LakeOfFire Tagged Articles at Cinematical

What surprises were on Oscar's shortlist for Best Documentary? Which worthy contenders didn't make the cut? How is the documentary field changing in the face of new technologies? Does "Reality TV" really have an effect on documentary audiences? And is Michael Moore's long shadow finally moving on after years of looming over the field? Joining James this time on The Rocchi Review is journalist and performer Tamara Krinsky -- the Associate Editor of Documentary Magazine and the co-host of "That Indie Film Show" on Iklipz.com. You can download the entire podcast right here -- and we hope you enjoy; those of you with RSS Podcast readers can find all of Cinematical's podcast content at this link.

Over on The Hot Blog, David Poland has the weekend box office numbers up, and the one thing that popped out at me, probably because I just saw and reviewed the film last week, is that Lake of Fire, which opened at Film Forum in NYC this weekend, did not do nearly as well as might have been expected. There's some discussion in the comments on Poland's post speculating on the whys and wherefores of the film's less-than-stellar opening, the main gist of which is that either the film did not appeal to people because no one wants to see the abortion process on a big screen while they're munching their popcorn, or because the film doesn't take a side on the abortion issue, and people who are passionate about it on one side or the other do not want to see the other side treated fairly.

I pondered this for a while this morning as I lingered over my Monday morning coffee. As I noted in my review of the film, Lake of Fire does give both sides of the debate equal weight, but I also think that the way each side will be perceived is in the eye of the beholder. I could see the film playing well in red states, because the film doesn't portray right-to-lifers (on the whole) as a bunch of nutcases. Sure, there are some some interesting folks in there, but there are also attractive women in there talking about why they are pro-life. And even the folks that a liberal might view as off-their-rocker (such as Assembly of God preacher John Burt and Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry) would probably be viewed by a lot of fundamentalist Christians as good, God-fearing guys who are simply passionate about their beliefs on the subject.

A key moment in Tony Kaye's black-and-white abortion documentary, Lake of Fire, sums up the film's philosophical stance on the issue quite succinctly: Alan Dershowitz, says simply, "Everybody is right when it comes to the issue of abortion." And although the film includes what could be considered "shock footage" -- things like a doctor casually washing off and examining the dismembered parts of a 20-week-old fetus in a colander to make sure he got it all out -- the film carefully avoids taking a clear stance on one side or the other of the abortion debate.

In that sense, Lake of Fire rather reminded me of last year's Jesus Camp, directed by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, which also examined religion and politics with an eye toward objectivity. In both cases, your take on the message of the film will depend largely on your philosophical point of view. To a lot of people watching Jesus Camp, the evangelical Christians teaching children to be "soldiers for Christ" were downright scary; if you're an evangelical Christian, though, the film views almost like an infomercial or recruitment video for your cause -- of course it makes sense to convert souls for Jesus from the cradle up, and to raise children to be wiling to fight and die for their God. The same can be said of Lake of Fire, though if you lean strongly toward one side or the other of the abortion debate, Kaye's objective eye may be harder to discern.

After serving ten years in director's jail for declaring war on New Line Cinema over final cut of his debut film, American History X, Tony Kaye has been released for good behavior and gone back to his favorite subject: American extremism. His new documentary, Lake of Fire, is ostensibly a balanced look at the abortion debate in America, and two sides are certainly represented, but when you have Noam Chomsky in one corner and a snake-handling, chromosome-missing, relative-of-Leatherface type in the other corner, is that really a fair framing of the debate? Perhaps you think so, but either way, Kaye's film places such an overwhelming emphasis on abortion-clinic shooters, beady-eyed Biblical literalists and other non-negotiable types that his film ultimately comes across as pro-choice even if it's not intended to. In a film that lasts 150 minutes, there are perhaps five minutes devoted to exploring the position of, say, pro-life liberal Nat Hentoff, who lays out what I would consider a perfectly defensible argument for his beliefs. Couldn't we have had more of that?

Even though the film doesn't present the best possible argument for both sides in the debate, it also can't be denied that Kaye's natural strengths as a filmmaker -- his uncompromising eye and willingness to shock the audience -- are at full-tilt in this film. Specifically, he doesn't shy away even one iota from showing us exactly what an abortion is, what it costs everyone involved, and what is left behind after it's over. In what may be some of the most gruesome footage ever contained in a theatrically-released film, and boy am I not kidding, Kaye takes his small crew inside of abortion clinics and then points his camera (and our faces) directly into the medical waste that remains when an abortion is completed: fully-formed and dismembered hands, feet, heads, torsos, eyeballs, and all the rest of it. If you go in to see this film, know in advance that you'll have to see something that, whatever you choose to call it, is indistinguishable from a small baby cut up into pieces and floating in a pan of liquid gore.

Santa Barbara seems like a pretty cool place to hold a film festival; nice people, fancy cars, great weather, swanky restaurants ... and oh yeah, the movies. The Santa Barabarians are presently gearing up for their 22nd annual film festival, and I'm here to tell you what they'll be playing. Well, some of what they'll be playing. Well, the big titles anyway.

Based on what Variety tells me, the SBIFF will be offering a solid handful of world premieres, including Joel Schumacher's The Number 23 (which stars Jim Carrey and Virginia Madsen), Lake of Fire (a documentary about abortion that comes from the guy who directed American History X) and Christopher Plummer in Man in the Chair, which is a story about the last-surviving Citizen Kane crew member. Interesting.

Not premieres, but potentially quite interesting are "that Dakota Fanning movie" Hounddog, George Hickenlooper's controversial Factory Girl, Michael Apted's Amazing Grace and Sue Kramer's Gray Matters. The fest folks will also take some time from their busy screening schedule to honor filmmakers like Forest Whitaker, Bill Condon, Helen Mirren and Will Smith.

Plus a whole lot more. So if you live within, say, 40-some miles of Santa Barbara and you want to see some interesting flicks between January 25 and February 4, now you have something to do.

It's been almost ten years since Tony Kaye's American History X debuted. Okay -- it's been exactly eight years last week, but it's been close enough to ten for the director to be prepping for a 10th Anniversary DVD. In order for everything to run smoothly with the special edition release, he's patched up things with New Line, the studio he fought with over the final cut of History, which was his first feature. In these eight years since that film's release, Kaye has not been able to put out another feature -- possibly because of his reputation following the New Line battle. However it's not as if Kaye was idle during that time-- and has been screening his newest project, a documentary about abortion titled Lake of Fire. The doc premiered in September at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it was reportedly well-praised, but Kaye's still trying to find distribution for it. It is unclear whether distributors are apprehensive in dealing with Kaye out of fear that he will put them through a similar battle as he had with New Line. Since Kaye claims to have spent 16 years and upwards of $8 million on the film, it would be a shame if no company bites with a substantial deal, especially since Kaye's announced that he does not need to make anymore changes to it, even though he kinda wants to.

In addition to shopping Lake of Fire, Kaye is keeping very busy and with many projects for the future. Aside from his success directing commercials and music videos (including the new Johnny Cash video for "God's Gonna Cut You Down"), he's apparently doing well as a director-for-hire and is currently working on special assignments for Johnson and Johnson and the United Arab Emirates. For his next fictional feature, he will be concentrating on a script by Robert McKee titled Madness (this would ironically be the first feature film written by McKee, who is famous for his books and seminars on the craft of screenwriting -- he is the guy portrayed by Brian Cox in Adaptation), which focuses on a doctor with a cure for schizophrenia who marries a former patient.