The Very Last Picture Show; or, Choking on Pretzels

Come the end of the 9th Annual Ebertfest, Werner Herzog announced to the crowd that the end of the world was imminent, an idea both fitting and in keeping with Herzog's apocalyptic visions. After all, once you have dragged a ship over the Andes and hypnotized an entire film crew including actors and hung around to watch a volcano destroy an island, could the end of the world be that much more extreme? What's more, Herzog didn't care. He shrugged and vowed to continue making movies.

I have to agree with what Dan wrote here on the unofficial Ebertfest blog. Herzog's STROSZEK comes across as anticlimactic, considering the earlier films of the German New Wave director. That movie and SEARCHING FOR THE WRONG-EYED JESUS both reflect an America more than a little nuts and also more than a little familiar. I hadn't wanted to say anything. The thing is, no one wants to criticize Ebertfest, particularly when the principal figure was present and infirm.

I have great respect for Ebert. I miss his reviews, the cleverness and clarity of his intellect. But to criticize anything in this year's Ebertfest would have been tantamount to playing the "affliction art" card. To criticize the festival would be to criticize the man himself.

Even though it always has been a good festival, I tired years ago of the atmosphere of adulation surrounding the event. I attend the panels and as many of the discussions as I can. This year the panels were underattended it seemed, probably because Roger could not be in attendance. Even Herzog wasn't enough of a name to bring in throngs.

If, heaven forbid, this turned out to be the final Ebertfest, since we're talking about the end of the world anyway, BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS would be a strange – fitting and apocalyptic? – finale.

Ebert wrote that he was glad, since his speaking voice is on hiatus, he wouldn't have to explain why he wrote it. Mocking sex and society in a campy way with all the typical Russ Meyer flourishes – fast editing, crisp images, and Barbie Doll pancake makeup bustiness – the movie too marked the end of an era, when the Seventies fashioned itself into a commercial simulation of all that was real about the Sixties.

I had never made any connection between LA DOLCE VITA and BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS before this event. Both deal extensively with the idea of society falling apart in excess and decadence.

When LA DOLCE VITA was released, Fellini was vilified. I think even Billy Graham was quoted as saying it was the "most immoral movie ever made." The Catholic Decency board condemned it outright. The movie – easily acknowledged as a classic today– was a clear sign that the world had fallen to pieces, never to recover. God was the monster on the beach; all that had been pure and simple in humanity was a girl standing there, unable to communicate with the damned: Fellini's vision of the Rapture.

If religion condemned LA DOLCE VITA 40 years ago, in the current era of torture-tainment, there is a ponderous paradox in the fact that perhaps the film most roundly condemned as pornography has been THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, a blood-hungry snuff film.

I watched it again recently; it is a film that could never have been made in the 1960s, let alone become a touchstone for thousands of devout churchgoers.

Could this year's Ebertfest also mark the end of the Bush era?

As cowardly as ex-CIA director George Tenet is in refusing to accept any blame for the continuing tragedy of the Iraq invasion, he marks another important figure jumping the sinking ship.

Another ironic note, in retrospect, occurred the day that George W. Bush choked on a pretzel.

The twisted, pretzel logic of those who tried in vain to follow the excuses and prevarications and duplicity of the new millennium has caused many to start gasping for breath, choking on their own rationalizations. It is no longer possible to excuse away the failed reconstruction, the increase in terrorism, the exposure of CIA agents to the media, the torture euphemisms, the spying, the melting down of human rights, bottomless corruption, and on and on.

Some think the lies surrounding the death of Pat Tillman will be the final nail in the coffin, with the religious right also finally jumping ship, no longer any way to avoid the admission that lies and deception, fear and smear, were what fueled this administration from the start.

The Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette was first noticed jumping the sinking ship when it ran an editorial on March 21, upset when it was revealed that U.S. federal attorney Patrick Fitzgerald was at one point on the list of attorneys Alberto Gonzalez intended to fire. Only three days earlier, the Gazette editorial condemned those criticizing the firings. The paper switched gears abruptly, without explanation.

Anyway, what this has to do with the movies, I'm not sure. I could claim it was inspired by the Politics in Movies, Movies in Politics panel at the festival. Not unlike Herzog's plan, though, I hope to be sitting here, eating my popcorn, watching intently as the world sputters to breathe, choking on pretzels. I hope I'm watching Fellini when it all goes down.

Satyricon, perhaps...

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