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Features: DVD, Aspect Ratio 1.33:1
Award-winning director Kirby Dick (Sick, Derrida, Twist of Faith) presents a radical experiment in documentary filmmaking. Ten students at Los Angeles' John Marshall High School (the location for the "high schools" in Grease and Buffy the Vampire Slayer) were given video cameras to record their lives--with no limitations on what they could shoot. After one week, the cameras were given to ten new students, and so on. Like chain letters, the cameras moved from student to student for an entire school year. Dick culls some of the best video diary footage of 16 students, illuminating a profound and surprisingly hopeful portrait of young America at the turn of the 21st century. Candidly riffing on everything from sexuality, drugs and eating disorders to parents and race relations, Chain Camera is poignant, hilarious and refreshingly real.
"fascinating..." Jack Mathews, New York Daily News
"A fascinating snapshot of contemporary teenagers." Lou Lumenick, New York Post
"Hilarious, unnerving and remarkably intimate portrait of multiethnic adolescent life that lends vigorous new meaning to the term "teen movie."" Manohla Dargis, LA Weekly
Editor's Note
Located in the cultural melting pot of Los Angeles, John Marshall High School has a student body that represents over 90 different countries. In CHAIN CAMERA, director Kirby Dick (SICK: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF BOB FLANAGAN) relinquishes the video camera to let the students of this multicultural East Hollywood high school tell their own stories. Taking a new approach to the documentary genre, Dick decided to hand out video cameras in August of 1999 to 10 teenagers in order for them to document their own lives for a week, at which point the cameras were passed on to 10 more students, and so on. The finished film introduces 16 different students, whose incredibly varied backgrounds shed light on just how diverse a population this actually is. Poignant issues of racism, heritage, abandonment, as well as the mere struggle of learning to live comfortably within one's own skin, intermingle with more lighthearted moments, resulting in a surprisingly optimistic, intimate portrait of adolescence in early 21st century America. Where CHAIN CAMERA succeeds even further is in its striking ability to speak upon the universality of adolescence, proving that no matter the situation, teenagers are basically the same underneath.
| Features | Alternate Title Treatment Reel | | Back To School With Kirby Dick: An Interview With The Director | | Feature Audio Commentary With Director Kirby Dick, Producer Eddie Schmidt And Students Cinammon, Ethan, Amy And Jesse | | Four Deleted Scenes | | Four Deleted Student Sequences | | Subtitles: English | | Theatrical Trailer | | Woman With A Movie Camera: An Interview With Producer Dody Dorn |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Uni Dist Corp (Music) |
| Release Date: 7/26/2005 |
| Running Time: 84 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2001 | | Catalog ID: 1069 | | UPC: 00795975106931 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Standard 1.33:1 [4:3] |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Sundance Film Festival (2001) | | | Kirby Dick, Nominee, Grand Jury Prize |
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| | Professional Reviews | New York Times
"...Touching and fascinating....It does provide a pungent, provocative slice of Americana..." 06/22/2001 p.E20Los Angeles Times
"...Fresh and revealing..." 07/13/2001 p.18 Variety 8 of 10
Provides an intriguing, well-assembled snapshot of kids in the year 2000, bringing the portraits to an appealing conclusion by briefly revisiting each subject at the prom, graduation and then in sweet on-camera farewells. - David Rooney
The Onion (A.V. Club) 8 of 10
By turns playful, harrowing, intensely moving, and uproariously funny, Chain Camera cuts away all documentary artifice and goes straight to the source, allowing these kids to reveal themselves with the utmost directness and candor. - Scott Tobias
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