Country Boys / Channel Z

Anyone else catch the 6-hour Frontline doc Country Boys? Any thoughts? I missed the first night, caught most of the 2nd night. Depressing and really well done… Makes me remember growing up in Southern Illinois a little too closely again – as did Stevie.

PBS’ website is currently down, but I think they are using the web as a kind of dynamic “extras” feature to the program, with lots of different expanded topics. Good idea (as long as your website is working).

Also recently saw the first half of Channel Z – a documentary about an early cable channel in L.A. that ran good movies, including the restored Heaven’s Gate a few years after it came out. I was really enjoying it when the DVD i had of it crapped out (Dayna thinks it was b/c I kept using the rewind button to see who was fronting Black Flag…It was Ron Reyes I guess, not Keith Morris) But I’ll rent another copy and try again; I really liked what I saw of both of these films. More and more, I am impressed more by docs than by “scripted” films.

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Mark Mauer likes movies cuz the pictures move, and the screen talks like it's people. He once watched Tales from the Gilmli Hostpial three times in a single night, and is amazed DeNiro made good movies throughout the 80s, only to screw it all up in the 90s and beyond. He has met both Udo Kier and Werner Herzog, and he knows an Irishman who can quote at length from the autobiography of Klaus Kinksi.

4 thoughts on “Country Boys / Channel Z”

  1. I watched five hours of it (had to watch my “Invasion” last night) and thought it was really compelling. I grew up in Kentucky and spent four years teaching at a college in Tennessee that draws upon a similar type of student as does Alice Lloyd College (the college that Chris wants to attend before failing his ACT). I taught many students who grew up in Appalachian hollars, but I never really got it. This film made me get it (and that kind of makes me sad). Furthermore, the film both acknowledges and explodes nearly every stereotype you can imagine concerning Appalachia (one of the last remaining marginalized populations in America for which it is still perfectly fine to ridicule). One thing I did note was the way many of the conversations between subjects had this feeling of being staged. I’m fascinated by the way in which the presence of a camera transforms everything. I certainly don’t believe these young men were lying but there was some “performing” going on (awkward or stilted dialogue that felt honest but not spontaneous, filling in narrative gaps or serving as exposition). I tuned in thinking I would give it a look but I never figured I’d stick with it or be so emotionally engaged and involved in the doc.

  2. I can’t say anything about “Country Boys” since I missed every single night, but I can say I really enjoyed Channel Z: A Magnificent Obsession. I have very clear memories of watching the Z Channel when I was living in California in 1980-1981, and some of our family’s Beta collection (yes, we had been fooled into thinking that Beta was the wave of the future) was made up of movies taped off the Z Channel. But this is much more than a nostalgia trip for those who had the opportunity to be in L.A. when the Z Channel was around.

    Like Grizzly Man, this is a strange and sometimes disturbing film about a man with an uncompromising vision, an obsession that brings about his own (and someone else’s) destruction. Like Timothy Treadwell, Jerry Harvey found something that saves him from a go-nowhere life. For Treadwell, it’s the grizzlies in Alaska. For Jerry, it’s the cinema. He’s obsessed. And although Treadwell’s obsession contributes little, if anything, to the greater good, a lot of positive things come from Jerry’s obsession. His contribution to film culture and the then burgeoning cable industry is pretty impressive.

    I would also recommend seeing The Mayor of Sunset Strip. When I think about it, Jerry is less like Timothy Treadwell and more like a handsome and confident version of Rodney Bingenheimer. Both are outsiders who somehow manage to become part of an inner circle of celebrity and talent, and both transform fanaticism into an industry.

    I, like Mark, am finding myself drawn more and more to documentaries. Especially, it seems, docs about odd people with strange obsessions.

  3. I dont think you’re off base with the Grizzly Man / Channel Z comparion John; though it didn’t jump out at me because there is so little of Hervey speaking in (what i’ve seen of) Channel Z, and so much of Treadwell talking. But I think it’s true.

    I’ve stayed away from seeing Mayor of Sunset Strip because I’ve spent years out here feeling sorry for the way Rodney gets treated – particularly by KROQ.

    Indie 103 (A very fine radio station that has made me forget KROQ exists) has tried to lure Rodney to their station. His perfect Rodney response, “But then it wouldn’t be Rodney on the ROQ.” Indeed.

  4. Just watched Z, and found it consistently compelling and engaging. But I’m less sold on its strengths as a documentary than on its appeal as a loose constellation of folks talking about movies.

    Its strength and appeal echoes my pleasure in your (collective) company–even those of you who never post, even those who simply pop by. I.e., people who love (and hate) movies, who want to trumpet and untangle their affections and disaffections, who like to bat it back and forth. Film as communal activity. I loved just listening to F.X. Feeney ramble on about his or Harvey’s interests.

    I found, however, that the film stuff seemed to imply some deeper resonance with the personal stuff–namely, Harvey’s depressive personality and his ultimate homicidal/suicidal acts. Or maybe I just expected that, given the make-up of the documentary. Unlike Treadwell, however, I never got a sense of how Harvey’s obessions and his actions dovetailed. I frankly got very little sense of Harvey at all; he remained a kind of cipher. Maybe that’s purposeful; maybe it’s a failing. Either way, I found it distracting. When all is said and done, I cared less about his pathologies and more about those shared affections. (Altman talked about him as midwifing or nurturing the films–that was very interesting.)

    So, definitely a film I’d recommend for its extension of our shared subject (films and film buffs) and engaging style, but not, I think, as a “great” film. By the way, everything Mark says is brilliant. BRILLIANT! (Hey Arnab – We can still edit other people’s comments.)

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