Speaking Directly is an essay-film making for a kind of State
of the Nation address, from the perspective of someone other than the
President of the United States, circa 1972-4. This film addresses both
the political and cultural situation of the US at the height of the
Viet Nam war, Watergate and its aftermath, and likewise addresses the
personal life, in this context, of the filmmaker, at that time thirty
years of age, recently out of two plus years in federal prison for refusal
to accept military service.
Vimeo VOD
1973-1974 | 16mm | Color | Sound | 110 minutes
Producer, writer, director, editor cinematographer
: Jon Jost
Shown at the Edinburgh Film Festival, 1975.
In the collections of MoMA, Freunde der Deutschen Kinemathek
(FdK), British Film Institute (BFI), Australian Film Institute, Portuguese
Film Archive.
Broadcast by UK’s Channel Four, 1981
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"I can think of no other film like it. As a radical critique of American
in the early 70's it is as essential a document, in a way, as the collectively
made Winter Soldier... although the experiences it bears witness to are
distinctly different (Jost was imprisoned in Federal custody from March
1965 through June 1967 for draft resistance.)"
- Jonathan Rosenbaum, Film Comment
"Far and away the most inspired feature by the tenacious US independent
Jon Jost, Speaking Directly is a reflexive film about Jost's attempt to
make a reflexive film during the Vietnam War. Despite its importance,
the movie has surfaced here only rarely during the decade since it was
made."
- Jim Hoberman, Village Voice
"In the history of the American avant-garde, Speaking Directly stands
as a remarkable achievement: between the currents of pure cinema and "committed"
documentary/fiction, it asserts a deliberate primitivism, a return to
the ideological roots of American radicalism. As such, it also bears comparison
with Godard's Le Gai Savoir, another discourse on method which refuses
to take for granted what we think we know."
- Ian Christie, Sight and Sound
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