David Holzman’s Diary
Directed by Jim McBride
1967/USA
Produced by Jim McBride
#486 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
First viewing
I ran out of 1934 rentals to watch so I picked this at random because it was on Netflix streaming. First, let me say that I was really glad I knew absolutely nothing about this film when I put it on. There are many surprises that shouldn’t be spoiled.
“Le cinéma, c’est vingt-quatre fois la vérité par seconde.” ― Jean-Luc Godard
It is New York City in 1967. A young film maker has just lost his job and received a draft notice. He decides he will film his life in hopes to understand it better. He has faith in the Godard quote “Film is truth 24 times per second” and thinks that he may be able to connect with objects, events, and people by capturing them on celluloid.
The narrator’s girlfriend is an important part of his life so he keeps filming her at random times, including while she is sleeping nude. She rapidly calls their relationship off but he continues to more or less stalk her for the rest of the film. He also captures the atmosphere of his neighborhood and the people there, spies on a woman in an apartment across the street, follows a random woman leaving the subway, gets propositioned by a transvestite, etc., etc.
The soundtrack includes a lot of TV and radio news which gives a real flavor of the time. There is a fantastic sequence of high-speed shots from all the TV shows he watched one night that is like a mini time capsule. In between the street photography, there are lots of times where the guy just rants to the camera. In the end, he is disappointed that his film did not explain his life. I think the audience is a lot more able to spot his gradual disintegration than he is.
I’m not able to describe this very well and it may sound boring but I was fascinated throughout. (It helps that the movie is only 74 minutes long.)
SPOILER: Well, this film’s claim to fame is that it is a fake documentary/satire but I didn’t know that and I was surprised when the credits started rolling. This made me even more impressed with the film. It is so cleverly done.
“Every edit is a lie.” ― Jean-Luc Godard
Admittedly, there were some parts where I was asking myself a) how did this guy get so much money to buy equipment and live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan?; b) who is filming him? c) did all these unwilling victims of his photography sue him? d) why would somebody release such an unflattering picture of himself? At any rate, the film makers tricked me into believing it was a documentary. This would make a good companion piece to Buñuel’s Land Without Bread, I definitely liked this one better than that, though.
This film was selected to the National Film Registry, Library of Congress, in 1991. Must one see this before one dies? I don’t know if I would go that far but I did enjoy it and I know I’ll think about it.
Clip – “watching television”