The Player (1992)
New to the collection on Blu-ray, Robert Altman’s peek into the snake pit that is Hollywood holds up nicely. Studio executive Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) gets paid to say no to the writers who pitch him scripts. One of those thousands of writers he’s rebuffed begins making anonymous death threats, and we can marvel at the fact that being reminded that some unknown person plans to kill you is rarely the worst part of your day in Tinseltown. As you watch, make lists of the dozens of cameos by stars seemingly happy to sign this loathe letter to the epicenter of their industry, and the classic films recommended by mention, mimic, quote, or poster.

Casting By (2012)
You have perhaps noticed that golden-era Hollywood talent—say, Jimmy Stewart, Bette Davis, John Wayne, William Powell, Dick Powell, and their peers—cranked out theatrical features at a pace that would embarrass cast members of modern-day cable series. Actors were under contract, and studios wanted to wring their money’s worth out of them before the lifestyle depleted them or their clout rose to a point that outweighed the contract. An actor’s interest in or suitability for a role was rarely of primary concern. According to this documentary by Tom Donahue, it was the advent of television that prompted the shift to considering individuals for roles, rather than simply pulling personnel from the pool. New Yorker Marion Dougherty had an eye for talent plus access to the sundry acting schools and Off Broadway playhouses around the city. First for NBC and later for favorite directors, Dougherty recruited future luminaries Jon Voight, Al Pacino, Warren Beatty, Jeff Bridges, and others for career-launching early roles. It’s a humanizing view of this work, which typically breeds outsized egos. Celebrities are humbled by memories of first being noticed by these unassuming members of a film project’s administrative staff.

Burden of Dreams (1982)
Hearts of Darkness; A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (1991)
Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning debut novel, The Sympathizer, is, to oversimplify, about how the film Apocalypse Now and the misguided sentiment behind it all but ruined his life. It is neither consoling nor surprising to learn by watching Hearts of Darkness (directed by Fax Bahr, George Hickenlooper, and Eleanor Coppola) that the making of the film didn’t do any favors for filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola or his family either. Dogged by script, budget, cast, location, and diplomatic-relations problems, Coppola persists in spite of overwhelming evidence that his film is simply a bad idea.

Apocalypse Now, a film that did not need to be made, was apparently completed only so that the filmmaker could avoid saying that he stopped making it before it was finished. Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo belongs to the same category. Based on a number of real personalities in real situations, impresario Fitzcarraldo endeavors to build an opera house in the South American jungle and one day host Enrico Caruso. Things go terribly for Fitz (as my nephew and others who enjoy rewatching this train wreck of a film refer to him) and worse for Herzog. Ace documentarian Les Blank watches and films as Herzog braces against warfare among the local tribes who supply both his extras and his skilled labor (workers including earth-movers, shipwrights, and prostitutes), natural disasters, a fickle cast with schedule conflicts, uneasy investors, and the dawning realization that his film is unnecessary. Neither film is what you’d call fun to watch. But both Hearts and Burden are more captivating than the films that they are ostensibly about.

Who’s Camus Anyway (2005)
A college class in Japan makes a film. The effect is exaggerated, but you may have seen this happen among people you know: The students can’t refer to any memorable film scene without having it change their behavior or take over the conversation. And anytime a director is mentioned, the camera begins to capture the action in his style. On a certain level, Who’s Camus is a tribute to The Player. More than once they refer to a film’s reference in Altman’s movie. There’s some violence that may catch you off guard if you’re focusing on one layer of narrative more than another, but for the most part it’s light-hearted and sweet. This is the only film on this short list in which everyone’s fondness for film seems to survive the project.

Shelf Life explores new and timely entries from the Knox County Public Library’s collection of movies and music. 

Chris Barrett

Chris Barrett's Shelf Life alerts readers to new arrivals at the Lawson McGhee Library's stellar Sights and Sounds collection, along with recommendations and reminders of staples worthy of revisiting. He is a former Metro Pulse staff writer who’s now a senior assistant at the Knox County Public Library.