Susan Sontag Movies

Filmmaker Katharina Otto-Bernstein offers a detailed look into the world of avant-garde theater icon Robert Wilson, whose visionary works and collaborations with such varied artists as Philip Glass, Allen Ginsberg, and Tom Waits have established him as one of the world's most respected theater artists. From his early childhood in Waco, TX, to his influential work with the Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds to his internationally acclaimed "Einstein on the Beach" collaboration with Glass, his ill-fated CIVIL WarS performance, and the Black Rider collaboration with Waits that would later vindicate the failure of CIVIL WarS, Otto-Bernstein takes a linear look at Wilson's life and career while also offering informative interviews with the artist's many collaborators and, of course, extensive conversations with the man himself. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Improper Conduct was written and directed by famed Spanish cinematographer Nestor Alemandros. With uncompromising clarity, Alemandros lays bare the cruelties and despotism of Cuba's Castro regime. The director interviews several Cuban expatriates, including writers, filmmakers and political prisoners who once supported Castro in his struggle to oust the corrupt dictator Batista and then turned against him as he fully revealed his communist beliefs who relate in disturbing detail their treatment for alleged "crimes against the state"--such as homosexuality. Even long-time Castro apologists will be hard put to deny the truths set forth in this harrowing 112-minute documentary. Nestor Alemandros later compiled the interviews heard in Improper Conduct into an illustrated book. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Leonard Zelig, the "human chameleon", is profiled in this mock-documentary. Director Woody Allen appears as Zelig in scenes that purport to be vintage newsreel clips of the 1920s and 1930s, but are actually clever recreations, "aged" and scratched-up Citizen Kane-style by special-effects maestros Joel Hynick, Stuart Robinson and R. Greenberg Associates. An appropriately pompous narrator details the life and times of Leonard Zelig, whose overwhelming desire for conformity is manifested in his ability to take on the facial and vocal characteristics of whomever he happens to be around at the moment. He shows up at batting practice with Babe Ruth, among William Randolph Hearst's guests as San Simeon, side by side with Pope Pius at the Vatican, and peering anxiously over the shoulder of Adolf Hitler at the Nuremberg Rally. Becoming a celebrity in his own right, Zelig inspires a song, a dance craze, and a Warner Bros. biopic. Mia Farrow plays Dr. Eudora Fletcher , a psychiatrist who tries to "reach" Zelig and ultimately falls in love with him (all of Farrow's scenes are in black-and-white and allegedly culled from archive footage; Ellen Garrison, whose resemblance to Farrow is uncanny, plays the older Dr. Fletcher in the interview sequences). In the manner of Reds, the influence of the fictional Leonard Zelig on popular culture is discussed by such real-life notables as Susan Sontag, Irving Howe, Saul Bellow and Dr. Bruno Bettenheim. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This English-language film was made in Sweden by American essayist Susan Sontag and includes a French and Swedish cast. There is a similar confusion in the storyline. Four artistic adults (two men and two women) have gone to an island at the same time. They are people who have caused one another considerable pain in the past, and they appear to be prepared to do so again here. One woman, an actress, commits suicide when she is not able to seduce a (male) ballet dancer whom she had traumatized before. The dancer and the (male) theater director may or may not be having an affair. The dancer tries to have sex with an under-age autistic girl. The mother of the girl copes with all this, and more. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi