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My uncle Jim had a home movie camera back in the '70s. I don't remember him pulling it out at any time except Christmas. Then it would suddenly appear while we were opening presents. The children (of whom I was one) would be distracted from the all-important task of ripping wrapping paper by the blinding light he had on top of the camera. Meanwhile, the adults would pray that the camera wouldn't suddenly shine on them. When it did, they'd smile sheepishly and ask, "What should I say?" The funny thing about all this is I never remember looking at those movies. Did anyone? Did Uncle Jim just throw the reels in a closet somewhere and forget about them? If so, what was the point?

Ross McElwee is a man who knows the point of home movies. He's been making personal documentaries since the '70s. His most famous one is the 1986 movie Sherman's March-"a meditation on the possibility of romantic love in the South during an era of nuclear weapons proliferation," as he cheekily called it. His newest film, which opens this Friday at the Music Box theatre, is called Bright Leaves. It, too, is set in the South and focuses on his family's legacy of tobacco farming. But it's also a reflection on fame, movies, smoking, death, religion, and community.

Though the topics might be broad, the film has an intimacy reminiscent of home movies. McElwee narrates the footage himself, and his voice reminds me of Garrison Keillor's, especially when the latter's talking about Lake Woebegon: low, matter-of-fact but slightly stylized especially when he wants to stress a point. It's a storyteller's voice, which is what McElwee is.

The story this time is about his great-grandfather, who created the Bull Durham brand of tobacco. On the cusp of fabulous wealth and fame, his great-grandfather instead lost his fortune to the Duke family, who apparently stole his secret and then prevailed in court. It was the Dukes who would reap the wealth and lasting fame. This point clearly rankles McElwee. He visits the Duke historical home, an immaculately kept site, and then contrasts it with a barren, untidy "park" that bears his family's name. "It was the worst of all worlds," McElwee remarks. He didn't have the money or the legacy that would come from a tobacco fortune, but he has the guilt from knowing his family helped create a tobacco empire.

What the McElwee family does have, though, is a Hollywood movie. In the film's opening sequence, he visits a second cousin who collects Hollywood memorabilia. This cousin has discovered a 1950 Gary Cooper movie called Bright Leaf, which seems based on their great-grandfather's life, with Cooper as the ancestor. As McElwee puts it, it's a "surreal home movie acted by Hollywood stars." He then beautifully integrates clips from that classic Hollywood film with his own "home movies," which include footage of his home state of North Carolina, his young son playing at the beach, and interviews with various relatives and friends.

What I find fascinating about Bright Leaves is how certain parts of the film resonate with me while others don't. I'm not a smoker, and only a couple members of my extended family smoke. So the reflections on the evils of smoking, including interviews with those who've lost loved ones to lung cancer, left me somewhat bored. But being a film buff, I was positively enthralled by the interview with his second cousin, who has a library of still photos, posters, and actual movie reels. I also found McElwee's brief portraits of religion (usually people singing hymns) fascinating, but McElwee apparently didn't, as he leaves that footage largely unexplored.

My favorite scene, though, involves an interview with a Russian film theorist named Vlada Petric. Petric has come to North Carolina to give a lecture. McElwee tracks him down and asks him about his family's "heirloom," Bright Leaf. Instead of answering the question, the incredibly animated Petric conducts a wonderfully insightful interview with McElwee sitting in a chair that's wheeled around by Petric, who pretends he's a grip on a movie set. The fact that the interview takes place on a fake movie set (with a fake movie marquee in the background) only adds to the layers of this scene. What is real? What is fiction? How does a film approximate the real? How does a home movie do that? Where does a personal documentary fit into all this, or a movie like Bright Leaf? As Petric puts it, a film is "life caught unawares...but what do you do with it?"

This reaches its apex in McElwee's footage of his own family. He wishes he had film of his mother, but then thoughtfully remarks that all his footage of his father makes him seem like a fictional character. What about the home movies of his son? In a great piece of editing, McElwee shows us his son Adrian playing at the beach (pretending to smoke, of all things) at the age of seven or eight. In the next shot, Adrian is twelve years old, now ignoring his father and playing with his friends. How do these movies function for Ross? for us? How will it "play" in ten, twenty, fifty years? What has McElwee "done with" these shots of life caught unawares?

Certainly, he's done more than most of us will with our video cameras. But I'd also argue he captures more of life than any reality show could and more than most documentaries. Ross McElwee will be at the Music Box theatre this Friday (Dec. 3) to talk about his movie and answer questions from the audience. Call the theatre information line (773-871-6604) for more details.  

J. Robert Parks  11/27/2004