Ebertfest 2008 -- Gangsters, Devil Worship, Organic Farming and Ritual Suicide

I missed out on the first film of yesterday's slate, Shotgun Stories by Jeff Nichols, because I wanted to get my first dispatch up before I left the hotel for the day. By the time I made it over to the Virginia Theater and found parking (a feat almost as difficult as finding parking in New York City -- okay, not quite, but it is a bit of a challenge) the screening had started already.

Fortunately, I've seen the film already on a screener, and though I would have liked to have seen it on a big screen, I can tell you that this tale of brothers in rural Arkansas coming to terms with the death of their abusive father is an excellent little indie film, and very deserving of the Independent Spirit Award it won earlier this year. Hanging out outside the theater throughout the day, I kept hearing fest folks talking about this film and how much they loved it, and I'm glad Roger added it to this year's program.

The second film of the day was the one I'd most been looking forward to prior to the fest. Every year at Ebertfest, Roger programs a silent film. This year's silent pick was Underworld, a 1927 gangster flick, accompanied by a live score performed by the Alloy Orchestra. These kind of special screenings are one of my favorite parts of attending film festivals, and I always try to catch them, though it's hard to adequately describe in words just how amazing it is to see a film like this on a big screen in a packed theater.

Underworld came out just as "talkies" were coming in, and it's a great example of how silent filmmakers used lighting and closeups; the actors relied on larger-than-life facial expressions and gestures to convey the subtleties that they couldn't express with spoken words. The film, directed by Josef Von Sternberg, stars George Bancroft as "Bull Weed," a bank-robbing gangster who takes a down-on-his-luck, hard drinking ex-lawyer, Rolls Royce (Clive Brook) under his wing. When Bull protects Rolls Royce from another local gangster, Buck Mulligan (Fred Koehler), Mulligan sets his sights on revenge. Caught up among all this testosterone is Bull's girl, the lovely Feathers (Evelyn Brent), resplendent in flapper glory and leaving a trail of feathers off boas and coat collars everywhere she goes.

Underworld was great fun; as one of the early gangster films, it embodies many elements that would later become stereotypes of that kind of film -- the dark, brooding looks, the fights, the cop chase scenes, the revenge plot gone bad, the attempted jail break. But it's also a tale of love, loyalty and friendship, and has more than a few very humorous moments, such as the "Gangster Ball," the one night of the year when all the gangsters declare an armistice for a night of drinking, dancing and revelry ("But you gotta go, everyone with a jail record will be there!" Bull tells Rolls Royce). It was just a delight to see this film in the Virginia Theater, and the orchestra did a spectacular job with the score.

The evening's program brought two films that couldn't have been more different. First up was the immensely crowd-pleasing documentary The Real Dirt on Farmer John, directed by Taggart Siegel. I knew I wanted to see this one just based on the program description; it's not often you see a film described as including hippies, accusations of orgies and devil worship, AND organic farming, and the accompanying picture of two people dressed in bee costumes sealed the deal -- I had to see this film.

It was all that it promised and more -- a redemption tale of a Midwestern farm boy who lost the land his family had farmed for generations, only to finally build it back up into one of the most successful Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) organic farms in the country. Farmer John, who was on hand for the screening and a post-show Q&A, is quite a character, but his mother, Anna Peterson, who died in 1996, practically stole the film as she talked about everything from Jim Morrison (a nice boy, but he dressed like a bum) to a touching reflections on her life as a mother and farm wife. When she spontaneously tells her grown son about how much she loved being a mother to him and his two sisters, that she never considered it a burden or wished, like some women she knew, that she could give them away, the tears were flowing. By the final scene with her on her deathbed in her home, with her son holding her hand and telling her he loved her, there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

More than that, though, the film is just packed with bizarre and hilarious moments. Farmer John's neighbor, who was at the heart of the accusations of cults, drugs and devil worship that swirled around him in the 1970s, has some (probably to him, unintentionally) funny moments when he talks about the supposed devil worship ("If you want to worship the devil, well, okay, but when it messes with the cattle ..."). The funniest, most heartfelt moments come from Farmer John himself, though: from riding his tractor while wearing a Dr. Seuss hat or a feather boa, to filming a movie in which he buries a loan shark in a silo of corn, to making a film of himself and his girlfriend dressed in bee costumes, accompanied by her singing her "bug song" (think of the songs Phoebe on Friends used to sing, like "Smelly Cat," and you've kind of got the idea), he never does the "normal" or expected thing. The audience just ate this film up; I can't think of the last time I've seen a theater full of people so completely engaged in a documentary film.

The final film of the night was Paul Schrader's Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, a film about Japan's most famed author, Yukio Mushima, who on November 25, 1970, shocked the literary world by taking hostage the commandant of the Tokyo headquarters of Japan's Special Defense forces with members of his own private army. Mishima gave a speech to the assembled garrison, which he intended to inspire them to revolt and restore the powers of the emperor, but they only mocked and jeered him. He finished his speech, went back inside, and committed suicide by ritual seppuku.

The film, as the title suggests, is played out in four chapters: "Beauty," "Art," "Action," and "Pen and Sword." Schrader intercuts lush black-and-white flashback scenes with very stylized theatrical scenes from the novels and documentary-style shots of the last day of Mishima's life. While it's sometimes hard to follow what's going on, the film's production design is just incredible (production and costume designer Eiko Ishioka also did the costume design for The Cell, which screens tonight). This is just a beautifully made film that reaches levels of artistry few filmmakers ever accomplish, and it was a treat to see it on a big screen. Schrader, introducing the film, mentioned that a Criterion edition is due out soon; if you're a fan of stylized, artsy movies and you've never seen this film, you'll want to check it out for yourself.

Today's my last day here in Urbana, and the schedule is packed with some great films; I'll be back with more later.