Haskell Wexler, ASC Honored at Cinefest
By David Heuring

Cinematographer Haskell Wexler, ASC was one of two filmmakers honored with career retrospectives at the Sixth Annual Cinefest film festival, held Feb. 24-26 in Madison, Wisconsin. The annual festival focuses on films with Latino and Latin American themes.

Along with Wexler, this year's event included a retrospective on the work of director Saul Landau. Both Wexler and Laundau, along with Landau's son, Greg, were on hand to introduce screenings, answer questions and participate in panels. The weekend was something of a homecoming for the elder Landau, who earned a doctorate in History from the University of Wisconsin in 1957.

Cinefest began with a dialog with Wexler and Landau moderated by John Nichols, associate editor of the Capitol Times and political correspondent for The Nation. About 150 people were in attendance. The main topic was politics, filmmaking and how they intersect. Landau and Wexler recalled the thought processes that led them to make similar films in the late 1960s and early 70s. Wexler's Medium Cool used documentary footage filmed at the protests around the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago interspersed with a fictional story. Landau's Que Hacer uses documentary footage of the election in 1970 Chile of Salvador Allende and the turmoil that followed as a backdrop for a fictional story about the relationship between a CIA agent and a Peace Corps volunteer.

"At that time it was very difficult to get a documentary seen," said Wexler. "I had worked as an assistant on newsreels, so I knew that newsreels were phony, that they were subsidized by the government, partly for propaganda purposes outside of this country. I had made a few small documentaries, and I knew that sometimes people can gain more meaningful information through a character than they can through what we call facts. Those are some of the reasons we made Medium Cool."

The discussion was followed by screenings of both Medium Cool and Que Hacer. In introducing Medium Cool, Wexler said, "I feel I need to remind today's audiences of what is not immediately clear in the film. What you won't see in the film is what was in the air at that time: the fear that people had, the questioning of people's patriotism and of who we are as Americans…also, the courage of those people who were in the streets. At that time people were saying, 'Make love, not war,' and I think it's hard for people today to understand what a terrifying, challenging statement that was at the time. Even today, we see militarism being equated with patriotism at events like the Super Bowl. We have to understand what's being said to us in order to question it."

Friday's events included 'Voices, Images & Hearts,' a benefit for local charities that work with disadvantaged communities in Latin America and elsewhere. Wexler and Landau were feted at a cocktail party, after which they introduced a screening of The Sixth Sun: Mayan Uprising in Chiapas, a documentary Landau and Wexler made about the Mayan Indian uprising in 1994 in southern Mexico. More than 400 people attended the event.

A screening of Syria: Between Iraq and A Hard Place, Landau's most recent film, followed, and Greg Landau's Rock Down Central America, a film that follows a Nicaraguan reggae band during the Sandinistan revolution in 1988, wrapped up the evening's events.

Saturday featured a full day of screenings, including Wexler's The Bus Riders Union and Five Days in March as well as Landau's Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang, Fidel, and The CIA Case Officer. Wexler and Landau's collaboration Brazil: Report on Torture as well as the Wexler-Greg Landau film Five Days in March were also shown.

"One of the amazing things about this medium, which is a relatively new development in world history, is that it has changed history," said Landau. "It's become an actor, a participant in history. Before the motion picture camera and the microphone, history was different. Think of how movies have written our history. You could argue that TV and movies have conditioned the public to accept the unthinkable. People tell the camera their most intimate secrets. So it can be a remarkable and intrusive instrument into what has historically been private."

"Films can rob us of our history," said Wexler. "It's our job as communicators to be sure our values are human, positive, community-based values. Only then can we make films that communicate effectively and make a positive impact. We have to learn to talk to the people with whom we disagree. We have to learn how to talk and think and listen to people who have views which we may even consider stupid. And if we don't learn how to do that, we're not doing our jobs as citizens or filmmakers."

Cinefest was sponsored by a wide range of University- and community-based organizations including the Wisconsin Film Festival, the UW Department of Communication Arts the Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua and WORT Community Radio.