Sitting in a stack of pulpy old crime novels and lascivious short stories of hookers, gangsters and freaks may be a diamond in the rough. The book is about a heroin addict named “Frankie Machine”, it won the National Book Award in 1950, and Otto Preminger’s film adaptation starred Frank Sinatra and Kim Novak.
The book and the film, “The Man With the Golden Arm”, may ring a bell, but its author, Nelson Algren, is still buried in that stack of old books.
In the new documentary Algren, which got its premiere at the Chicago International Film Festival on October 14, Nelson Algren is in the company of Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson. But his name has been forgotten, least of all in Chicago where he called home.
Since Algren’s heyday in the late ‘40s and ‘50s, his work’s legacy has seen the same pitiful fate...
The book and the film, “The Man With the Golden Arm”, may ring a bell, but its author, Nelson Algren, is still buried in that stack of old books.
In the new documentary Algren, which got its premiere at the Chicago International Film Festival on October 14, Nelson Algren is in the company of Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson. But his name has been forgotten, least of all in Chicago where he called home.
Since Algren’s heyday in the late ‘40s and ‘50s, his work’s legacy has seen the same pitiful fate...
- 10/21/2014
- by Brian Welk
- SoundOnSight
Audience Q&As at a film festival can be a mixed bag. At the World Premiere screening for Tuesday night’s Algren, a man waved at Director Michael Caplan, who recognized the man from a coffee shop earlier in the day. During the Q&A for Red Army, Director Gabe Polsky charmingly asked his grandmother (correction: Babushka), in Russian, what she thought of his movie.
On the other side of the coin, they can result in tedious questions (and even more tedious answers) about getting licensing for archival material or audience members outright interrupting and berating the director, like a man who asked about the “sociology” behind Russian athletics. Sometimes people just like to hear themselves talk.
In fairness, it takes finesse to ask the right questions and tailor the right answers so you can tell a good story. This holds true for the two documentaries I watched Tuesday night at Ciff.
On the other side of the coin, they can result in tedious questions (and even more tedious answers) about getting licensing for archival material or audience members outright interrupting and berating the director, like a man who asked about the “sociology” behind Russian athletics. Sometimes people just like to hear themselves talk.
In fairness, it takes finesse to ask the right questions and tailor the right answers so you can tell a good story. This holds true for the two documentaries I watched Tuesday night at Ciff.
- 10/15/2014
- by Brian Welk
- SoundOnSight
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