46 THE QUEENS COURIER • BUZZ • JANUARY 21, 2021 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
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MOMI presents retrospective of local fi lmmaker’s career
BY TAMMY SCILEPPI
editorial@qns.com
@QNS
Th ey say the bond between fathers
and daughters is quite special. Just ask
Brooklyn-based artist Lynne Sachs, who
was so determined to fi nd out what made
her enigmatic dad tick, she created an
observational documentary about him.
Th e feminist fi lmmaker/director seems
to view life through the lens of a painter/
poet: a winning combo that has resulted
in a series of artistic experimental and
avant-garde works that draw the audience
into Sachs’ private world. Her newest
boundary-crushing off ering, titled “Film
About a Father Who,” has been 30 years
in the making. And now, she’s sharing
this fascinating, family-focused doc with
viewers across the country.
In Queens, the acclaimed fi lm — a
Cinema Guild release — will debut Friday,
Jan. 14, in the Museum of the Moving
Image’s Virtual Cinema. Th e feature is
part of a 20-fi lm online retrospective of
the artist’s celebrated body of work, which
spans more than three decades. You
can experience “Lynne Sachs: Between
Th ought and Expression,” now through
Jan. 31. To learn more about the artist’s
fi lms and how to watch them, click here.
“Over a 30-plus-year career, Lynne
Sachs has charted a formal path defying
conventional categorization. Each of her
fi lms is a self-refl exive meditation into
the psychic origins and intellectual process
of its own making, issuing from a
space between thought and expression,”
said Edo Choi, MoMI’s assistant curator
of fi lm, who organized the retrospective.
“Th is is true of her work as early as ‘Th e
House of Science’ and as recent as her latest
and most personal fi lm so far, ‘Film
About a Father Who.’”
During a recent interview, Sachs spilled
about her papa’s escapades.
“He has a spirt of adventure, refuses to
follow any rules, relishes seeing his children
grow up, and seems to be very capable
of keeping a lot of secrets,” she told
QNS.
When asked to complete this sentence:
“Th is fi lm is about a father who,” she
off ered, “… is a diff erent man for everyone
who knows him, whether you have
eaten dinner with him, hiked with him
or only met him on the movie screen. He
adds another dimension to the word complicated.”
“My fi lm tries to understand one father
through the eyes of nine children. We
each have our own experiences, memories
and interpretations of his place in our
lives,” Sachs added. “For me, my father
was continuously supportive of me as a
woman, an artist and a mother. He always
treated me with respect. Unfortunately,
this was not true for all of my siblings.
Th is is oft en the case in families, and it’s
the job of the sisters and brothers in the
family to fi nd a terrain on which they can
love each other on their own terms.”
Th e art of fi lmmaking is really about
how well you tell a story, and Sachs injects
a dose of nostalgia, family dynamics and
a sprinkling of psychology into her fi lm.
She paints an interesting, semi-revealing
portrait of a secretive bon vivant from
Park City, Utah, as seen through the eyes
of his children, grandchildren, ex-girlfriends,
ex-wives and especially his own
mother.
Th e fi lm features Ira Sr., who back in
the day, made a modest living as a hippie
entrepreneur, and eventually became
a proud father of nine (now aged 25 to
59). Also featured in the fi lm are the artist,
her brother Ira Sachs Jr., who is also
a fi lmmaker, and their immediate family
(including their mom and grandma),
as well as many half brothers and sisters.
For this 74-minute work, developed
between 1984 and 2019, the artist —
who had been experimenting with diff erent
fi lmmaking modes — shot 8mm and
16mm fi lm, videotape and digital images.
“I feel most comfortable with 16mm
because I need to shoot with this kind of
camera without sound. My eyes are always
more observant with this camera,” she
said. “Furthermore, I have had the same
$400 wind-up, non-electric Bolex camera
since 1987, so it’s an extension of my soul.”
Judy Garland once said, “I can live without
money, but I cannot live without love.”
When asked why her dad was always
searching for amoré, Sachs explained,
“It took me a long time to realize that
his traumatic childhood, which included
being separated from his mother for 13
years, left an indelible mark. In the fi lm,
he also claims that ‘I am not like a swan. I
don’t stay with one partner my whole life.’
So, maybe long-term romantic love was
never really his goal.”
Sachs explores not only the qualities she
loves most about her father, but also the
challenging aspects of their relationship.
“My father has boundless compassion,
but he compartmentalizes his life so much
that you have to share this love with so
many people you will soon lose count,”
Sachs shared. “I love that he is an iconoclast,
that he only likes to hike on mountains
that have not yet been tamed and
that he lets his hair and life become tangled.
Since he always did what he wanted
when he wanted, many people got hurt
along the way … even me, and this continues
to leave a wake of pain.”
Describing her family members’ reactions
to her latest project, Sachs told QNS,
“My sisters and brothers have really rallied
behind the fi lm and it has in a way
brought us closer. My father cried the fi rst
time he saw it. He told me he hoped to ‘do
better in the future.’ I also think he got a
kick out of seeing a feature-length fi lm all
Photos courtesy of The Cinema Guild
about the life he led, all the unusual paths
he followed. Most of us will never have
this chance.”
She added: “I actually completed making
the fi lm aft er my grandmother’s death,
which ultimately was an opening to my
discovering my two ‘hidden’ sisters.”
Sachs believes that her fi lm has changed
some people’s perceptions of her now-84-
year-old father.
“Many people who thought they knew
Ira Sachs Sr. very well announced to me
that my fi lm provided more layers to his
life than they could ever have imagined.
Everyone knew a part of him, but none
of us did or even now do know the whole
story. It is important to me to recognize
that he is not a ‘character’; therefore, like
all of us, he maintains some parts of him
that are his and his alone.”
Th ree of Sachs’ key early works –
“Drawn and Quartered” (1987), “Th e
House of Science: a museum of false
facts” (1991), and “Which Way Is East:
Notebooks from Vietnam” (1994) – will
also be presented.
Along with the screenings, the museum
will present a new recorded dialogue
between Sachs and Choi, covering the
breadth of Sachs’ career. Th is exclusive
video will be available to those who purchase
tickets to any of the screenings.
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