Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie (2008) - Vietnam DOES have a Bigfoot!

It's the Letterboxd Season Challenge!  Theme eleven, part three- a film distributed by Oscilloscope Laboratories!

(Chosen by John!)

(To be read to the tune of All This Time.)

Events of late make it difficult to say how one should feel about the main subjects of Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie.  In fairness, Dallas Gilbert and Wayne Burton's conspiratorial mindsets should always make it difficult to determine the best approach to understanding them, for a conspiratorial mindset will always mean an otherwise amiable person is given towards myopic views on who knows how many otherwise agreeable topics, towards pushing friends and family away in the name of maintaining ideological purity, and towards twisting the world before their own eyes into something that will always agree with them no matter what.  From the documentary, we know Dallas and Wayne are (were in Dallas' case - he passed in 2016) given to these mindsets, for they admit it readily enough on-camera numerous times.  I more mean, however, that with conspiratorial attitudes taking over so many online spaces friendly towards the elderly in recent years, and with those views being so easily coopted by bad actors looking for an easily riled army to spread more substantially dangerous lies and calls to action amidst the Bigfoot hunting and the UFO spotting, the notion of a harmless conspiracy theorist is difficult to believe in this day.  Any one might prove the pressure point in an online campaign to harass the families of shooting victims, or fire a vulnerable population into protesting coronavirus quarantine protocols, or spread coded language to radicalize the youth.  It's difficult to sit back and believe in the notion of a harmless conspiracy theorist when even belief in Bigfoot is the merest step or two removed from something far more sinister, and with a decade-plus passed from this film's release and Jay Delaney showing little interest in cross-examining his subjects, I don't want to reflexively think kindly of these two when I don't know what the next few years brought.

Let's back off from the bully pulpit, though, and examine the actual film.  Important as it is to acknowledge a documentary cannot show one all the facts, what's on-screen still matters, and what's on-screen here does paint a sympathetic picture.  Dallas talks about estranged family members, Wayne makes it clear he has and continues to use threats of suicide to control people (something I'm inclined towards and find detestable in both myself and others), and both men make it clear they've staked their families' financial futures on proving Bigfoot real, but it's hard to think them wicked figures.  Given a stretch to talk about their mutual passion, both men speak with conviction and passion, and importantly a respect for others who show them respect in turn.  To Dallas' mind in particular, he believes in the Bigfoots he finds in his clearly empty photographs so deeply and dearly, it is more a matter of lacking faith in others that stands in his way of finding proof.  Such an attitude can read as sad, and for sure in a few quiet, solitary moments, he seems morose at how impossible his self-appointed task seems.  Yet from what we see, he's got his family, he's got his beliefs, and even if he doesn't have nearly so much money or respect as he'd like, what he holds is his.  Similar attitudes are evident in Wayne, who talks just as much about his attempts to continually better himself and accept his past failings as he does his regrets over those failings or his oncoming financial and legal woes.

It helps when Delaney captures incidents which incline us to understanding how easily others can takes advantage of Dallas and Wayne, foe and friend alike.  When Wayne appears on an internet radio program to discuss his theories and misspeaks about the timing of showing a photo to a dead friend, it is the host who seizes on the error and mocks Wayne to the point that his followers deface and doxx Dallas' website.  When Thomas Biscardi, a noted Bigfoot hoaxer cum hunter comes to town, the contrast between his hunts and the expeditions Dallas and Wayne undertake do much to frame him as an antagonistic figure.  These two older men go into the woods with their Native American words of power and their cameras ready to capture any moving shadow, the trip as much a reason to spend time with buddies as it is a serious attempt to capture Bigfoot; Biscardi drags everyone out late at night, plays disturbing recorded screams into the dark, and berates and belittles everyone who's not taking his mission to fool people seriously as he is.  The pair are plainly uncomfortable around Biscardi, and yet when he abandons them and skips town the next night, it is still a sad moment for the pair as their chance to work with someone they consider one of the greats slips away.  It's much like Wayne says in a roundabout manner during his (somewhat uncomfortable) rant against all political figures: nobody ever considers them as two old men chasing after something they sincerely believe in.  All anyone ever sees are rubes to mock or exploit or celebrate when they take a lick.

Owing to the evidently serious monetary strain both men place their families under thanks to their focus on Bigfoot rather than more sound routes to money, I can't quite say Dallas and Fred's obsession makes them admirable.  The difference between the mystique of sincere belief and taking it too far is the moment when you stop inconveniencing only yourself and start worsening the lives of those who depend on you. At the same time, though, their strategy for making money rather dispels a good deal of my concerns from the opening paragraph: the pair aren't able to see their blurry nothing photos cannot possibly make them any money, and so lack the dishonesty to fake them and exploit others.  Being victims within their own community who also use their mutual conspiratorial belief as a means through which to bond and better themselves makes me think, whatever happened in the years after this documentary, however the conspiracy theory crowd has become something terrible and ugly beneath the wing of the Alex Jones and Steven Crowders of the world, Dallas and Wayne have likely sequestered themselves away from all that.  I hope to God they have, for while Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie won't win anyone over for its filming or ambition or deep insight into anything beyond these two men and their little corner of Ohio, something in the cozy banjo music and amiable manner from our main subjects makes me want to believe in the goodness of their hearts.  I might not ever see what they see or think what they think, but long as they aren't out there trying to make others less or do harm to the marginalized, I'm happy to let Wayne live as he lives and wish Dallas a restful sleep.

(The Amazon rental for this film includes Delaney's 2001 short, American Dream, which interviewed Dallas and Wayne on the same topic and eventually morphed into this production.  It's nice to see it there, but it's also more focused on just letting the two of them explain their Bigfoot theories than talk about and live their lives, which is the main draw of the feature and not half so interesting, so I can't confidently recommend the short, even if it is only ten minutes.)

Inherit the Wind (1960) - The wood was rotten. The whole thing was put together with spit and sealing wax.

Letterboxd Season Challenge 2019-2020!  Theme five, part three - stage to screen adaptations!

(Chosen by John!)

Inherit the Wind is, considered as an adaptation of the famous 1925 Scopes trial, overly-dramatic to the point of cartoonishness.  Leaving aside the fudged and invented facts about motives and proceedings, the air within the courtroom is one of open combat between Spencer Tracy and Frederick March, well beyond even the utter pig circus of the real thing.  The literal anti-evolution carnival in the first act cannot compare for spectacle against the two men loudly and brashly raising objections over minor infractions of legal procedure as prelude to massive spiritual violations as they double down on lingering personal animosity and purest ideology.  What starts as a trial over a man violating a state law about teaching evolution swiftly forgets the man himself except as a cudgel against the opposing counsel in a war of words over fundamentalism vs critical thought, which too eventually falls to a series of verbal body blows that act to destroy the recipient's reputation amongst an undignified public far more than serve whatever judicial purpose the trial started within.  It's a battle of twin acting giants with a sweltering courtroom as the battleground, and firmly held beliefs about the fate of America wielded as weapons - spectacle enough to whip the viewer into a furor strong as any rousing, corrupted round of John Brown's Body.

Where Stanley Kramer and original playwrights Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee keep the cartoonishness from overwhelming is through the careful consideration afforded towards balancing the mania with the melancholic, in guiding the viewer to realize just what this all cost.  It's easy to look towards March's blustering, belching, platitude-spewing Matthew Harrison Brady making an utter fool of himself in the prosecutor's box and witness stand, consider the roaring, foaming crowds he inspires to deeper wells of hatred, and think the film simply oriented against fundamentalism in its religious form, wailing against an easy target like a freshly tuned-in teenage atheist.  Matt, however, is frequently shown to quiet considerably when away from the courtroom and his masses, reminiscing over times gone by with Henry Drummond and nursing a deepset fear of losing the spotlight in his old age - it's hard to consider him a wholly good man as Drummond insists he once was or had the potential to be, but the depths of vulnerability and moral terror March draws from the script's already-prominent sympathetic angle makes it hard to consider his ultimate fate anything other than tragedy.  And while the public of Heavenly Hillsboro have no single voice (aside from maybe Claude Akins' Reverend Brown, who loses the people when he damns his only daughter to hell in a fit of brimstone preaching), it is clear they're easily co-opted by whoever shouts loudest and makes the cleverest points in the moment, only to revert back to their hateful ways once the fire of the moment dies down.  No wonder that in a film with Gene Kelly delivering snappy witticisms and withering speeches in his ever scene, they're still easily pulled into a dynamic between cheering Brady and Drummond.

The way Kramer treats Drummond underscores the story's greatest tragedy.  His highly active camera, sliding through crowds of people to find the best extreme close-ups, the most impactful arrangement of figures in tight quarters even with substantial distance between them, loves best to work its magic on Drummond, punctuating his snappy remarks to indicate skill beyond Brady's need for an audience to sound like he's made a good point.  Tracy's acting already exudes confidence and intelligence of the highest order, but the camera positions him as hero of heroes for recognizing the non-reason motivating the town and practically showers him in non-verbal praises for being the only person to call it out... and incidentally papers over his own failings.  After all, when he gets a good head of steam, he can pontificate just as well as Brady.  He introduces an air of casualness to an already loose courtroom and embraces the local system's peculiarities when extended towards him as a matter of fairness.  He keeps his head about him for an admirably long time, but his points drift away from defending his client and towards arguing the merits of enlightenment well before he feels the sting of Brady bullying an innocent girl to tears and blocking his best witnesses, and resorts to hammering Brady with go-nowhere stock-standard atheist rebuttals to easily disputed aspects of the Bible.  The game of set-em-ups-knock-em-downs pushes so far, it utterly destroys Brady's reputation where nothing else could, and leads into the desperation that triggers his untimely death.

None of this to claim Drummond had the wrong idea, or is somehow to blame where the film avoids total blame of those it frames as in the wrong.  The problem lies not with Drummond as a man, but with the situation he had to navigate, which would've broken or subsumed one of lesser character before first act's close.  Though Lawrence later outright specified he and Lee wrote the play as a subtle means of critiquing McCarthyism a la The Crucible, I think the work functions equally well as a straightforward critique of the media circus around the original trial, or the rhythms of court dramas especially when considering Kramer's work here, or any quagmire wherein the spectacle of ferocious battle overtakes level heads and an honest sense of law.  The trial and public demanded harder hits, wittier comebacks, a total destruction of an idol representing one side or another, and because Brady had a softer belly and a bigger obvious weakness in his dependence on a flock, he fell beneath the weight of Drummond's blows before Drummond could realize he too stepped over the line and acted uncouth in the same manner as all around him.

Consider the way he weighs Darwin and God's word in his hands at the close, before slapping them together and marching out to the tune of Battle Hymn of the Republic.  Regardless of where man came from, whether the gradual course of evolution from "lower" lifeforms over billions of years or instantly through the divine hand of the Lord from naught but dust and clay; what comfort or insight holds either answer when the fight to prove one or the other cost a man his life?  Or a town its dignity?  Or a family its stability?  Or a state its convenient legal blindness for decades?  Or the historical record a clean view of a symbolic hoax trial?  Or an industry its best minds?  Or a nation its sense of trust and stability?  The fervor of the fight can only encourage its participants to destroy in the course of chasing victory, regardless whether they intend nobility or ill.

Causes deserve their strident champions, but they also deserve an arena in which clear minds and well-spoken exchanges may play out free from all sense of clashing swords.  The public deserves a judicial branch predicated on preventing the ludicrousness of the monkey trials, in real or fictional forms.  We all especially deserve a life apart from fanaticism and tribalism and all the other assorted -isms that make a life part of some poison mob instead of the worthwhile thing it truly is.  Kramer makes this point by taking you to the edge, exciting you enough that you'll cheer on Drummond's legal strategy the same way the townsfolk cheer on Brady's nonsense, and then hits you with the revelation of just what's happened.  I initially called it a shovel to the face, but a more fitting analogy is likening it to a rock sinking to the pit of your stomach, never making itself evident until the full weight is settled right at the bottom.  We must have a care for how we tolerate foolishness from even our greatest allies, else we too inherit the wind and become masterless servants.

(Talk about one director making two radically different pieces a few years apart.  I can see all the skill in framing and editing and conducting actors and incorporating music Kramer brought to It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, even the particular manner of working humor into proceedings - but wat a wholly different effect!)

4.5/5