollywood road movies” that served as “character studies of American nomads, inward journeys of discovery and aimless travelogues through the American outback,” said Schatz, an Omaha native.

The 1969 movie marked the start of Coppola banding together collaborators who would join him in “his later assault on mainstream Hollywood,” Schatz added.

It is now regarded as an important early work by Coppola, who counts it among the favorites of his own films. 

“It has value, I think, beyond being an early film of mine,” he said, “but as one of the first films to touch on the theme of ‘women’s liberation.’”

Knight, who was actually pregnant by the time shooting commenced, embraced Coppola’s freewheeling vision. 

“I think what was happening with women at that time was they were coming out of the ’50s as lovely housewives in aprons into an era when women were becoming doctors and lawyers, entering politics and becoming independent,” Knight said. “Natalie was caught up in that.”

All the movie people met locals, but Duvall and Caan got to know them personally. The actors encountered a scene straight out of the movies when they met the tough and colorful ranchers. 

Fade in on a 1968 summer day in Ogallala. The sleepy agricultural and former railroad hub had been largely bypassed by the nation’s social-political churn except for some of its boys going off to Vietnam. Cut to the arrival of a small caravan of cars, vans and trucks whose occupants marked them instantly as outsiders.

Word traveled fast about these long-haired strangers with lights, cameras, cables and big city ways. It wasn’t long before Duvall and Caan, both admirers of the West and horses, asked around where they could find some mounts. They were directed to the Peterson’s circle pen just outside of town. 

Duvall still remembers the day and their encounter with the family patriarch, B.A. Peterson. He invited them to come down and ride horses any time … just before asking – in colorful language and in the same breath – if they were having any luck in town. 

Duvall recognized a cinematic family when he saw one. 

“Oh, boy, a very unique family, a rodeo circus mentality. They were kind of an identity unto themselves even in that small community I think.” 

The actors came back to ride, rope and swap stories. Duvall and Caan moved into The Lazy K next to the Peterson spread. They bought cowboy boots and had one of the Peterson brood, K.C., polish them. K.C. said he and his family took an instant liking to the actors. The family made quite an impression on them. 

“There were some pretty rough and tumble people back then,” said Duvall. 

“Yeah, they were a wild group,” Caan confirmed. “They would fight in the middle of the living room, and, oh boy, I mean fist fight, and he’s (B.A.) sitting back in a chair saying, ‘Now, no hitting in the face’ Those were the rules.”

“We had good times together. You’d tell B.A. a joke and he’d laugh for five minutes. He had a great sense of humor, that guy,” recalled Duvall.

K.C. said his father “didn’t care what he said to anybody, he didn’t care who you were. He didn’t let us call him daddy, you called him B.A. The film brought everything out about him.” 

Duvall, cinematographer Joseph Friedman and sound man Stephen Mack, who also edited the film, captured the family in all their raucous reality – the politically incorrect language, rowdy behavior and all. 

“We let it come from them. It’s their life,” Duvall said.

K.C. said his father could read a person and he trusted Duvall, giving him unbridled access to family without fear of misrepresentation or exploitation. 

“Bobby wasn’t going to change it, he was just going to put it out there how it was,” said K.C. “You won’t see another film like it, it’s totally different.” 

Duvall said he wouldn’t call the film “a pure documentary because there were certain scenes we set up … but it’s what they do and so it comes out of pretty pure behavior.”

K.C. recalled Duvall at his family’s house “all the time.” He stayed in the motel next door and would bring his wife and step-daughters to the Peterson place.

“My mom would have them sit down for a meal. She’d just feed them all. Then the next thing you know Bobby would say, ‘Hey, we need to film this.’ Bobby and crew followed us everywhere. You never knew when they might turn on a camera. And that’s kind of how it went. ”

After sharing so many intimate scenes together, Duvall was like a family member. At his invitation, some Petersons even visited him on the “The Godfather” set. 

“Jet Set” film locales include the Peterson home near the South Platte River and open rangeland. Events depicted include a cattle branding, a wild west show, the Nebraskaland parade in downtown North Platte, a graduation and an amateur boxing match. Long-gone sites figure prominently in “The Rain People,” including the Lazy Skyline Drive-In and Reptile Ranch. A house fire in Brule also makes quite a scene.

North Platte Telegraph reporter Todd von Kampen, an Ogallala native, said the Coppola film “really does capture the Ogallala I knew from my childhood.”

For Duvall and Caan, western Nebraska’s influence didn’t end with “The Rain People” or “We’re Not the Jet Set.” 

Trail-drive tales told by Walt “Waldo” Haythorn, a fellow rancher and friend of B.A. Peterson, informed Duvall’s 2006 mini-series “Broken Trail.”  

“Being around those people, the real thing, that helped me when I went on to do things … especially my favorite part, Augustus McCrae in ‘Lonesome Dove’ and ‘Broken Trail,’” said Duvall, a National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum Lifetime Achievement Award winner.

Caan took up Denny Peterson on an offer to join him at the Haythorns for a herding and branding.

“Boy, that was some experience. It’s a great tradition actually. These guys come from all over, the neighboring ranchers, like the Petersons. And then all the wives, boy what a feast they put out. A spread for all the hands. By four o’clock … I was done, I was hurtin’ boy.” 

On the last day of the four-day branding, Caan was accorded the honor of roping. “You’re tied onto your saddle and rope these big old calves out of the herd and drag ’em by the pit. I was flanking ’em and spread-eagling for two or three days.”

Caan got so into working cowboy ways he began entering weekend roping events. “It was just in my blood,” he said. 

Eventually, studios banned him from competing due to injury risk. He credits his interest in ranching with forming the foundation for “Comes a Horseman,” a western he produced and starred in with Jane Fonda.

After “The Godfather” Caan and Duvall re-teamed on Sam Peckinpah’s “The Killer Elite” and remained best friends until Caan’s death. Caan felt their shared “blatant honesty” and ability to make each other laugh contributed to their strong on-screen chemistry.

Members of the Peterson clan leveraged their horsemanship into becoming in-demand Hollywood animal trainers and wranglers. 

K.C. worked on the Duvall film, “Geronimo: An American Legend.” Older brother Rex Peterson has a list of credits ranging from “The Black Stallion” to “The Horse Whisperer” to “Hidalgo” to “1883.”

“He’s the most like his dad I guess of the guys I know. … He ain’t got time for a lot of how ya’ doins and stuff,” Duvall said.

Peterson has helped make many A-list actors look proficient on horseback, including Viggo Mortensen, whom he worked with on “Hidalgo”. Peterson’s iconic Stetson hat and handlebar mustache are his trademark look, though he’s rarely “hunted” the camera to get on screen himself, even when Duvall shot “Jet Set.” 

He did, however, relent for a close-up in the 2021 miniseries “1883” and for a small part in the new Mortensen western “The Dead Don’t Hurt.”

And he’s the subject of an in-progress documentary project by Paul Brozen, “Hats, Horses and Hollywood – The Rex Peterson Story.”

Duvall is quick to note that he doesn’t deserve credit for the Petersons’ successful entry into Hollywood. “They totally got that on their own,” he said. But the legendary actor is glad the family still treasures the film he made about them.

“It’s very moving to hear that,” he said, “because you never know if they’re going to accept something real.”

The Flatwater Free Press is Nebraska’s first independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories that matter.

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Claim:

Dr. Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, a professor of English literature at Linfield College, wrote an opinion column published in January 2019, in which he described elements of the 1964 film “Mary Poppins” as racist.

Rating:

In February 2019, news websites in the United States and throughout the world reported that a relatively little-known English professor in the Pacific Northwest had “branded” Disney’s classic children’s film Mary Poppins as racist. The London Evening Standard, for exaple, reported:

“The classic family film ‘Mary Poppins’ has been branded racist by a US academic who accuses Dame Julie Andrews of ‘blacking up’ with soot while dancing with chimney sweeps. In a piece for the New York Times, Professor Daniel Pollack-Pelzner criticises one of the film’s iconic moments, when Mary Poppins joins Dick Van Dyke’s Bert to dance on a rooftop for the classic song ‘Step in Time.'”

Similarly, the UK-based Metro news website wrote:

“Classic Disney film Mary Poppins has been branded ‘racist’ by a university professor who believes the scene with Mary and Bert dancing with the chimney sweeps features blackface. In the 1964 film, Mary and Bert take Jane and Michael on an all-singing and dancing tour of London with Bert’s pals that begins with them flying up through the chimney. Famously, they become covered in soot and in a now infamous scene, Mary attempts to wipe it off only to discover that she has made it worse, and so owns the soot and adds more to her nose and cheeks. However Professor Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, an English and gender studies professor at Oregon’s Linfield College, has now suggested that the scene in question is a reference to the original PL Travers books which associated chimney sweeps’ blackened faces with racial caricatures.”

That characterization of the much-loved movie prompted a bemused and even outraged response from some commentators, as well as enquiries from Snopes readers about the authenticity of Pollack-Pelzner’s opinion column. One reader asked, “Is this real or satire? It feels crazy to me …” while another wrote, “Please tell me it’s a hoax!”

The opinion piece was indeed written by a professor of English literature at Linfield College, a small private college in McMinnville, Oregon. Pollack-Pelzner’s controversial column was published in the New York Times on 28 January 2019 and was a straightforward effort (i.e., not intended to be satirical or humorous).

In that column, Pollack-Pelzner pointed to the thread of questionable racial imagery and stereotypes that run through the series of Mary Poppins books authored by Pamela Lyndon Travers and the classic 1964 film version, arguing that traces of that troubling material are echoed in the 2018 film sequel Mary Poppins Returns:

“Mary Poppins Returns,” which picked up four Oscar nominations, is an enjoyably derivative film that seeks to inspire our nostalgia for the innocent fantasies of childhood, as well as the jolly holidays that the first “Mary Poppins” film conjured for many adult viewers. Part of the new film’s nostalgia, however, is bound up in a blackface performance tradition that persists throughout the Mary Poppins canon, from P. L. Travers’s books to Disney’s 1964 adaptation, with disturbing echoes in the studio’s newest take on the material, ‘Mary Poppins Returns.’

One of the more indelible images from the 1964 film is of Mary Poppins blacking up. When the magical nanny (played by Julie Andrews) accompanies her young charges, Michael and Jane Banks, up their chimney, her face gets covered in soot, but instead of wiping it off, she gamely powders her nose and cheeks even blacker. Then she leads the children on a dancing exploration of London rooftops with Dick Van Dyke’s sooty chimney sweep, Bert.

This might seem like an innocuous comic scene if Travers’s novels didn’t associate chimney sweeps’ blackened faces with racial caricature. “Don’t touch me, you black heathen,” a housemaid screams in “Mary Poppins Opens the Door” (1943), as a sweep reaches out his darkened hand. When he tries to approach the cook, she threatens to quit: “If that Hottentot goes into the chimney, I shall go out the door,” she says, using an archaic slur for black South Africans that recurs on page and screen.

The 1964 film replays this racial panic in a farcical key. When the dark figures of the chimney sweeps step in time on a roof, a naval buffoon, Admiral Boom, shouts, “We’re being attacked by Hottentots!” and orders his cannon to be fired at the “cheeky devils” [see below]. We’re in on the joke, such as it is: These aren’t really black Africans; they’re grinning white dancers in blackface. It’s a parody of black menace; it’s even posted on a white nationalist website as evidence of the film’s racial hierarchy. And it’s not only fools like the Admiral who invoke this language. In the 1952 novel “Mary Poppins in the Park,” the nanny herself tells an upset young Michael, “I understand that you’re behaving like a Hottentot.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I-b_GJ4ltk

Pollack-Pelzner, who studied history and English at Yale and Harvard, is an academic expert in Shakespearean adaptations but has also contributed cultural criticism and theater reviews for major publications including the New Yorker and the Atlantic Monthly.

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BBC Dragon’s Den star Steven Bartlett said he’s looking for someone to fill a position for “the most interesting job” he has ever hired for which requires someone to film his every move.

The British entrepreneur is also known for his wildly popular podcast, ‘The Diary Of A CEO.’

Bartlett, who is the founder and CEO of Social Chain, an integrated social media company, has shared an advertisement on his LinkedIn profile, searching for a full-time videographer who is “able and willing to follow [him] around the clock and record pretty much everything” for a new YouTube series.

READ MORE: The stunning island beach under 90 minutes from Manchester which ‘could be Barbados’

No degree is necessary as Bartlett says he mainly cares about “your attitude, your work-ethic, your desire to learn and that you’re a good fit for our existing team culture.”

While videography experience is preferred, he and his team are also “willing to teach the right person, with the right attitude the skills they need for the role.”

Additionally, he says he “would love to give this role to someone who has a desire to start their own business in some capacity one day – hopefully this exposure will help you learn about the inner workings of various businesses.”

In the job advert, Bartlett goes on to describe what the job would entail which includes everything from travelling around the world to following him to the gym.

The six details he gives reveals you’ll go everywhere Bartlett goes – “including on international trips to international offices and when we take The Diary Of A CEO to LA and New York.”

You’ll be behind the scenes in his businesses and get to see and record how they are building these companies – Flight Story (Bartlett’s marketing company operating between London, Manchester & LA), thirdweb (software company based predominantly in San Francisco and New York), Team DOAC (The Diary Of A CEO team of 30~ based in London) and more.

The job will require to document the process of launching and creating his new Flight Story HQ – a 12,000 sq ft industrial building taken from The Truman Brewery in the heart of Shoreditch.

Other projects the videographer will get to work on include, The Money School, their prison project and supporting the British Red Cross in Turkey.

Not all situations will be professional as Bartlett wants recording to continue while he is at the gym, training for soccer-aid, DJ-ing and all the other “random things” he gets up to.

Applying is easy, as the businessman says simply send 3 bullet points explaining why you’re the right person for the role to work@stevenbartlett.com and include a link to your Linkedin profile in your email.

Successful applicants will be contacted this week for an interview.

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• San Francisco Mayor London Breed hit out at Good Morning America for saying it was ‘too dangerous’ to film in the city’s downtown
• She claimed the negative coverage is ‘hampering’ efforts to bounce back from the pandemic as major retailers continue to leave the city 
• The mayor also seemed to deny that rampant crime was a problem 

San Francisco Mayor London Breed has lashed out at Good Morning America for saying it was ‘too dangerous’ to film in the city’s downtown, claiming it is ‘hampering’ efforts to bounce back from the pandemic.

ABC’s chief national news correspondent Matt Gutman told viewers Wednesday he had been advised against appearing live from Union Square or the now-closed Westfield Mall for a segment on the spate of stores fleeing the crime-ridden city.  

‘It is worth mentioning that we are not at Union Square or the Westfield Mall this morning because we have been advised that it’s simply too dangerous to be there at this hour,’ he told viewers.

But in a statement to the San Francisco Gate on Friday, the mayor’s office seemed to deny that the area is dangerous — suggesting instead that major retailers are fleeing the city in droves due to a lack of customers as more people work from home.

‘Sadly some of the news coverage conflate the reasons or do not provide the full picture of why big retailers and other businesses in San Francisco are deciding to leave or transfer ownership of their operations,’ the mayor’s office said.

‘Lacking foot traffic in our downtown areas as a result of work-from-home habits, as well as challenges stemming from shifting shopping trends that have persisted for years were exacerbated by the pandemic.’

San Francisco Mayor London Breed hit out at Good Morning America for claiming it was ‘too dangerous’ to film in the downtown area

Breed continued: ‘Although there is a lot of work ahead of us and we will continue to focus on our economic recovery and public safety, the reality is that the number of violent crimes in the Downtown and Tenderloin is down so far this year when compared to the same period last year.

‘San Francisco also has an overall violent crime rate that is lower than other cities.’ 

But police data shows criminal activity in the area has been on the increase this year – with a 14.7 percent rise in robberies and a 10 percent increase in homicides so far this year when compared to the same time period last year.

Motor vehicle thefts and arson cases are each up more than 5 percent over last year.

There has also been an explosion in the number of homeless people – drawn to the city in part by generous assistance programs worth up to $687-per-month. 

As of the last official count in 2022, more than 7,000 occupied the tented shanty towns that have sprung up downtown and in the nearby Tenderloin district. 

Drug-related deaths have also sky-rocketed by 41 percent in the first quarter of 2023 compared with the same time last year, mostly due to fentanyl. 

Some 200 people died due to overdoses between January and March – or one death every 10 hours – compared with 142 deaths in those months the previous year in the California city. 

On Wednesday’s episode of Good Morning America, Gutman said there is concern San Francisco ‘could turn into a so-called zombie with it downtown hollowed out by a fentanyl epidemic, pervasive homelessness and fleeing retailers.’

He then asked Mayor Breed: ‘Is San Francisco dangerous?’

‘Here’s the thing: San Francisco is a major city and it has challenges,’ she said, apparently dodging the question.

Drug-related deaths rocketed by 41 percent in the first quarter of 2023 compared with the same time last year, mostly due to fentanyl. There has been an explosion in the number of homeless people ¿ drawn to the city in part by generous assistance programs worth up to $687-per-month Police data shows criminal activity in the area has been on the increase this year

The mayor now says the negative coverage of the rampant crime and drug use in the city is ‘hampering’ efforts for the city to rebuild from the pandemic — after several major retailers closed.

Westfield announced on Monday that it had defaulted on its half-a-billion dollar loan for the downtown mall, and was handing it back to the lender, blaming ‘unsafe conditions’ and a ‘lack of enforcement against rampant criminal activity’. 

The mall said the ‘unprecedented’ poor performance in San Francisco was a sharp contrast to the rest of its properties.

San Francisco Centre generated $455 million in sales in 2019, before the pandemic.

Last year, sales were down about a third to $298 million.

Nordstrom occupied 312,000 square feet in the mall: when it closes, Westfield San Francisco will only be 55 percent leased.

Other Westfields are, on average, 93 percent leased.

Westfield in San Francisco (pictured) has announced it is handing the building back to the lender A map reveals the major businesses which have left, or plan to leave, San Francisco in recent months. Westfield, the most recent to announced its departure, will give up its huge mall – and several occupants have already said they intend to follow

The folding of San Francisco’s biggest mall follows the closure of at least 24 major stores in the area.

Whole Foods, Old Navy, Gap and Office Depot are just some of the stores in the district to announce in recent months that they are closing.

Out of 203 retailers open in 2019 in the city’s Union Square area, just 107 are still operating – a drop of 47 percent in just a few pandemic-ravaged years.

As these retailers flee and customers stay away, the vacancy rate of office buildings has also reached unprecedented highs. The vacancy rate in May was 31 percent – amounting to 18.4 million square feet, or enough space for 92,000 workers, according to an analysis of data from Lee & Associates by the San Francisco Chronicle.

As a result, tax receipts for the city of San Francisco are suffering.

The revenue loss to the city caused by decreased property taxes could reach $196 million per year by 2028, according to modelling published in November by the San Francisco Controller’s Office. 

The best-case scenario from the modelling expects the cost will be nearer to $100 million per year.

That will contribute in part to a $1.3 billion budget shortfall by 2028, according to forecasts from the Controller’s Office. A report published in March cites ‘lower revenue projections’ as a factor.

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A documentary crew said it filmed a scene in San Francisco on Wednesday saying their cars were broken into and thieves stole tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment.

The incident happened in broad daylight at the end of Lombard Street.

Eli Steele and Terrell Allen, the two independent filmmakers, told NBC Bay Area that they tried calling 911 to report the robbery. But they have been separated several times.

“We were parked behind this red truck,” Steele said.

Just after 11 a.m., Steele and his crew left his rental SUV for just 10 minutes to film a scene. When they returned, they found his car’s window had been smashed and his camera equipment stolen.

“We lost $30,000. So it’s a great achievement,” he said.

Minutes later, Allen said he saw people trying to break into another car.

“I run over there and say, ‘Hey, what are you doing?’ Stop it, stop it!’” Allen said. “Pulls a gun on me. Of course I’ll stop. They have moved three cars down. They didn’t walk a block. They didn’t move on, they didn’t go. They literally knocked out three cars.”

NBC Bay Area reached out to the San Francisco Police Department for comment Wednesday but received no response. However, police told the San Francisco Standard that they have the filmmaker’s police reports.

No arrests have been made and investigations are ongoing.

There is more about this from Emma Goss in the video above.

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By Gary M. Kramer –

Wild Reeds, our gay filmmaker André Téchiné’s classic coming-of-age film, will be re-released on DVD and Blu-Ray on March 28th, and the film, made 30 years ago, remains a moving queer drama.

The story shows the resilience of four young people who deal with war, their lives and their sexuality in France in 1962. François (Gaël Morel) is Maïté’s (Élodie Bouchez) best friend, but he doesn’t love her the way she wants or hopes. He’s coming to terms with his homosexuality – especially after an erotic encounter with Serge (Stéphane Rideau), a handsome classmate. Serge befriends François because they are opposites. While Serge, the son of partners, is down to earth and enjoys sports, François is an intellectual who doesn’t run because he has a heart condition. They develop a casual friendship; François writes a term paper for Serge and Serge helps François with his math homework. (A scene in which François reaches for notes that Serge tucked into his shorts is quite homoerotic.)

When François realizes he’s gay – in one haunting scene he admits his sexual identity in a bathroom mirror – he longs for another rendezvous with Serge. A shot of François hugging Serge on a moped captures the desire he feels, but knows in his heart it’s one-sided.

Morel’s sensitive portrayal anchors Wild Reeds because most characters revolve around him. (The film is reportedly based on Téchiné’s life.) François gains confidence after telling Maïte about his same-sex desires. She is encouraging: “It doesn’t change anything for me,” she tells him, although she’s heartbroken. François isn’t ashamed to be gay – at least that’s what he tells Henri (Frédéric Gorny), another classmate, when Henri provokes François about his sexuality. In fact, François is curious about what awaits him as a young gay man at a time when homosexuality is not accepted. His concern about this even leads him to seek advice from a gay shopkeeper in a quiet, powerful scene.

Wild Reeds takes its title from a fable in which a mighty oak tree falls over because it cannot bend in high winds, while a reed easily adapts to the dangers it faces. This is not only an apt metaphor for François, but also for the other main characters who are also having growing pains. Serge is devastated when his older brother Pierre (Eric Kreikenmayer) is killed in the Algerian War and becomes depressed. Trying to find a direction for his life, he works on the farm and gets married as he doesn’t expect to pass high school.

Meanwhile, Maïte’s mother, Madame Alvarez (Michèle Moretti) – François, Serge and Henri’s teacher – suffers from enormous guilt over Pierre’s death. He begged her to help him avoid duty, but she refused. She quits her job and takes a sleep cure. After Monsieur Morelli (other than actor/director Jacques Nolot) takes over the class, he tries to encourage Henri to get more involved, but the young man, now 21, is at an age to make decisions about his own future.

The changing situations eventually focus less on François and more on Maïte. At the beginning of the film, François hopes that Serge and Maïte could become a couple; He instructs her to take care of Serge during his brother’s funeral. Instead, despite their opposing political ideologies, she takes an interest in Henri. (Maïte is a communist, and Algerian-born Henri supports the resistance organization OAS.) Maïte and Henri meet one evening and eventually give in to their wishes.

Téchiné’s cozy film is engaging as these episodes unfold and never gets soapy as the characters find their way. Even in the most melodramatic moments, like when Madame Alverez collapses in class, the film doesn’t overdo the emotions. Téchiné immersed viewers so completely in the lives of his characters that it’s easy to empathize with them.

In addition, the director filmed the characters lovingly. As François watches Serge exercise – Téchiné’s camera, a replacement for François, practically fetishizes Rideau’s body – his longing is palpable. Also. A scene of classmates frolicking in a river oozes sensuality while showing the confidence every teenager has developed. The film lets the characters grow organically, and the naturalistic style and realism reinforce the emotional investment.

Wild Reeds offers strong historical detail, from a number of American pop songs on the soundtrack to the clothing and set design, the posters and more. Perhaps because it’s a historical piece, the film doesn’t feel dated despite being 30 years old.

The ensemble cast of relative newcomers leaves a strong impression here. Morel directed several gay films including Full Speed, Three Dancing Slaves and Our Paradise which starred Rideau, an actor perhaps best known for the gay romance drama Come Undone.

At the time of its initial release, Wild Reeds received four Cesar Awards (the French Oscar) for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Most Promising Actress for Bouchez. It’s a beautiful, moving drama that deserves to be seen – or seen again.

© 2023 Gary M Kramer

Gary M. Kramer is the author of Independent Queer Cinema: Reviews and Interviews and Associate Editor of Directory of World Cinema: Argentina. Follow him on Twitter @garymkramer

Movie
Published on March 23, 2023

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By Daniel Lazare

After premiering at the New York Film Festival in 1979, this powerful documentary about one of the most dramatic periods in American labor history has been newly restored.

The Wobblies (1979), directed by Stewart Bird and Deborah Shaffer.

[Screens across the country for International Workers’ Day (May 1). Cities include: New York, Los Angeles, Washington, DC,  Seattle, San Francisco, Detroit, Cleveland, Denver, Austin, Park City, Omaha, Portland, and others.]

Looking for a way to celebrate May Day now that mass demonstrations no longer seem to be in style? The Wobblies might be a good place to start. Directed by Stewart Bird and Deborah Shaffer, it’s been given a full 4k restoration more than 40 years after it came out, and it’s opening up across the country just in time for International Workers’ Day. Although some might be inclined to dismiss it as an exercise in leftwing nostalgia – I confess I was part of that group – it’s in fact a powerful look at one of the most dramatic periods in American labor history. It features people like Roger Baldwin, a leftwing firebrand in his day who went on to found the American Civil Liberties Union, and a dozen or so lesser-known souls declaiming passionately about events in their youth.

The story they tell is about a vast upwelling of class conflict that is now largely forgotten. It takes us back more than a century to the days when America was the economic wonder of the world, an industrial colossus outproducing Britain, France, and Germany combined. To run its mines and mills, it was bringing in 15 million people a year, mostly from southern and eastern Europe. But considering that the country had nothing by way of welfare, unemployment insurance, labor law, or workplace regulations, immigrants who could barely speak English were at the mercy of one of the most rapacious business classes the world had ever seen. A coal-mine owner summed up the prevailing attitude in 1902 when he declared that “the rights and interests of the laboring men will be protected and cared for – not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in his infinite wisdom has given control of the property interests of this country.”

With God on the side of the bosses, whispering the word “strike” was blasphemous.

It was into this breach that the Industrial Workers of the World, better known as the Wobblies, stepped in 1905. In contrast to the frankly racist American Federation of Labor, a collection of elite craft unions run by the cigar-chomping Samuel Gompers, the IWW organized entire industries from the bottom up without regard to color, ethnicity, or gender. “The working class and the employing class have nothing in common,” the Wobbly constitution declared. “…Between these two classes a struggle must go on until all the toilers come together on the political, as well as on the industrial field, and take and hold that which they produce by their labor through an economic organization of the working class.” All the toilets, that is, not merely those who were white, male, native-born, and in possession of certain high-value skills.

Mass strikes erupted from the textile mills of Massachusetts to the logging camps of the Pacific Northwest. The times were not gentle. The Wobblies shows police cracking heads and blasting away with guns. One nonagenarian recounts an astonishing incident in Bisbee, Arizona, in July 1917 when the local sheriff deputized a mob of 2,000 vigilantes at the behest of the Phelps Dodge Corporation, loaded more than a thousand striking copper miners onto a freight train, transported them 200 miles into neighboring New Mexico, and then dumped them off in the middle of the desert. “There were machinegun,” the woman – unidentified, unfortunately – recalls in an Italian accent undiminished by age. “They were gonna shoot if anybody gonna jump from train.”

“1,270-some men,” she adds, “in boxcars – boxcars – like cattle! And then they take them down … to Columbus, New Mexico, without water, without anything.”

“Conditions became worse and worse,” recalls a veteran of an IWW strike in Paterson, New Jersey, the center at the time of the US silk industry. “And there was only one thing to do. You either had to just stop living or become a rebel. And that is when the IWW came in.”

“Agitators, a bunch of agitators are in Paterson,” another woman says. “Agitators! I used to get mad. I said, ‘they’re not agitating us, they just telling us the truth.’”

When 300 Wobblies took the ferry from Seattle to the town of Everett, 30 miles up the Washington coast, to support a strike by local lumber workers, hundreds of vigilantes met them at the dock and opened fire. At least five were killed. “I don’t know how many they shot,” another ex-Wobbly recounts. “Nobody knows. Lots of them went overboard, some jumped, some fell…it was terrible.”

That was in 1916. The next year saw worse as the US entered the war and newspaper headlines blared that the Wobblies were in league with the Kaiser. Repression was massive. The Russian Revolution meanwhile ended up splitting the IWW from within. After all, the Wobbly preamble, true to the union’s anarcho-syndicalist roots, had called on workers to avoid “affiliation with any political party.” Yet the Bolsheviks were a vanguard party par excellence. Lumber camps resounded with debate. “They had terrific arguments in the bunkhouses,” a veteran remembers. “The chairman, he’d get up and open the meeting and … he’d say, ‘Gather round here, fellow workers, we’ve got a goddamn revolution to talk about.’” The next year, 101 Wobblies received sentences of up to 20 years each after being found guilty of preventing the draft, encouraging desertion, and labor intimidation in a mass trial in federal court in Chicago. Membership recovered in the early ’20s, but the overall trajectory was clearly downwards.

The Wobblies is moving and intense, so it’s good to have it back after all these years. But the restoration is not without its poignant side. It would be easy to say that the movie is a reminder that such struggles are never-ending and that we’re all indebted to an earlier generation of rebels for putting their lives on the line. But decades later, we’re left with the uneasy feeling that despite such efforts, conditions have gotten worse, ie more atomized, more commodified, more fractious, and more discouraged. It’s not merely that today’s conditions are more complicated, but that society is losing ground. The Wobblies is not a feel-good movie, and that’s entirely to its credit.

Daniel Lazare is the author of The Frozen Republic and other books about the US Constitution and US policy. He has written for a wide variety of publications including Harper’s and the London Review of Books. He currently writes regularly for the Weekly Worker, a socialist newspaper in London.

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