On March 31st, the Annapolis Pretentious Film Society screened BLANC DE BLANC by award-winning Pittsburgh filmmaker, Lucas McNelly at a new venue, The Latin Quarter in Annapolis.
In the Spring of 2009, filmmaker Reid Gershbein put out a challenge on Twitter for filmmakers to make a feature film in 2 weeks. BLANC DE BLANC, shot in 4.5 days at cost of $960 was one of these films. The other two films were "The Dabbler, The Dreamer, and the Man Who Broke The World" by Gershbein and "The Original Soundtrack" by a UK filmmaker I only know as @britmic
I had known Lucas from Twitter and of course our conversations came around to our movies. I asked him about BLANC DE BLANC and he sent me a link to download the movie and watch it.
As I explained in an earlier blog, I watched the entire movie sitting at my computer (which is not ideal for me) but I was transfixed. By the end of the film, my first honest reaction was, “What the hell was that?” Although the movie denied me closure, I was somehow in love with it.
I watched it a few more times before getting a hold of Lucas’ number to float out the possibility of a screening for the APFS.
Now honestly, I felt like I was making a “bet.” BLANC DE BLANC was made in two weeks. It had a few rough spots and was not only somewhat esoteric, it was downright iconoclastic in the way it broke narrative norms.
Yet it was all at once beautiful.
My bet involved the intelligence of the audience that comes to our screenings. I always say, we have a SMART, inquisitive crowd. I was betting that not only would our audience respond well to BLANC, but perhaps they would even figure out its intricate puzzle. So Lucas and I scheduled a date for a screening.
Last Wednesday night, when the movie ended, there was not even polite applause. The room was filled with a smoldering sense of bewilderment as I introduced Lucas for the Q&A. I don’t think a single viewer left the room.
In his Q&A, the likeable Lucas McNelly proved to be more almost more frustrating than his film. He was a whirlwind of arbitrary deflection, giving the most audacious and vague answers to some very poignant and heartfelt questions on the part of the audience.
“What did you get out of making this movie?” asked a woman who I know to be a filmmaker.
“That it gets very hot in my apartment when you turn the air conditioning off while filming a movie,” he responded.
Another woman felt like she was “set up” by the movie and told Lucas that she felt that leaving the audience with only clues to an unresolved ending was “arrogant.” Without missing a beat, Lucas smiled and responded: “Well this is the Annapolis PRETENTIOUS Film Society,” which got a laugh from the audience.
After 45 minutes of back and forth, the evening ended with several people grouped around Lucas, asking questions and buying BLANC DE BLANC screener DVDs. More than a few people came up to me and shook my hand, telling me that the screenings were going well and that they found the evening interesting and enlightening.
The woman who called Lucas arrogant also stayed a while and bought a DVD. She told me an interesting story to express her feelings:
“Years ago, when I was pregnant, I entered a maze that was created by an artist. I became so frustrated that I started to become physically sick – that’s how I began to feel while watching this movie.”
So clearly she understood that Lucas was, in fact, an artist -- albeit perhaps an arrogant one-- and that sometimes “art hurts.” TRULY Independent film by its very nature is a personal exploration of a story, and it’s a medium in which you will find stories told in many forms. One of our main goals at the APFS is to expose our audience to these wide and varied forms of storytelling, as well as to create a bridge between Hollywood and “Indywood.” A case can be made that all forms of storytelling are fluent, and that those who wish to invest a little extra time by attending screenings and buying DVDs can learn many different languages of storytelling and also help support what many people feel is a threatened art form.
I think a less sophisticated audience, would have taken Lucas’ story telling technique, which breaks sharply from the mainstream narrative, and his audacious approach to his Q&A, as contempt. Instead, I think that everyone took something away with them last night and either applauded Lucas as a visionary in the mold of the 60s French New Wave or thought he was a slightly abstract director who deliberately seeks to bend the minds of his audience by withholding crucial information.
At any rate, I was spellbound during the Q&A and I was proud of our audience, because when they became challenged they stood up to it and not only gave Lucas a little grilling, but they thoughtfully advanced the story of BLANC DE BLANC into many different directions.
That is exactly what the APFS is about.
