Complete credited cast: | |||
L.M. Kit Carson | ... | David Holzman | |
Eileen Dietz | ... | Penny Wohl | |
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Lorenzo Mans | ... | Pepe |
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Louise Levine | ... | Sandra |
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Fern McBride | ... | Girl on the subway |
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Mike Levine | ... | Sandra's Boy Friend (as Michel Lévine) |
Robert Lesser | ... | Max, Penny's agent (as Bob Lesser) | |
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Jack Baran | ... | Cop |
This fake documentary which appears quite real on the surface is about a young man making a movie about his everyday life and discovering something important about himself and his reality. This film is not a real documentary or is it? Written by Michael "Durrutti" Valenzuela <mvalenzu@ucsd.edu>
I guess you would get confused if you didn't understand the hype and hoopla surrounding the cinema verité movement during this era.
David Holzman's Diary serves to lampoon cinema verité by showing one dull, overly introspective scene after another. It's a thinly-veiled attack on what director Jim McBride saw as a pretentious cinematic form.
The fact that cinema verité is not widely regarded today (except in film schools) is a testimony to how dated this film now appears. That said, Roman Coppola endlessly references this film in his debut, "CQ". Perhaps McBride's film will enjoy a bit of a renaissance.