Get an Oscar polished up: Aviva Kempner's new doc, ROSENWALD, arrives in theaters

What a joy and what a great learning experience is ROSENWALD, the terrifically entertaining, moving and eye-opening new documentary from Aviva Kempner, the filmmaker who has previously given us two other first-rate docs: Yoo-hoo, Mrs Goldberg and The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg. This new one is her best so far. TrustMovies admits to knowing almost nothing about Julius Rosenwald, the businessman who brought to prominence and then ran Sears, Roebuck & Company, the most famous mercantile film in U.S. history. After viewing this film, I suspect you'll think of Mr. Rosenwald as the most deservedly famous businessman/philanthropist in U.S. history.

Upfront, the movie tells us that Rosenwald was an extremely savvy and competitive business man. The choice anecdote about catalog size and Sears' largest competitor, Montgomery Ward, is a perfect example of Rosenwald's acumen. I suspect that our hero was not above using dirty tricks in business, but the movie doesn't go much into that. Instead its focus is on Rosenwald as a philanthropist. And what a singular "giver" he turns out to have been.

As a Jew whose family had experienced the horrible pogroms that raged throughout Europe, Russia and the Ukraine, Rosenwald came to understand how similar to those pogroms was the treatment of Blacks here in the southern states of the USA: from the lynchings to the woefully second-class citizenship they were given -- particularly in regards to their often barely-to-non-existent education. Born and raised only a few blocks from the residence of Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois, Julius was a boy when Lincoln was President, and he admired and believed in the work and goals of the "Great Emancipator."

Filmmaker Kempner, shown above, weaves together the personal with the historical regarding Mr. Rosenwald, but what makes her documentary such a keeper is how she blends in Black history to such an important extent that her film becomes as much a tribute to the struggle and success of the American Negro as it is to Rosenwald himself. The philanthropist had a supremely fine idea of how to gift his largess: One-third came from him, one third was matched by the recipients, and the final third came from the local white community. This made his education grants serve at least a dual purpose: they brought much needed money to the black community, while simultaneously empowering that community.

As the film wends its most interesting way along, we learn bit by bit, man and woman by man and woman -- via interviews with everyone from Julian Bond and Stephanie Deutsch to Eugene Robinson and George C. Wolfe -- just how many important members of the Black community Rosenwald and his philanthropy actually helped, from the great Booker T. Washington (shown below with Rosenwald) onwards. The number of Black southerners who received an education via Rosenwald, along with the help of their own community and other generous whites, will simply amaze you.

The final capper, however, is the lengthy list of cultural, social, educational and artistic icons for whom his generosity provided an entry into a world that they might never have known -- and by their entry into which has made that world incredibly richer. The film's great strength is that is simultaneously acts as a fitting tribute to both the giver and his recipients.

We need a documentary like Rosenwald, now especially, as our nation falls ever more precariously into chaos. What a model Julius makes for the enlightened businessman and seeker of justice, and for the kind of quasi-Capitalism/quasi-Socialism that seems to have all but disappeared from our society. Not only did Rosenwald not want his name attached to his schools or to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, which his gifts brought into being, he actively refrained from this kind of vanity tub-thumping.

When the model businessman of today is too-often perceived as someone like Donald Trump (who should have to see this film with the wax removed from his ears and his blabber mouth taped shut), Rosenwald appears as some kind of sudden, shocking blessing. In its own way, it proves as important and rewarding as the equally inspiring doc, Searching for Sugar Man. And we all know what happened to that smart little film.

Rosenwald, running 96 remarkable minutes, opens this Friday, August 14, in New York City at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema, and from there in the weeks to come it will expand throughout the country. (In the L.A. area, it hits three Laemmle theaters on August 28.) To see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters, click here and scroll down.

Celebrate the holiday the way they used to: Laskow/Rosenberg's WELCOME TO KUTSHER'S

"The last Catskills resort" is the subtitle of WELCOME TO KUTSHER'S -- the new film by Caroline Laskow & Ian Rosenberg (pictured below, left and right) -- that should prove a walk down memory lane for Jews of a certain age in, oh, so many ways. It's also a surprising documentary. The best-known and most special of those Catskills resorts began as a farming endeavor? Who knew? TrustMovies certainly didn't.

Grossinger's may have been larger and more popular, but after viewing this sweet, charming and sad little doc, I'm inclined to think that Kutsher's was the one to beat. Ms Laskow and Mr. Rosenberg take a different route than that of other Catskills docs I've seen that focus more on celebrities who performed (and often first worked as waiters or bus boys) at the hotel. Ours is increasingly a celebrity culture, and from the looks of this film, Kutsher's was almost the opposite.

If a celebrity happened along -- or would become one after being employed by the resort, as did basketball star Wilt Chamberlain, shown above -- this was due more to the Kutsher family's love of sports and skills and humanity than of mere celebrity or fame.  (Contrast what we see here of Helen Kutsher with what we've seen and know of another "hotel" woman, Leona Helmsley, and the difference will be immediately apparent.)

The resort made its name via its food (both the types and the lavish amounts) and its activities (including many sports, arts and entertainment). Beyond all these, though, seems to have been the personal touch that the Kutsher family had for both its customers and employees.  The specifics we get from everyone from waiters to the ice skating instructor (Celia Duffy, below) to an Asian-American art teacher are intelligent, thoughtful and moving.

The secret may well have been that all the folk connected with Kutsher's simply loved what they were doing. And this showed. All of which makes what eventually happens to the famed resort all the more wasteful and sad.  (You can see this on one of the DVD extras; we skipped it, not wanting to leave on a "downer.")

Along the way, you'll travel from the "farm" beginnings through the period of Dirty Dancing all the way to a youth convention at the resort during its latter days. The movie ends with some very good laughs from comedian Freddie Roman (shown below), who acts as a kind of emcee and guide to our experience here. He's a funny man -- and a fine entryway into the history of what became a century-long American tradition, resort-wise.

Welcome to Kutsher's -- from Menemsha Films and running just 73 minutes -- is available now on DVD and digitally, from most of the usual suspects: iTunes - Amazon Instant - Google Play - Xbox Live - VUDU; and On-Demand via Comcast, TWC, Cox, Bright House, etc.; via  Vubiquity (Verizon, Charter, etc.) and through  ATT and Dish.

Cindy Kleine's PHYLLIS AND HAROLD shocks, stuns, moves and amuses; filmmaker Q&A

Joining the ranks of top-notch docs about family -- Must Read After My Death, Life Support Music and Capturing the Friedmans -- is this week's opener PHYLLIS AND HAROLD, in which filmmaker Cindy Kleine tells the story of her family, especially that of the title characters -- her mom and dad. Neither as dark/
dysfunctional as "Must Read" nor as functional/
positive as Life Support Music, Phyllis and Harold nonetheless occupies a place all its own in the overcrowded documentary field. As it quietly unfolds, it shocks, moves, educates and entertains in about equal measure.

Beginning with some cute but appropriate stop-motion photography/animation, Ms Kleine (shown at left) sets us up for her role as our grown-up-child guide who's trying to figure out the relationship between her parents. Haven't we all done that at some point in our own lives -- though without, I suspect, either the interest, resources or the skill for unearthing and connecting that this woman possesses?

The less you know going in to this documentary, the more surprises will be in store.  No less a famed documentarian than Ken Burns is on record noting that, while he was viewing the film, various people who happened into the screening room were so caught up with this film that they simply stayed there and watched the entire thing. Yes, it's that addictive.  Part of its attraction stems from its very homemade quality. Not that it isn't professionally mounted in most ways, but it is also so "chatty," warm and real-seeming that, as you might do with a film a friend had made, you first watch out of ease or maybe duty.  Within a few minutes, you're hooked.

A combination of straightforward talking-head interviews, animation, old photos (what a treasure trove here!), home movies, and old songs, the movie's 84 minutes fly.  Seeing her parents both young (above) and old (below) is a revelation -- as much to them as much as to us: "This is like a stranger to me!" marvels her father upon reading one of his old love letters to this young wife.  Just when we're thinking how very salutary this is -- and would be for most oldsters -- Kleine drops the bomb.  From here on, surprise topples surprise, as we discover secrets, war, the family's black nanny and more.  My goodness: how complicated people are, and mysterious, problematic, impossible and sad.

If Phyllis and Harold has at least one ending too many, I think you'll easily forgive Kleine her need for "closure" and sentiment.  She and her family deserve it. And maybe we do, too.  The movie opens Friday, February 19, at NYC's Cinema Village.  For further screening dates, click here.

*******

Once you see the film, you'll have you own set of questions for Ms. Kleine.  Below are ours, with TrustMovies in boldface, Cindy in standard type.  There are spoilers ahead, so perhaps see the film first  and then come back to this.

When and why did you decide to tell your parents’ story?

In a specific way, I decided to tell their story about ten years before I shot the first interviews with them, and I spent years writing a script for what I thought would be a fiction film. In a more abstract way, though, even my earliest work was preparing me to tell their story. My earliest videos and films were all about love relationships, both familial and romantic (Dinosaur, 1979, Secrets of Cindy, 1983, Doug and Mike, Mike and Doug, 1984, Nana, 1987, Passage, 1991, etc...)

Did you always plan to hold it back until both of them were gone? (I would guess so.)


Once I decided the film would be a documentary, I knew I could not tell the whole story until my father was gone. (My mother, on the other hand, would have LOVED it, but that's another story!) So I conceived it as a film that would be made in sections, and got excited about the idea of making a feature length film of three or four sections that could also be shown as shorts, without the other parts. "Til Death Do Us Part" (1998, 20 minutes) was the first section. It premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, and showed in a handful of other choice festivals (Seattle, Vancouver, Rocky Mountain International Women's Film Festival, etc), though I had to hold it back from distribution because my father was alive at the time. The section of my parents reading their love letters was "Part 2", and "Part 3" was supposed to be my parents getting old together. But my father died suddenly while I was shooting that section, and then, inevitably, the direction of the film changed.

Did you and your mom ever talk about her “neglect” of you and your sister when you were kids? If so, how did she respond?

Late in her life, she admitted to some degree her emotional neglect of my sister with great shame and sadness. She couldn't really hear my own feelings, but then, she was a much better mother to me than she was to my sister, I would say.

Your use of old photos was sublime and fascinating. Did you always have access to these or did you spend months trying to find them? 

Thanks. I inherited the trove of 40,000 slides my Dad shot from 1939 until 1990 when he died. The home movies my grandfather shot were given to me in a box by my grandmother after he died.

What was the most difficult part of the filmmaking process for you?

Besides spending so much time with my parents? Well, the most difficult part was after my father died, trying to pick up the pieces of myself, my family, and my film; to find the energy again to resume shooting, and to shoot with my mother through those long months of her shock, her falls and illnesses and her mental decline. It was poignant and painful.

When did the idea to use animation hit you?  The animation, by the way, is delightful and very well thought-out and applied. 

 Thanks. I knew I wanted to use animation pretty early on in the editing process of the full length film, which began to approach it's final form sometime around 2005 or 2006. I asked Lisa Crafts to do an animation of the "Mom meeting the lover for the first time" story very early on, so that was in the cut from way back. The rest of the animation didn't find it's place until very late in the game, in the last nine months of editing with Jonathan Oppenheim.

Do you think your mom realized that you were finally going to make her “famous’? If so, how did she feel about this?

She could never have known or guessed that the film would be as widely seen as it has been and is about to be, but she LOVED being a movie star, and I hope is somewhere up there looking down on opening night at Cinema Village in her designer gown and borrowed Harry Winston jewels, with a gorgeous young man on her lap! It is truly heartbreaking to me that she did not live to see the film, and to be at that opening. My husband, Andre, says she deserves, and he hopes she will win the Posthumous Oscar for Best Performance in a Documentary.

Your dad reminded me of my dad (and myself -- and so many men who tend to hold back). Did it occur to you that he might have had affairs of his own? Did you ever question him about this? (Probably not, because he was not to know about your mom’s)

Sure I did!! Are you kidding? How could I have resisted? Though he never admitted to anything outright, I know he did have affairs, but I don't think he ever was in love with anyone else the way my Mom was. His were purely sexual flings, I'm sure. He was a hot guy, and he wasn't getting steak at home.

How did Andre Gregory come into the picture? 

Very short version: I was introduced to Andre* by an old friend who had been working with him. Four days later we kissed and the rest is history.

I realize that you did one shorter film earlier (Inside Out) that was about half the length of Phyllis and Harold. How was, other than dealing so closely with your own family, this film different for you as a filmmaker: twice the work because of its being twice the length? Or maybe ten times the work? (Is it like the difference, as I have been told, between having one child and two: not twice the work but four times the work.)

I did many short films earlier than P and H. (see my website).   Having two cats and no kids, I can't relate to the child analogy, but suffice to say, this film was 12 plus years in the making, all my others were 2 to 5 years in the making, approximately. I would guess it is like the difference between writing a short story and writng a novel.

Anything else you want to talk about that I did not cover?

No...thank you, but please encourage everyone to come out to see the film during its run at Cinema Village, beginning February 19th.

(All photos. courtesy of Ms Kleine)

* Cindy Kleine is married to playwright/producer/actor Andre Gregory (pictured above a couple of times).