Scanning the upcoming Mill Valley Film Festival lineup, I feel like a proud uncle. Back in the 1990s, I had the foresight to hire (and the pleasure to work with) three terrific documentary editors on the public television series Neighborhoods: The Hidden Cities of San Francisco. Now all three editors are getting recognized as multi-talented filmmakers in their own right, and, in a kind of festival trifecta, all of them are featured this year as DIRECTORS of fascinating documentaries, which I urge you to catch next month in Mill Valley (or elsewhere on the festival circuit).
| Maureen Gosling—the sensitive and intuitive longtime editor of the seminal films of the late Les Blank—was the editor of the first documentary in the Neighborhoods series, The Mission, back in 1994. Now she has both edited and co-directed This Ain't No Mouse Music! The Story of Chris Strachwitz and Arhoolie Records, a fond tribute to that pioneering American roots music label. |  |
Dawn Logsdon—whose gifts with archival imagery and footage made her an ideal editor on The Castro—not only edited but also co-directed the exuberant profile Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton, an eye-opening portrait of the complex filmmaker/poet and quintessential Radical Faerie. If you missed it at Frameline this year, the film is itself a big joy.
| Joe De Francesco brought his passion and convictions as an editor to two episodes of the Neighborhoods series, both Chinatown and The Fillmore. (Showing he has either exquisite taste or a tinge of masochism. Or both.) I think back in the 90s he was already working on a crazy project to stage an epic poem about the Civil War with inmates at San Quentin. He pulled it off…and now has crafted a moving documentary of the performance and the experiences of the inmates as they encounter a poetic drama that has much to say about race, love, violence and the American character. Don’t miss the world premiere of “John Brown’s Body” at San Quentin Prison. |  |
Seeing these three talented editors take wing in new roles is, of course, thrilling to me (I am after all the poster child of artist-wearing-many-hats), but also, I confess, dispiriting. I mean, why do they need to leave the pigeonhole that I have happily consigned them to? They are damned good documentary editors—a rare and ornery breed. Once they’ve flown the coop and started to soar into the rarefied air of directing, well, they may never come flying back into the dank editing suite. Some great documentary editors—Jeffrey Friedman, Yael Hersonski, Debbie Hoffmann—flew away and seem rarely tempted back.
Then again…documentary directing/producing is not exactly a paradise. Perhaps after a few miserable dawn-to-midnight shoots…or the 20th rejected funding proposal…or the 50th headache over uncleared music rights…perhaps the pure content focus of editing will lure them back to their chair.
That’s a long shot. Try as one might to pigeonhole these rare birds, the fact is, talent will out. And with these three talents—not to mention a name like Gosling—they are bound to fly.
Then again…documentary directing/producing is not exactly a paradise. Perhaps after a few miserable dawn-to-midnight shoots…or the 20th rejected funding proposal…or the 50th headache over uncleared music rights…perhaps the pure content focus of editing will lure them back to their chair.
That’s a long shot. Try as one might to pigeonhole these rare birds, the fact is, talent will out. And with these three talents—not to mention a name like Gosling—they are bound to fly.
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