Published April 7, 2005, in issue 0414 of the Hook

BY HAWES SPENDER

A documentary filmmaker who does his own narration, speaks in something close to a whisper, and searches for his own family history is celluloid Ambien, right? Wrong.

Filmmaker Ross McElwee is one of the most celebrated documentary filmmakers in America-- the thinking man's Michael Moore. And he's coming to Charlottesville to screen his latest picture, Bright Leaves.

The title is borrowed from a 1950 Gary Cooper/Patricia Neal melodrama called Bright Leaf that appears to explain McElwee's own family fortune (and loss thereof). It seems that McElwee's great grandfather created the Durham Bull brand before his rival, the eventual benefactor of Duke University, grabbed the name and reversed it-- and as he monopolized the dangerous leaf, reversed McElwee's family fortune.

Because the subject is tobacco and the setting is North Carolina, McElwee turns what could have been an exercise in self-indulgence into an understated exploration of the power tobacco still holds over those it touches. There are quirky relatives, hilarious juxtapositions such as the nearly barren McElwee Park vs. the Duke mansion-- and chilling scenes of friends who think they can quit. And woven through it all is Gary Cooper and the lovely but toxic fields of green.

McElwee screens Bright Leaves April 15 at 7pm at Vinegar Hill Theatre, which will run the film until April 21. $8. McElwee will also screen his well-known 1986 picture, Sherman's March, winner of Best Documentary in the 1986 Sundance Film Festival at UVA's Newcomb Hall Theater. $7.50. 924-7900

McElwee finds a cousin who has his own 16mm copy of Bright Leaf.
FROM THE FILM

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[Clarification: the fellow in the photo above is a film critic and not McElwee's film-collecting cousin. Here's the cousin below-- editor.]

McElwee finds a cousin who has his own 16mm copy of Bright Leaf.
FROM THE FILM

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