"Listers" - a documentary by Owen and Quentin Reiser

Owen and Quentin Reiser, 20-something brothers, don't know much about birds - they can identify a few distinctive species, and beyond that "a lot of little brown birds" - but they decide on a whim to participate in what birders call a Big Year – a calendar year in which they identify & document sightings or songs of as many birds as possible. Big Years can be local, regional, continental – the one they get in on is the lower-48 of the US. Their Big Year is 2024. They made "Listers" about the experience.

Let’s start with some definitions: a “birdwatcher” is a person who enjoys observing birds – hearing them, noting their activities and preferred habitats. A “birder” is a person whose obsession with building their Life List of unique sightings sometimes comes to the exclusion of interest in the birds themselves. Anyone doing a Big Year is a birder. It’s highly competitive. The app: E-Bird, from the Audubon Society, has changed the way Big Years operate. Instead of relying on word-of-mouth or lucky sightings, birders use E-Bird to report & document their sightings and figure out where they can bag the rarer birds, all so they can get a higher count. This leads to crowds. I am reminded of watching 5-year-olds play soccer, running in a pack up and down the field as near the ball as they can get. 

Money is a factor. Some of the high-ranked birders the brothers interview can afford to fly from one region to another, stay in hotels, and hire guides, making it easier for them to get to those rarely-sighted birds. The Reisers don’t have money. They convert Owen’s 2010 Kia Sedona minivan to a vehicle they can live in, and drive 30,000 miles over the year. Cracker Barrel has a traveler-friendly parking lot policy, so they stay in plenty of those. They also pull off the road and spend nights in the middle of nowhere. In the absence of money, one must improvise – and they’re very creative, which is what makes this movie so much fun. Their only indulgence is the spotting scopes and quality cameras with huge lenses that birders must have – if you can’t prove you saw it, you can’t count it. 

For a raw-amateur film, it’s well done, with plenty of humorous visuals: a mock-up giant blister-pack of Dramamine before they board a boat (didn’t help); a little model of their Kia they drive across a US map (Minnesota again!); the birds Quentin draws. And we have tantalizing film clips of owls turning their heads, flamingos in flight, songbirds flitting through brush, Harlequin ducks. The Reisers discuss the details that positively ID this or that species. They claim no expertise, they’re just caught up in an obsession – like everyone else in this film. 

“Listers” has graphically crude moments, but if you’re old enough to read this, you’re old enough to watch it. Any fan of the work of Errol Morris and Werner Herzog will enjoy this film. It’s on You-Tube – go find it.

Match in a Haystack, a documentary by Joe Hill

This 2025 documentary serves as a companion-piece to Porcelain War, the 2024 documentary by Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev about art in a time of war. Both examine the lives of Ukrainian artists whose work has been interrupted by the Russian invasion of 2022. Duty to one’s country and its culture would seem to dictate enlisting in the army and risking life and limb daily in acts of resistance – and yet, these films insist that this war is about defending Ukrainian culture against a foe who declares that Ukraine has always been part of Russia and therefore belongs in its sphere. 

And so, the long tradition of creating tiny porcelain animals and birds, painting them in exquisite detail, then firing them, is an act of cultural resistance. Likewise, Match in a Haystack shares the stories of a group of modern dancers, all women in their early 20s, who find purpose in creating and performing a work which, as choreographer Gala Pekha urges, means nothing without heart. She and Yuliia Lupita, the company's director, unite in their commitment to creating something that matters, that resonates in a war-torn country. 

When Director Joe Hill had spent about 6 months in-country, Vice, his sponsor, declared bankruptcy. He was fortunate to pull together alternate support to continue working, but finding himself in uncertainty set up an uncanny parallel with his subjects’ circumstances. 

One dancer makes a pilgrimage to the front lines to visit her sister involved in the fighting, and receives her blessing to continue what she’s doing. Another persuades her parents, whom she has scarcely seen since the war began, to attend the performance. Gala in particular drives the “girls” hard toward authenticity – the stakes are high, all of them have doubts but feel the significance of this work. A “match in a haystack” is what they intend to create - a spark that starts a larger fire.

For this dance to be worth the time and energy of rehearsing, costuming, finding a venue then hoping it will be intact when it’s time to perform, these young women must open their hearts to their country’s anguish, filter it through their movements, and mirror it back to the audience. And they do. If you believe cinema has value beyond escapist fare, you should see this film.

Round Midnight, a film by Bertrand Tavernier

This music-forward 1986 film by French director Bertrand Tavernier showcases the work of bebop musicians in New York and especially Paris, where in 1959 tenor sax maestro Dale Turner, played by Dexter Gordon but inspired by Lester Young and Bud Powell, went to live. But it is the score that takes center stage – as it should! Finally, a film where the music really matters, with the images and story woven as background through inspired edits. 

Clearly Tavernier loves jazz – he would not interrupt a song to show the daily life of an alcoholic or Francis, the young Frenchman who, obsessed with his playing, meets his idol, befriends him, and finally looks after him. The music carries the movie. Herbie Hancock, who won an Oscar for Best Score, did a wonderful job – from Round Midnight to Body and Soul, Fair Weather, Una Noche con Francis, and How Long Has This Been Going On, the songs are performed live, with the musicians alternately playing onscreen and going about their lives. 

Gordon, also nominated for an Oscar for his performance, plays as only a truly accomplished musician can – but he also spices his role with asides to young Francis – “Was I good?” he asks with a mischievous grin after cadging drinks, or escaping a hospital ward, or finally prevailing on the nightclub owner and his "minder" to pay him nightly like every other musician. And Francis grins back and agrees he was good. 

Gordon was near the end of his life when he took this role, and you can see his exhaustion and precarious health, but also his rich mastery born of a lifetime of improvising, performing, and exploring new depths in his musical expression. Tavernier reminds us – to our benefit – that the pitfalls of an artist’s life are not what’s important about them: it’s what they create.

Enough Said, a film by Nicole Holofcener

Enough Said, a 2013 film starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolfini, offers an adults-eye view of misunderstandings, secrets, and how we muddle through after sabotaging our best prospects. Louis-Dreyfus plays Eva, a masseuse, 10 years post-divorce, with her daughter about to leave for college on the opposite coast. Gandolfini is Albert, a divorced dad in a similar situation; they meet at a party, and cautiously begin seeing each other. Both have been burned – they’re not looking for commitment, but they’re about to be home solo, which they’re dreading. 

Eva’s new client, Marianne (Catherine Keener), is a poet, also divorced, with a college-bound daughter. Eva’s clients talk while she’s massaging them, and Marianne, facing loneliness with her daughter’s imminent departure, cultivates her as a friend and confidante. At some point Eva realizes Marianne is Albert’s ex – it’s so awkward she can’t bring herself to say anything – and yet, as she hears more from Marianne, Eva begins to needle him about the same issues that made Marianne divorce him. 

This is a Holofcener film, in which ugly secrets spill and the characters have to clean up their mess, in a humiliatingly-public way. She also highlights male vs female communication styles and expectations: one of Eva’s clients is a young man whose apartment is up a steep flight of stairs. He stands at his door watching her haul her massage table up, week after week. When she complains at dinner with friends, the woman agrees he should offer to help her. The husband says, “Have you asked?” and Eva and his wife both say she shouldn’t have to. This married couple, Toni Collette and Ben Falcone, have the same level of annoyance with each other’s foibles as Eva and her ex, and Albert and Marianne. It’s fair to ask why they’re still together while their friends are not – do they just have thicker skins? 

Should we be so ready to bail when we arrive at those “I can’t take it any more” moments? You are surely your own perfect roommate, and everyone else falls short – too neat, too sloppy, too driven, too laid-back – but if the price of not tolerating these differences is to live alone, do we really want that, for ourselves or for society? After Covid isolation, it’s become clear how many social skills we’ve lost – how to compromise, how to listen, how to empathize, how to have patience. How to be good partners, friends, neighbors, fellow-citizens. 

Holofcener shows situations where we have to work through these issues, even when it feels easier to just walk away. It’s hard to connect in deep and honest ways – should we be blowing off relationships because we’ve embarrassed ourselves or those we’re getting to know? Can we be forgiving, cut each other some slack, and set aside judgment? As Rodney King famously pleaded, after receiving a “wood shampoo” from 34 cops, “Can’t we all just get along?”

In Honor of Virginia Boucher

The Island of Missing Trees, by Elif Shafak

This 2021 novel is a beautifully told story about horrendous events. Set variously in Cyprus in 1974, England late 2010s, and Cyprus early 2000s, it relates the Cyprus division and coup in 1974, when an island inhabited by Greek and Turkish Cypriots split into warring factions resulting in murder, war, and dislocation. A Greek and a Turk, both islanders, fall in love. 

Kostas is a gentle thoughtful youth who loves the natural world; Dafne is a fiery freedom-loving girl drawn to his quiet kindness. In Cyprus at that time, they cannot be seen together. A tavern and restaurant in Nicosia, the capital, The Happy Fig, is run by two men, a Greek and a Turk, who welcome all. A fig tree lives inside the restaurant, and narrates chapters of this story. This non-human perspective embraces what we are learning about trees: their communication with each other and with other plant life and their shared earth, through mycorrhizal networks. 

The other major character is Kostas and Dafne’s teenage daughter Ada, born and raised in England. She is a child of the modern world, while Kostas has become a biologist specializing in trees, Dafne an archaeologist. Ada has grown up without an extended family – both her parents’ families shunned them for their choice of partner, so when her mother’s sister visits, she begins to learn her past. 

Kostas tells Ada: 

"I think it’s possible to deduce a person’s character based on what they first notice about a tree… some people stand in front of a tree and the first thing they notice is the trunk. These are the ones who prioritize order, safety, rules, continuity. Then there are those who pick out the branches before anything else. They yearn for change, a sense of freedom. And then there are those who are drawn to the roots, though concealed under the ground. They have a deep emotional attachment to their heritage, identity, relations…”  

This book is not a fantasy; it is firmly rooted in history and biology, including the rising effects of climate change: altered migration patterns, stressed plants and animals. The author also observes the impacts of traditional human behaviors on our world: in Europe, songbirds are considered a delicacy, with millions captured and killed yearly to become exotic meals in fancy restaurants. Kostas’s own mother stuffs and roasts songbirds, which the boy cannot bring himself to eat. She doesn’t think about the slaughter – eating them is a tradition. He can see only wanton devastation. 

Shafak is a fine writer and this novel is a beautiful portrayal of civilization on edge, humans out of synch with the rest of the world. The slow-rolling catastrophe of our dangerously-heating planet seems unable to get our attention to address it. But banishing the words “climate change” from US Government websites will not make it go away. Dismantling FEMA and knee-capping the National Weather Service and NOAA will only worsen the effects – while we whistle past the graveyard of the huge percentage of species facing extinction, too slow to adapt to unprecedented circumstances.

Islands, a documentary by Albert & David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin

I read an article by Michael Shulman in the New Yorker (Jan 20, 2025) about Charlotte Zwerin – now living in her former Greenwich Village apartment, he was inspired to learn more about her. She collaborated on numerous documentaries with Albert and David Maysles, though uncredited until very recently. One of those films is Islands, about the floating pink surrounds of half a dozen islands in the Bay of Biscay adjacent to Miami, Florida. 

A significant part of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s work/art was their efforts – calling meetings, talking one-on-one with the holdouts – to win over locals, government entities, and myriad bureaucrats who stymie activities they don’t understand. Finally, after the necessary concession to the Miami mayor, work could begin. Choreographing hundreds of volunteers was the heart of their projects. 

Seeing rolled-up sheets of hot-pink fabric maneuvered by many willing hands, then unfurled one section at a time, is a testament to the unifying power of creativity. Everyone who participates is inspired, taken out of their day-to-day by doing something remarkable together. We see the process then the finished pieces from water level, from the air, from underwater. In the unfurling, a woman frees a young turtle trapped in a roll of fabric, and later we see a needlefish emerge onto the surface from a seam, splash around, and find its way back into the water. 

The other beauty of these projects is their brief lifespan. While art museums go to great lengths to preserve works destined to decay, Christo and Jeanne-Claude left a piece up for a few weeks, then dismantled it. Their art was about time as much as material; people remember witnessing, and it conveys something magical about the location later. 

Christo and Jeanne-Claude financed their projects themselves, as much to guarantee complete artistic freedom as to simplify the approval process. They accomplished this by creating hundreds or even thousands of images – postcards, framed drawings, maquettes, books – of each piece, and selling them. People literally bought into the ideas, supporting their creation. 

I’m delighted that Charlotte Zwerin is at last gaining the recognition she lacked in her lifetime – the New Yorker article discusses the documentary technique the Maysles and their contemporaries pioneered, eschewing lectures and talking heads for the thick of the action, shooting hundreds of hours to capture what they can, then shaping it in the editing room. Though Zwerin is not credited as Editor for Islands, the article indicates she was very involved in editing Maysles Brothers documentaries, and in that process bringing coherence to the footage: creating a film.