Something to watch tonight: Tuesday 9 July

Cameraperson (Johnson, 2016)

Looking for an ‘on this day’ post, I real­ise that most of my early July work over the last 18 years or so have been film fest­iv­al previews.

Here’s a great one from 2016:

Documentary cine­ma­to­graph­er Kirsten Johnson has been wit­ness to some of the most extraordin­ary people and events of the last 20 years and in her first film as dir­ect­or she’s pro­duced a remark­able and unique mem­oir prov­ing that she’s as sens­it­ive and sure-footed a dir­ect­or as any of the col­lab­or­at­ors she’s worked along­side. All of the foot­age in Cameraperson was shot for oth­er reas­ons, oth­er pro­jects, but by reas­sembling them (and often extend­ing shots bey­ond the ver­sions that were used for oth­er films) she has cre­ated an immensely power­ful per­son­al nar­rat­ive. It’s a por­trait of the life of an artist but it’s also an involving med­it­a­tion on many dif­fer­ent iter­a­tions of motherhood.

Johnson’s bril­liant follow-up film, Dick Johnson Is Dead, about her rela­tion­ship with her fath­er and his slow deteri­or­a­tion due to demen­tia, is still stream­ing on Netflix if you want some­thing from her but don’t have a Mubi subscription.

Also fea­tured in that year’s fest­iv­al pre­view were: “com­bust­ibly dry black com­edy” The First, The Last, Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!! (fea­tur­ing Glen Powell hid­ing under a sev­en­ties mous­tache), dis­turb­ing Free In Deed by Jake Mahaffy, Canada’s Les Démons, Wild about a woman and her wolf, and a doc­u­ment­ary about an Israeli cho­reo­graph­er called Gaga. I got around a bit in those days.

Where to watch Cameraperson

Aotearoa, Australia and Ireland: Streaming on Mubi

Canada: Streaming on Criterion Channel

USA: Streaming on Max and Criterion Channel

UK: Digital rental