A telling story of an unemployed Vietnam vet in Butte, Montana,
whose wife leaves him after seven years when she feels there is no longer
communication between them and - more painfully and pointedly - because
she is unable to have a child owing to his sterility from exposure to
Agent Orange. Told in a gentle style, richly emotional, Bell Diamond
was made with non-professionals drawn from the community of Butte.
1985 | 16mm | Color | Sound | 96 minutes
Producer, writer, director, editor cinematographer
: Jon Jost
Music: Jon A. English
With: Marshall Gaddis, Sarah Wyss, Terrilyn
Williams, Scott Anderson, Pat O'Connor, Kristi Jean Hager, Hal Waldrup,
Dan Cornell, Alan Goddard, Anne Kolesar, & Ron Hanekan
Shown at the Berlin and
Edinburgh Film Festivals, AFI, New Directors/New Films 1987; Bergamo
1988.
|
"... with a story developed by the filmmaker and cast and completely
improvised, the film deals with characters who are neither articulate
nor particularly attractive, but pays them the kind of respect and attention
that they would never receive from other quarters. Visually Jost's most
impressive work to date. The impact of the film's original form of realism
arrives only gradually, but once it registers, it becomes indelible."
- Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
"Among the ten best of the year. Formally exquisite and politically
pointed study of an alienated Vietnam vet against the background of
a bankrupted mining town."
- Dave Kehr, Chicago Tribune
|
