Errata is a web journal written by Robert Davis who has neither spent a night in a ghost town nor pulled a turnip from the earth. He doesn't even know if turnips grow in the ground. Perhaps on trees, like candy corn. Therefore, Errata is a non-commercial project.

Observation #1: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious."

Observation #2: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious" at the top of your lungs. Bring your eyebrows together before you say it. Effective!

Observation #3: Same for books. Even at libraries.

There is a prize for people who correctly guess the thing about Metropolis, Nevada.

Except where the text specifically states otherwise, Errata's vagaries are indicated vaguely and its authors are indistinct in the traditional way of the Internet, except where the authors lay claim to their work. In some cases Robert Davis lays claim to work that is not his own but has been abandoned like so many ghost towns. Except where held presently, fistfuls of dirt are suspended via dispersal, or dispersed via suspension (in the air), and thus their dissolution is their transcendence, or their transcendence is their dissolution. And yet our eyes tear, and our vision is impaired, demonstrating for the umpteenth time that one entity's gain is another's fit of sneezes. Except where indicated, storms shall outlive the clay upon which they rain, unless storms are improperly delimited by their clouds, which dissolve, rather than by their inevitable return. Thus the clay loses, unless the clay is said to own the storm, to use it to make itself heavy, to make itself cling to white garments, refuse dispersal, cake upon the facades of abandoned buildings, and sit like Man [sic] upon the earth where it is pelted by a storm that it owns. In which case the clay still loses, if you ask us.

Some of the above is legally binding and should be considered a mental contract between Errata and those upon whom it acts. The bit about the prize should be considered an overstatement insofar as prizes differ from dirt and prize dispersal differs from dirt dispersal. Please recall that ownership is a weight and, therefore, hope that you do not win the prize.

One day Errata or its representatives will call upon you for a favor. It is expected that you will hop-to without delay.

You may contact Robert Davis by email unless it's about the rock that was thrown in anger. The rock is more properly called a clod. Why do you continue to raise the topic?

3 October 2003

Stevie

Recently in this blog I mentioned how much I was looking forward to Errol Morris's Fog of War. I still am; he's a great filmmaker.

But I also said offhandedly that "none" of the good documentaries this year quite measures up to Morris's. Well, first of all, that's a tall order. But more importantly, without having seen all of the documentaries released this year, I can't know that for sure. I did look over the list of documentaries I've seen this year before I wrote the entry, but that's probably a small fraction of what was released, so it's an imprecise thing for me to say.

Case in point: I missed the brief theatrical run of Stevie, the new documentary from Steve James, the director of Hoop Dreams. But I've recently caught up with it on DVD. You can too, and you should. It's outstanding.

Stevie is a portrait of the man to whom James was a "big brother" over a decade ago. Having lost touch, James set out with his camera to reconnect with Stevie and find out if this troubled kid had been able to straighten up and make something of himself. He hadn't. In fact James found him in deep trouble.

James himself is a character in the movie — the filmmaker mining his past and trying to be a positive influence — and one of the most fascinating aspects of the documentary is how it constantly encourages the viewer, implicitly, to ask what is right: what's the right thing to do with someone like Stevie, and what's the right thing to do if you're making a documentary about him? Should you? Can you over-humanize, or over-demonize, a criminal? Is this exploitation? How can you walk that line and how can you be honest about it? James and his crew always seem to be defining boundaries: what can they ask their subjects, what responses can they show, and when have they gone too far?

This movie is disturbing and touching, a snapshot of fractured families, abuse, classism, guilt, and the failures of the system. It's a bundle of contradictions, bravely documented with what seems to be the utmost integrity. You'd think that would make the movie easier to make — or easier to watch — but as with the good intentions of the people who are trying to help Stevie, sometimes humanity and integrity don't seem to be enough to set things straight.

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