TELL THEM WHO YOU ARE

by Kevin Koehler

Despite being a prick and a bad father, Haskell Wexler seems like an interesting guy. I wouldn't mind seeing a documentary about him some day. Mark Wexler seems to think he, Haskell Wexler’s son, is a lot more interesting than his father. He isn’t.

One can easily see how Mark Wexler could believe otherwise. While his famous father is an Oscar-winning cinematography and vocal political activist who shot such iconic films as One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and American Graffiti, director of the counter-culture classic Medium Cool, and was instrumental in the broader acceptance of cinéma verité by stateside audiences, Mark Wexler has had his picture taken with four U.S. Presidents and is Haskell Wexler’s son.

Such is the scourge of documentary filmmaking, the Michael Moores and the Morgan Spurlocks, incapable of telling anyone else’s story and thus make themselves the subject of their own films. Regardless of their otherwise lengthy lists of faults, at least Moore and Spurlock possess something akin charisma; Wexler the son rebelled against his maverick, rebellious father by being boring. He’s obsessed with his own affirmation – as a filmmaker, as a son, and as a human being. It’s really only the first one that concerns me and in that quest (despite having some provocative subject matter sign his birth certificate) he fails miserably.

Haskell Wexler, as you might have gathered, is not a particularly nice guy. Like most successful people, especially those who succeed in the film business, he is a raging narcissist. He slept around, cheated on his wife, always put career before family, and still hasn’t given Mark the unconditional love his son so desperately craves. He’s also an arrogant credit-hog (there isn’t a film that he believes wouldn't have been better with he at the helm) and constantly undermined his directors (Milos Forman famously fired him from Cuckoo’s Nest for trying to turn cast and crew against him). The famous talking heads interviewed for Tell Them Who You Are each carry a grudging respect for Wexler as a cameraman, even as they acknowledge his more abrasive qualities (Jane Fonda, George Lucas), don’t exactly like him as a person (Norman Jewison, Forman), or would ever work with again (Elia Kazan).

Yes, Haskell Wexler is a narcissist, but an extremely talented, influential narcissist. Mark Wexler is just a narcissist who has made an artless point-and-shoot hit piece on his old man and doesn't grasp the irony of establishing a filmmaking identity independent of Haskell while making a film that's ostensibly about him. He wants to have it both ways, simultaneously being his own man while still firmly attached to Dad's famous teet.

This isn’t to say the picture is without merit as it's amusing to watch famous people describe a man they can barely conceal their distaste for. Wexler the Elder is always watchable and well-spoken, even when cutting down his son with cringe-worthy aplomb during this film's production (as he probably did most every other director who had the good/bad fortune to work with him). In one such vote of no confidence, Haskell gives himself de facto final cut by refusing to sign a release form. Maybe Mark should have listened a little more to Dad – except for a sequence where Haskell outlines a bizarre conspiracy theory about his firing from Cuckoo’s Nest (it involves the FBI), the framing, editing, and conception of the documentary is uninspired. The son, as a filmmaker, is still largely in search of a style – brazen theft of The Kid Stays in the Picture-style moving photograph technique during some sequences, incongruous with the rest of the film, reeks of particular desperation. While he can’t demonstrate it by making a good film, Mark Wexler is determined to prove his worth by repeatedly telling us how accomplished he is – his work with National Geographic, directing his previous doc Me and My Matchmaker (also about himself, natch), his trips on Air Force One, his photos with and of famous people, all edited awkwardly into the narrative so he can finally get the affirmation from an audience that Daddy withholds.

Not to be insensitive, but he's not getting it from me.

Interesting footnote: The climax of Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool takes place during the very real student riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Wexler actually wrote the riots into the script before the film went into production, expecting that they would occur.

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