The perils of Q&A part two – Jacob Burns Film Center

Well if ever there can be a remarkable differentiation between two events then I can only use the recent one at the Jacob Burns Film Center as an example. It was intelligently put together, filmed for the archives and the viewers truly embraced the subject asking concise and pointed questions. Really it was a pleasure, and I can only commend the staff including programmer Chris Funderberg who introduced us after the second screening of the film. I have a renewed sense of the film given recent events in the financial markets and these events have brought a new relevance to the film as I consider the prospects of the same type of collapse in the food distribution chain.

I found myself speaking almost from a pulpit. Ironically it will be all the cultured city folks clamoring to regain a foothold in the agricultural lands of the United States who will be met with the business end of a rifle or shotgun by some committed NRA member who has been practicing his or her skills in preparation for Armageddon. I laughingly talk about it in conversation but it’s really not that funny to consider that we are fast becoming a country where our reliance on imported food is as critical as our reliance on imported oil and the prospect of walking into a barren supermarket is not altogether fantasy… But I digress, let me step off my soapbox for a moment to say how exciting it was to be sharing the evening with another film screening next door and also doing Q&A - The Wrestler. I was tempted to duck out of my own screening to see some of the other offering but I couldn’t. Silly as it sounds I still enjoy my film every time I see it. I still laugh and am touched. Perhaps that will eventually wane but I can’t imagine a time when I might not see a few moments and remember with warmth the moments in which it was filmed.