NOTFILM

The Plot. NOTFILM is a feature-length experimental essay on FILM -- its author Samuel Beckett, its star Buster Keaton, its production and its philosophical implications -- utilizing additional outtakes, never before heard audio recordings of the production meetings, and other rare archival elements.

Wow what a pretentious load of garbage. Jerky Lipman narrative about nothing. That goes on and on with no direction for over 2 hours. This is a 20 minute movie expanded into a sleep fest.

Interviews with 900 year old clowns who remember nothing. This movie is a waste of video.

THE most boring time I have ever spent doing anything including sleeping. I would rather whack myself in the head with a hammer instead of watching one minute of this boring garbage.

The only thing that's clear from this film is that the narrator loves to hear himself talk. Another reviewer calls this film pretentious. That's being kind. The title card calling his film "A Kino-Essay" is just the beginning of this self indulgent jerk fest. "Blaahh blahh I'm so smart I'll do all the talking because I'm a horrible filmmaker and my kino-essay is a mess". God I'm wasting my life watching and writing about this. WTF am I doing? If you watch this, bring a pillow and a bag of heroin so you kill the pain and nod off.

Anybody interested in Samuel Beckett, Buster Keaton or simply literature and/or cinema will want to watch and possess this 2-disc set. Made by film restorer Ross Lipman, Notfilm is an extensive and intensive documentary about the production in 1964 New York of the short movie, Film, Beckett's only foray into the Seventh Art. Via a series of accidental, but seemingly fated, events, the mantle of leading and almost only actor in Film fell on the shoulders of Keaton, then poor in both funds and health. By a twist of irony straight out of Borges or Kafka, Keaton famous for his impassive face was required by Beckett's screenplay to keep that face out of shot for almost the entirety of the movie.

Lipman's documentary contains interviews with some of the principals of the 1964 production; archive material, including out-takes, and tapes of production meetings involving Beckett, director Alan Schneider and cinematographer Boris Kaufman; interviews with other relevant figures, especially actor James Karen who both appeared briefly in Film and had been instrumental in recruiting Keaton, actress Billie Whitelaw famed for her interpretations of Beckett's stage roles, and Beckett's biographer James Knowlson.

For me, two personal highlights of the DVDs are the sound of Beckett's rarely recorded voice in the production meeting tapes, higher pitched than one might have expected; and the interviews with a frail but still luminous Whitelaw. One sweetly sentimental postscript to the 1964 shoot was that it resulted in an acclaimed appearance by Keaton at the Cannes Film Festival, his first at such an event, and only a few months before his death.

Strictly speaking, one of the two discs is the actual documentary Notfilm; the other is bonus material; but both are of equal interest and essential viewing. The producer is Milestone Film & Video (who, in parallel have also issued a restored version of Film itself).

For a film revolving around three people whose work I really admire - Buster Keaton, Samuel Beckett, and legendary book publisher Barney Rosset - this documentary was a little tough to truly like. I loved the spirit of the thing, hearing Beckett's voice, and getting the anecdotes about Keaton both on the set and in his treatment for alcoholism. What an extraordinary pairing Keaton and Beckett were. Unfortunately, while the documentary is a well-researched labor of love from Ross Lipman, it sprawls on in ways that are often more scholarly than entertaining. I think it also suffers for me because its subject, the 24 minute short titled Film, is not all that compelling, and here we have it expanded into 130 minutes. As Beckett wrote about the absurdity of the human condition, it was equally absurd of him and Alan Schneider to not use Keaton's filmmaking knowledge while creating Film, the irony of which is a little depressing. To think this is what the great Buster Keaton was relegated into doing near the end of his life is tough, as is knowing he died just five months after Film's release at the Venice Film Festival where he got the standing ovation we see here. Anyway, Lipman probably should have pared this effort down and probably gotten better interviews as to what Beckett was trying to say. Regardless, I think I'm with Buster, I'd prefer a ball game.