Nobody's Business

Revisando la página oficial de Alan Berliner, pude notar que está bastante completa, cosa que no me extraña. Consta de ensayos y artículos que él ha escrito y que han escrito sobre él, fotos sobre él y sus películas, entradas de su diario personal, noticias e historia familiar (una especie de árbol genealógico). En general hay mucho material con el cual entretenerse y le da a uno la sensación de no tener que buscar más. Creo que esto sucede con los documentales con un estilo de autoretrato. El voyeurista pierde la emoción de ver sin ser visto, pues cuando la persona se exhibe de esa manera no representa ningún reto stalkearla, pues desde un principio se conoce todo de ella. En este mundo en el que vivimos tal vez esa sea la estrategia más habil: hablar primero, mostrarse primero, antes de ser hablado o ser mostrado.



En general encontré el documental un poco falto de material interesante. Un hombre (alan berliner) intenta indagar sobre su pasado histórico a través del confrontamiento con su padre. Él menciona que para realilzar Nobody's Business:

"I had to be just vulnerable enough to contemplate transforming the personal into the public, yet just courageous enough to believe it was for good reason. Just dumb enough to think I could do it, but then just smart enough to pull it off. And, as in the making of any work of art that focuses life through the prism of time, just young enough and/but just old enough... Just young enough not to know any better. Just old enough to really care. Just young enough not to ask anybody's permission. Just old enough to realize that if I didn't do it now, I might never have another chance. Young enough to rush in recklessly. Old enough to take my time leaving. Young enough to ask ten thousand questions. Old enough to let a few go unanswered. Young enough to have a quick left jab. Old enough to know when to take a punch. Young enough to hate losing. Old enough to let him win. (Some of the time, anyway.) Young enough to still be his dutiful son. Too old to still call him Daddy. Young enough to still think I can change him. Old enough to realize I am already alot like him. Young enough to think I can keep him from growing old. Old enough to know better. Young enough to be exasperated, even angry. Old enough to show my love. Young and stubborn. Older and even more stubborn."

Bueno, me gusta la manera en la que él lo pone. Explica lo complicado que debió de ser para él el lograr obtener los resultados que buscaba, aunque a mí como espectadora, en realidad no me quedó muy claro que se hubieran cumplido. Creo que al terminar de ver la película, no quedé con la sensación de que él hubiera terminado encontrando lo que buscaba, al contario, sentí que el padre se mantuvo hasta cierto punto impenetrable, cosa que le da un toque interesante al documental, pero se vuelve frustrante lidiar con la actitud negativa del padre, aunque uno lo comprenda y llegue a empatizar con él.

Alan Berliner habla sobre sus primeros acercamientos al cine:

Everyone naturally assumes that my father, the primary force behind our family chronicles, must have enjoyed putting the old family 8mm Bell and Howell in my hands, and teaching me how to use it, while with unflappable concentration (Keep it steady) I brought my eye to the viewfinder for the very first time (Try to put the subject in the center of the frame) and pressed the trigger (Keep your finger on the button) before recklessly panning (Not too fast now) across the field of view (Just because it's a movie camera doesn't mean you always have to move it) until the spring driven camera motor (Remember you only have 25 seconds) would cough itself to a stuttering halt (Now wind it up and try it again). All of this paternal encouragement (You're making movies!) certainly must have made an indelible mark on the impressionable young filmmaker to be.

Not quite. Consider that a dream sequence.

I wish I could say that there is a roll of film, or even a single shot, however technically compomised, that represents the inaugural fledgling efforts of a precocious five or six year old filmmaker to be. Something like the first scrawls of a child who eventually becomes a painter. No, oddly enough, despite the fact that I am in a great deal of our home movie footage, and am often clearly (along with my mother and sister) the object of its loving gaze, I have absolutely no memory of ever seeing, being seen by or even touching that movie camera. None at all.

The truth is I never actually "decided" to become a filmmaker; somehow via a more arduous and circuitous route derived of inner necessity, I grew into one. Much of my adult life has been spent grappling with the conflicts and contradictions of family. With both the presences and absences of memory. When I came upon my family home movies some 20 years later -- as if for the very first time -- the images I had forgotten about suddenly became triggers for a flood of memories. Using them in my films became a kind of photo-therapy, perhaps even a way towards healing some of the wounds of my childhood.

I still often wonder why my father never offered to share his newfangled mechanical toy with me. Wouldn't any good parent have done so? Didn't he realize how high the stakes were? Like music lessons, stamp collecting or chess, this could have easily been the seed of a lifelong passion. Maybe it would have motivated me to join the elementary school audio-visual squad, which in turn might have made me aspire to write screenplays, or become an actor. Perhaps even a Hollywood director.

Instead, I became a filmmaker who uses home movies in films about his family.

FUENTES:

• Alan Berliner. Articles. http://www.alanberliner.com/aej_01.html