By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Stephen Kessler
Country: philippines, united_states
Year: 2012
Running time: 87
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1956594/
Jason says: “It’s okay to look at the title of PAUL WILLIAMS STILL ALIVE and have a reaction somewhere between dismissal and dread. Documentaries about musicians who have faded into obscurity in part due to substance abuse are so common that festivals might as well list them as their own program. This one, at least, finds a couple of ways to present things differently, although the results are a somewhat mixed bag.
“It’s easy to be wary of these differences from the start, when director Stephen Kessler’s description of Williams’s career as a singer/songwriter/celebrity in the 1970s focuses just as much on how he viewed it as an awkward kid in New York as it does on Williams’s actual work, if not more so. For all that he was a huge fan, Kessler assumed (as many did) that Williams had died sometime in the 1980s, only to learn of the man doing an appearance at a screening of PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE (the truly bizarre 1974 Brian De Palma update of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA in which Williams played the villain) in Winnipeg. Once there, Kessler asks permission to tag along and make a documentary on Williams’s life and career, although Williams often proves to be a reluctant subject.
“PAUL WILLIAMS STILL ALIVE won’t necessarily be disappointing to those looking for a straightforward biography, but there’s a lot of Stephen Kessler in the movie, even if he does not always appear on camera all that much. It’s a balance that the movie quite often struggles with; having an idea of just how intrusive and annoying having someone chronicle your life can be makes Williams’s clear annoyance at various points funny as opposed to really uncomfortable, but Kessler lays it on rather thick at times. The filmmaker’s initial fannish excitement at hanging out with Williams the way he’d dreamed of doing as a kid giving way to the discovery of a real human being rather than just a celebrity persona eventually becomes the actual story the movie tells. There are a lot of times, especially toward the start, when many in the audience will wish for Kessler to fade into the background because he’s not what they came to see, and even when he starts to feel more integral, that first impression can be hard to shake.
“He doesn’t completely usurp the movie from Williams, though, and while the twenty-first century model of Paul Williams is much more restrained than the one shown in various clips from thirty and forty years earlier, the maturity is an interesting contrast. Williams seems to have a better grasp than many on what sort of man he was in his youth and what he should or should not regret, and while his conversations with Kessler often seem humorously hostile – it’s unusually easy toplace oneself in his position and see the documentary process as surreal – they can be surprisingly revealing.
“They are most revealing in combination with his actions, though. At various points in the movie (mostly taken from one long interview), Williams talks about his youthful desire to be ‘special’ rather than ‘different’ when explaining all the odd television appearances and other stunts he did during his heyday, and the audience will nod along with it, seeing it as true, if not necessarily deep, more so because his back gets a bit up when Kessler seems to mock it. The clever bit is that there’s a tour of the Philippines midway through the movie that is played up for how Paul and Stephen become closer as they spend a couple of weeks far from home and how Williams is still famous there, but underneath, it’s connecting today’s Paul Williams to the one who would do anything back in the day. Kessler does an impressive job of combining past and present footage to tell a story without much of the typical self-destruction-and-redemption arc, arriving at an unusual climax and message.
“Well, maybe it’s not so unusual for one of these movies to be as much about letting things go as holding on. It’s more the case here, and the focus on Kessler as well as Williams makes it a bit different – a little more demanding that the typical musician documentary, but not necessarily in a bad way. 4 cats
“Seen 1 May 2012 in Coolidge Corner Theatre #2 (Independent Film Festival Boston 2012, digital)”
Chris says: “If asked to sum up the 1970s in a single celebrity, one could do worse than choose Paul Williams. For about ten years, he was oddly ubiquitous in popular culture, and I do mean odd: he was short, bespectacled and a singer-songwriter whose tunes were primarily hits for other people, most notably The Carpenters, Three Dog Night and Barbra Streisand. Early on, he found his niche as an engaging television personality, appearing on every talk and variety program from The Tonight Show to Circus of the Stars; he also cultivated a minor acting career, starring (as The Devil!) in and writing songs for Brian De Palma’s cult musical PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE.
“At the dawn of the ’80s, he seemingly disappeared overnight. He may have simply fallen out of fashion, but a growing drug and alcohol problem also contributed to his swift decline. He became sober by 1990 but his career never recovered. So off the radar now was Williams that filmmaker and fan Stephen Kessler thought he was dead, but he wasn’t. Thus, Kessler tracked him down and got permission to follow him around on tour, where he plays to substantially smaller crowds than in his heyday. Initially, Williams seemed reluctant and evasive, and with good reason—would you want a stranger tagging along from one concert venue and hotel room to the next, invading your personal space?
“The thing is, Kessler’s presence in the film lifts it from a typical, where-are-they-now sort of documentary up to something far more illuminating and complicated. Often, too much of a director’s presence in a doc is its kiss of death. Fortunately, by making himself nearly as prominent on screen as Williams, Kessler not only gives the film an interesting narrative, but also opens up this sort of film’s parameters, exploring in-depth the relationship between artist and fan. Although Kessler may come off as a little self-absorbed at times, his own story and the very palpable effect Williams had on his formative years casts him as a much-needed audience surrogate—he approaches Williams as most of us would, with initial trepidation, then curiosity and a desire to know more, to understand what Williams is really like. Both Kessler and the viewer feel compelled to reconcile the popular image of Williams from 30-40 years ago with the man he is today.
“As with any relationship, it simply takes time for Kessler and Williams to become comfortable with each other. They eventually establish a rapport via unlikely common interests (a taste for squid!) and by being in close proximity with each other for a length of time (particularly on a tour of the Philippines). Williams finally opens up about his sobriety and no longer possessing (or desiring) the level of fame he once had, but it’s even more revealing, and somewhat shattering, to see him watch video clips of his younger self at the height of his fame (and possibly his addiction). The clips aren’t very flattering, and it’s apparent that the person who may have the most difficulty reconciling Williams then and now is Williams himself. PAUL WILLIAMS STILL ALIVE begins as a celebration of and search for a former celebrity and concludes both as a meta-commentary on fame and fandom and as a cautionary tale of sifting through and trying to resolve one’s own past. 5 cats”