The Gleaners and I | DVD
I have recently watched a few Agnes Varda films. This is the first of her documentaries I have seen. It explores the multiple types of gleaning that exist in France. Gleaners traditionally gathered the remaining crops after harvest. Varda travels the country documenting the various ways people salvage leftover items in the abundant modern world. The film intersperses her interviews with farmers, artists, underprivileged citizens, and legal authorities with the notion that she, as a filmmaker, is a gleaner of images. She pieces together visual remnants to create something substantive and uniquely captivating.
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Unstrung Heroes | DVD
This movie was based on the memoir of Franz Lidz. His originally first named was Steven but he was renamed Franz by his eccentric uncles. When he was 12-years-old, his mother became chronically ill. Steven is surrounded by idiosyncratic relatives, including his scientist father (John Turturro) and those uncles – a paranoid schizophrenic (Michael Richards) and a pack rat, urban gleaner (Maury Chaykin). Steven/Franz (Nathan Watt) spends the summer with his uncles and matures into the self-assured person that only these relatives could foster. Diane Keaton directed this solid cast, which also included Andie McDowell, and created a film that is both sentimental and quirky.
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