source: The Green Fog

Moviecut—The Green Fog

I love this movie. I've seen Vertigo many times and I've seen many, but not all of the TV and movies that are edited into this show. I read footnotes. I watch some movies many times and enjoy aspects of them that aren't the main focus and might just be accidents of location footage. I love Gus Van Sant's 'Psycho' because I love Hitchcock's. Same with 'The Godfather: The Complete Novel For Television', 'Star Wars' in all of its editions, 'The Truth About Charlie,' and many other remakes. I know that the 1977 print of 'Star Wars' and Stanley Donen's 'Charade', and the first two Godfather movies are unique, original creations that need no help from other movies and that the stories they tell could hardly be told more effectively. Point is, I feel joy wallowing in the simple truth that the people that made 'The Green Fog' and all the other movies I'm thinking about love these movies as well. I feel a kinship and a fresh appreciation for the movies being referenced. In this case, that is quite a few movies and TV shows. For me, the feeling is not that different than the feelings modern franchise fans get when they see references, 'Easter eggs', and cameos from earlier movies as they watch a sequel. Finally, this movie certainly evokes an unusual mood, and that can be a fun place to go without controlled substances.

It's incredibly hard to give this film a proper "review", considering it'd be a stretch to even consider this a proper "film" in the first place. My initial impressions were that this was an amateur sort of "video collage" of random film clips in and around the San Francisco area in a neat-yet-uninteresting montage style. I wasn't impressed, and almost annoyed that I had invested my time in what seemed to essentially be a video collage of San Francisco movie clips. But then, the intrigue kicked-in once I began to read between the lines and look at the framework. Like any good mystery, all it took was a little detective work to find the roots of a classic buried deep within this experimental little bugger. In the long run, I find myself impressed by this film for the sheer power of editing, the commitment to creating a certain story from hundreds of clips to make something that felt even vaguely coherent, and additionally the amount of work it must have taken to gather all these clips together in the first place. That said, I seriously do not recommend entering this expecting a "film". If anything, this is a glorified editing project that has admirable execution. It feels clunky as an experimental piece tends to feel, and for a film that brandishes a brisk run-time of barely over an hour, this still drags in places. Again, simply the pitfalls of this being an experimental art-piece, not really a feature-length film. It isn't perfect, but as a video editor who admires editing challenges such as this, I can certainly appreciate the artistry that went into this. Not a great film, but as an art project or exhibit? It's a fun little gem~

I mean that title in a good way. If you view this more for the overall impression rather than the specifics, you will get the impression that you watched a weird remake of Vertigo. But it's not even really a remake; Guy Maddin made something surreal here, but it took a mountain of patience and work. And you know what? It's also hilarious in parts. An *NSYNC video pops up at one point. Yep. I'm not kidding. And you never know what footage will crop up here or there, whether it's a TV movie or from Don't Look Now. My recommendation is to have a drink or two and just let it play. You won't come away with a sense of awe, but you might giggle a bit and at least appreciate how much this man was able to invoke a classic film using splices of others. Don't smoke opium, though.

The Green Fog