The DA Pennebaker Documentary Just Shut Up and Love Me
2004. Written and directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.
DA Pennebaker, the legendary documentary filmmaker responsible for such classics as Primary (1961), Don't Look Back (1966), and the multi-awarded War Room (1993), found himself navel-gazing in 2003, overeating and pretending that he enjoyed reality TV. "I can see now that I was bored. Nobody with an ounce of decency or compassion for fellow humans actually likes reality television. I was in big trouble."
In order to snap out of a potentially lethal bout of ennui, Pennebaker knew that he had to latch onto a larger-than-life subject. "That's when Dusty Carr came to mind," says Pennebaker. "My work is all about exploring the individual as a representation of society. Can you name me one person, dead or alive, who better encapsulates twentieth century angst? It's freakin' impossible. When you look in the face of Dusty Carr, you look in the face of chronic terror kind of mingled with bravery. He's tough but weak, extremely violent but compassionate."
Pennebaker spent three months following Carr from Atlantic City to Memphis, then to Miami and finally Las Vegas. "Travelling with Carr was like going on a dark road trip of the soul. The people that he attracts range from hardcore rock and rollers to Reno sleazoids. His groupies range from beautiful twenty year olds to aging crack whores. In all my years of documentary filmmaking, this is the most engrossing but terrifying project I've ever done. And keep in mind that I got pretty close to Bill Clinton."
Just Shut Up and Love Me will receive an extremely limited release through Mainline Cinema.
The PBS Documentary One Hand Clapping Very Loudly: The Dusty Carr Story
2006. Written and directed by Lenny Brillstein. The Carnegie Film Arts Institute
Graduating with an MA from Harvard in 1992, Lenny Brillstein's doctoral thesis centered on the study of desperation in the creative process. "We always harbor grand illusions about how works of art actually come to fruition," says Brillstein. "We have the indentured poet, tearing his hair out in a drafty turret. We have the bloodied feet of an exhausted dancer swaddled once again for a final rumba. Whatever the case, total desperation, and not especially talent, is often the key motivator of success."
Brillstein set out to investigate how desperation motivates creativity. "I was itching to make a film, and my brother works for the Carnegie Institute. He told me that all I had to do was write up a typed, double-spaced proposal, and the they would give me money - and they did."
The next step was to find subject matter that exemplified Brillstein's thesis. "I looked around and finally determined that the greatest living progenitor of what I term mind over talent was Dusty Carr, and I aimed to let his so-called career tell my story," Brillstein comments.
Brillstein discovered the most difficult aspect of the film was actually convincing Dusty Carr of the validity of the project. "At first, all Dusty wanted to know was how much he was going to get paid, and if it involved any nudity. I told him that I couldn't pay him and that he didn't have to remove his clothes. He told me I was a freak."
By 2002, Dusty had settled into complete obscurity. "I had had fame and fortune," Dusty says of that period, "and I felt that I had entertained the people of the world enough, so to hell with them and it."
Brillstein and his crew followed Carr through his dark haunts in Manhattan, into crumbling nightclubs packed with what Carr dubs - "kind of sick looking people."
"It was in these clubs," says Brillstein, "that it really became apparent that Dusty had very little talent. But what he did possess - and this is truly admirable - is the ambition to keep off Social Assistance. So he'd drag his forlorn self onto these ratty little stages, put on a karaoke-type tape, and belt out his songs from forty years ago. It was very primal and eventually quite terrifying."
One Hand Clapping Very Loudly: The Dusty Carr Story aired on PBS in December, 2006 "The reaction was immediate," Brillstein comments. "On one side were people who thought it was a total waste of energy and money. On the other side, thousands of people wrote to me, expressing their admiration for Dusty, for the way he just keeps going like a spring bull in heat. Oscar Wilde once said that when the critics disagree, then you have a work of art. And I think that's what we accomplished."
Brillstein set out to investigate how desperation motivates creativity. "I was itching to make a film, and my brother works for the Carnegie Institute. He told me that all I had to do was write up a typed, double-spaced proposal, and the they would give me money - and they did."
The next step was to find subject matter that exemplified Brillstein's thesis. "I looked around and finally determined that the greatest living progenitor of what I term mind over talent was Dusty Carr, and I aimed to let his so-called career tell my story," Brillstein comments.
Brillstein discovered the most difficult aspect of the film was actually convincing Dusty Carr of the validity of the project. "At first, all Dusty wanted to know was how much he was going to get paid, and if it involved any nudity. I told him that I couldn't pay him and that he didn't have to remove his clothes. He told me I was a freak."
By 2002, Dusty had settled into complete obscurity. "I had had fame and fortune," Dusty says of that period, "and I felt that I had entertained the people of the world enough, so to hell with them and it."
Brillstein and his crew followed Carr through his dark haunts in Manhattan, into crumbling nightclubs packed with what Carr dubs - "kind of sick looking people."
"It was in these clubs," says Brillstein, "that it really became apparent that Dusty had very little talent. But what he did possess - and this is truly admirable - is the ambition to keep off Social Assistance. So he'd drag his forlorn self onto these ratty little stages, put on a karaoke-type tape, and belt out his songs from forty years ago. It was very primal and eventually quite terrifying."
One Hand Clapping Very Loudly: The Dusty Carr Story aired on PBS in December, 2006 "The reaction was immediate," Brillstein comments. "On one side were people who thought it was a total waste of energy and money. On the other side, thousands of people wrote to me, expressing their admiration for Dusty, for the way he just keeps going like a spring bull in heat. Oscar Wilde once said that when the critics disagree, then you have a work of art. And I think that's what we accomplished."
