It seems reviews of David Holzman's Diary were written with a sense of nostalgia and cinéma vérité in mind. Various reviews from several years back have the writer staying they caught this particular film late at night on cable and perceived it to be real, which would definitely add to the experience, regardless of whether or not you agree with the ideas and themes of the film at hand. I knew if during one of my insomniac nights I caught David Holzman's Diary on Television and witnessed what it had to offer, I'd report back with a review that would sound more in the way of a kneejerk alarmist about the radical style this film bears. My only question to those who initially believed this film to be authentic and not a mockumentary - did you miss the end credits?
David Holzman's Diary is a piece of "docufiction," or a film genre obsessed with the concepts or reality and time and conducting them in such a way that gives you the feel that you're watching an authentic account of real life, when really, you're watching a scripted film. This particular film stars L.M. Kit Carson as the titular David Holzman, a young filmmaker and cinephile who, one day, decides to start videotaping his life and keeping video diaries of his thoughts on the world and himself. Over time, he watches himself grow as a person while making these videos and becomes increasingly obsessed with the idea of defining reality.
The film is slender at seventy-four minutes long, shot in black and white and made up predominately of lengthy, static shots with its loquacious and confused subject. Carson is said to basically be reiterating the thoughts and musings of the film's director, Jim McBride, but does so in such a natural way that he's obviously doing something right if people were believing he was just some nut with a camera in the sixties. He talks a great deal about the portrayal and image of women during the tumultuous time of the sixties, which provides for a nice time capsule to the time period, especially for those less fortunate, like me, who have no primary account of the period.
David Holzman's Diary is a lot more interesting to discuss than it is to watch, at times getting too stylistically wrapped up in itself and obscuring its own ideas, but such is the case, I suppose, when you are discussing lofty concepts and theories involving destiny and time. Carson gives a performance of true naturalism, and the home- video effects McBride's docufiction presentation provide the film with a feeling all its own. The more I flirt with shorts and full- length films of decades past, the more I realize cinematic radicalism dated back further and further.
Starring: L.M. Kit Carson. Directed by: Jim McBride.
David Holzman's Diary is a piece of "docufiction," or a film genre obsessed with the concepts or reality and time and conducting them in such a way that gives you the feel that you're watching an authentic account of real life, when really, you're watching a scripted film. This particular film stars L.M. Kit Carson as the titular David Holzman, a young filmmaker and cinephile who, one day, decides to start videotaping his life and keeping video diaries of his thoughts on the world and himself. Over time, he watches himself grow as a person while making these videos and becomes increasingly obsessed with the idea of defining reality.
The film is slender at seventy-four minutes long, shot in black and white and made up predominately of lengthy, static shots with its loquacious and confused subject. Carson is said to basically be reiterating the thoughts and musings of the film's director, Jim McBride, but does so in such a natural way that he's obviously doing something right if people were believing he was just some nut with a camera in the sixties. He talks a great deal about the portrayal and image of women during the tumultuous time of the sixties, which provides for a nice time capsule to the time period, especially for those less fortunate, like me, who have no primary account of the period.
David Holzman's Diary is a lot more interesting to discuss than it is to watch, at times getting too stylistically wrapped up in itself and obscuring its own ideas, but such is the case, I suppose, when you are discussing lofty concepts and theories involving destiny and time. Carson gives a performance of true naturalism, and the home- video effects McBride's docufiction presentation provide the film with a feeling all its own. The more I flirt with shorts and full- length films of decades past, the more I realize cinematic radicalism dated back further and further.
Starring: L.M. Kit Carson. Directed by: Jim McBride.