Personal Problems (1980)

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1. 

   Siskoid

   After Ganja & Hess, I knew Bill Gunn's "experimental soap opera", Personal Problems, would be SOMEthing. I just wasn't sure what. One element of the experiment today looks old-fashioned, not to call it amateurish. It was one of the first attempts at shooting with video cameras. The medium, coupled with Gunn's actors doing a lot of improvisation, creates something akin to reality TV, only much more real. We're voyeurs in the characters' lives, and though the two "episodes" produced (PBS passed on a series and that was it) are rather chaotic, they do produce some memorable, even indelible, scenes of real drama. When it doesn't work, it's because there's too much ambient noise, too much cross-talk. But when it does, the way moments are extended and allowed to play out, awkward as that is for the viewer, breaks the rules of what is "filmic" or "televisual". And that's where you approach a kind of transcendent vérité, an illusion that might be entirely convincing if you didn't recognize Gunn himself in the cast. Part 1 is longer, but definitely has the best material (the interview, the hospital scene, Johnnie going ballistic on her freeloading family, and some nice musical numbers). Part 2 has its qualities, but you could safely skip it. 3 years 3 months ago
2. 

   nymets138

   Both parts are currently streaming on Kanopy 1 year ago

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