_____________________________________________________________

NEW YORK TIMES

HEADLINE: Review/Film: Going Back Home, Again And Again, To Find Vietnam And To Find Herself

BYLINE: By Vincent Canby

July 21,1993

FROM HOLLYWOOD TO HANOI

Written, directed and produced by Tiana (Thi Thanh Nga), in English, French and Vietnamese with English subtitles; cinematography by Michael Dodds, Bruce Dorfman and Jamie Maxtone-Graham; edited by Roger Schulte; released by Friendship Bridge Productions. Running time: 78 minutes. This film has no rating.

BODY:

"From Hollywood to Hanoi," opening today at Film Forum, is an intense, personal, supremely self-confident feature-length documentary that owes a lot to the cinema journalism of Michael Moore, the man who confronted General Motors in "Roger and Me." Like the Moore film, "From Hollywood to Hanoi" is as much about the film maker behind it as it is about the subject it appears to be exploring.

On the surface that subject is life in Vietnam today, so many years after the end of hostilities. In fact, "From Hollywood to Hanoi" is the record of one remarkable young woman's efforts to construct a coherent identity out of bits and pieces of lives lived as a series of compromises.

The film makes superb, sometimes sarcastic use of material from old newsreels and propaganda films. Equally important, though, is the way the director portrays her affection for her father and the other members of her family in this country. In many ways hers is a divided family, but it also appears to be an unusually strong and loving one. There's a lot of rich, sometimes still raw material here.

_____________________________________________________________

ST. PETERSBURG TIMES

HEADLINE: A Carny's Life

BYLINE: Steve Persall

January 19, 1996

BODY:

Truth is stranger than fiction, and often makes a better movie, too. Some of the best films of the decade have been documentaries - Hoop Dreams, Crumb and Hearts of Darkness among them. Now, a 7-minute sneak peek at a work in progress hints that one of the next real-life cinematic successes may come from just down Highway 41 in Hillsborough County. Independent producer Roger Schulte *editor of (From Hollywood to Hanoi) and director Melissa Shachat (Living a Full House) have spent over two years piecing together the story of carnival and circus veterans in Gibtown, mainly filmed in Gibsonton. They made another visit to the rural community last week, still plumbing for information and financing for a project that promises to be equal parts bizarre and poignant. Four hours of interviews and local sights have been filmed, but that isn't enough to shape into a tight 90 minutes and do justice to this unique town.

Recently, Schulte and Shachat unveiled that 7-minute preview of what Gibtown can be, and they did it at the most appropriate place: the Showtown restaurant and bar in Gibsonton, where many of the retired or resting show people congregate. Dozens of local residents attended and cheered every familiar face and place that appeared on screen.

Gibtown began to take shape in Shachat's mind when she read a New York Times article on Gibsonton and its unusual residents: "an incredible town that I thought would make an incredible film," she said. She traveled here from New York in 1993 and started her research, with much of the information coming from veteran carnival show manager Ward Hall. He introduced her to many of his friends whose odd talents or appearances have earned their livings, and gradually Shachat was trusted and accepted.

These veterans of a fading entertainment era shared anecdotes and their specialties for Shachat's camera, which she and Schulte used to create the preview reel. The duo plans to return in the spring, when the carnival season begins and Gibsonton temporarily loses much of its population.

"The main part of the shoot will be when people are leaving for the road," Schulte explained. "It's a sentimental time for older folks not going out."

The topic looks like a winner.

_____________________________________________________________

CLEARWATER TIMES

HEADLINE: Project Seeks To Tell Story Behind Carnival

BYLINE: Bill Duryea

December 17, 1993

BODY:

Melvin Burkhart, known on the carnival circuit as "The Human Blockhead," has been banging large nails into his nose for more than 60 years. For some people, this might be enough to know about Burkhart.

But Melissa Shachat and Roger Schulte, a filmmaking couple from New York City, aren't content with the mere titillating details that would satisfy most sideshow consumers. They have the idea that there is more to the world inhabited by the likes of Burkhart, Jeanie Tomaini (the Half Girl) and Bea Fee and Garland Parnell, who have been performing their monkey act for more than 40 years. So they have come with their camera to Gibsonton, the winter home of hundreds of carnies and circus performers, to film a documentary that gives depth to the portrayal of people who routinely are disdained as freaks.

They hope that Gibtown, titled after the town's nickname, will confront prejudices people hold against an alternative way of living in a community that has more social and spiritual cohesion than many more traditional areas. "We're going to show the audience what they're not expecting to see," Schulte, the producer, said on a recent evening as he and the crew regrouped after a full day's filming. "It's a lot like a carnival banner. We're tricking people into being attracted to something like a carnival and then we're showing them something about themselves," said Schulte, 30.

___________________________________________________________

LOS ANGELES TIMES

HEADLINE: TV Review: 'Equality': An Honest, Gutsy Look At Gay Issues

BYLINE: By Robert Koehler

October 6, 1995

BODY:

The epochal four-part series "The Question of Equality" is a television breakthrough on gay and lesbian issues, as much for what it leaves out as for what it includes.

The first, "Out Rage 69" (airing tonight), goes to the heart of the series' thesis. The closeted, forcibly hidden lives of homosexual men and women before the 1960s is briefly but powerfully documented by Arthur Dong, whose work here expands on his revelatory historical work in "Coming Out Under Fire," about gays and lesbians in World War II.

Dong shows how the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City radicalized gays and lesbians, but he also brilliantly exposes the self-consuming process that has eroded seemingly every American leftist grass-roots movement. Factions of white, middle-class men faced off against other factions of anarchists, minorities and women who felt shut out.

_____________________________________________________________

NEW YORK TIMES

HEADLINE: Film in Review: The Many Lives of a Man, All of Them Odd

BYLINE: By Caryn James

November 23, 1994

BODY:

(excerpt)

..."Stefano Quantestorie" is being shown with a deft and witty five-minute black-and-white film called "Hung Up," directed by Pat Hartley. In this quintessential New York story, a young woman calling her boyfriend from a pay phone tries hard to maintain her sanity, and just as important, her sense of style, under crazy-making circumstances.

---

Back To FILM432 Main Menu


F I L M 4 3 2   C O N T A C T:

(917) 673-9015

roger@film432.com - | - http://www.film432.com/ - | - Roger Schulte Resume