USA,
1999, 110 min
Shown in 2000
CREDITS
- dir
-
Alison Maclean
- prod
-
Lydia Dean Pilcher, Elizabeth Cuthrell, David Urrutia
- scr
-
Elizabeth Cuthrell, David Urrutia, Oren Moverman
- cam
-
Adam Kimmel
- editor
-
Geraldine Peroni, Stuart Levy
- cast
-
Billy Crudup, Samantha Morton, Dennis Hopper, Holly Hunter, Dennis Leary
- source
-
Lions Gate Films, 561 Broadway, New York, NY 10012. FAX: 212-966-2544
-
COMMENTS
Alison Maclean in person.
OTHER
At the beginning of Jesus’ Son, Billy Crudup has a lost, bleary, impenetrably dumb look on his face. As Fuckhead, the central character in this film based on a collection of Denis Johnson short stories, Crudup is a wayward soul of the ’70s, skirting the drug culture, shackled to his addiction, barely holding it together. But through a series of encounters, some funny and surreal, some frightening and deeply sad, Fuckhead finds a degree of meaning and compassion which is reflected in his expressive face. Crudup is a blank canvas on which director Alison Maclean paints a vision of rebirth and redemption. Recognizable actors shift in and out of this dreamlike movie: Holly Hunter, Denis Leary and Dennis Hopper signal fluid shifts from one passage to the next in minor, but poignant roles. And cult character actor Jack Black (Mars Attacks, the band Tenacious D) turns in yet another bizarre, hilarious performance as a druggie hospital orderly obsessed with the sound his shoes make. Despite the high-quality and high-profiles of the supporting actors, it is Crudup’s significantly vivid, schooled performance that steals the show.
—Nick Tangborn
FACTOID #208
Before the showing of Robert Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest at the 40th SFIFF, Bay Area editor Walter Murch (who selected the film to screen in the Indelible Images series), passed out fortune cookies to the crowd with Bresson’s musings on making films.
