June 5, 2011

DAVID HOLZMAN'S DIARY

Kino Video and Lorber Films has announced that they will release a Blu-ray edition of Jim McBride's 1967 cult classic, David Holzman's Diary. The film takes the form of a cinema verite project by a young filmmaker, who documents his life and his relationships with the community around him. It's a kind of mockumentary, however believable, that offers an interesting window on art, attitudes, and culture during that era. This is not your Avengers 1967, but an urban tale of the youth generation, first consumers of art house cinema, who struggled to define and understand themselves through the medium. Roman Coppola paid homage to David Holzman's Diary in his sci-spy/drama, CQ (2001), which featured a Holzman-like character (Jeremy Davies/Lost) documenting his life while working on a Barbarella-style genre film. Spy Vibers interested in the art scene of 1967 New York should definitely check it out. The film also features the song A Day in the Life by The Beatles, which was released in June of that year.

1 comment:

  1. Good news! That's a fantastic movie. I saw McBride speaking after a screaming almost a decade ago, and someone asked him about CQ. I was disappointed in his answer. Rather than being flattered by what I saw as a clear and definite homage (along the lines of that film's homages to Barbarella and Modesty Blaise), he took it for a blatant rip-off and seemed really pissed off by it. I think he even intimated that he was considering legal action. I love McBride's movie, but I found his response kind of churlish considering I never even would have known about it had I not followed the trail from CQ. As I see it, Roman Coppola was keeping his film relevant!

    Anyway, I'm glad it's coming out on Blu-ray now.

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