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Nominate-best-2010

Review: The Windmill Movie

In which we learn that rich people are as fucked up as the rest of us
By CHRIS FARAONE  |  July 15, 2009
4.0 4.0 Stars

 

If his own bitchy WASP mother didn't give a damn about him, why would anybody else care to watch the unfinished documentary that Dick Rogers struggled with for decades before his 2001 passing? The guilt-ridden filmmaker and Harvard professor kept asking himself that question in diaries and in the more than 200 hours of archival footage that his wife — renowned photographer Susan Meiselas — commissioned his protégé Alexander Olch (who tapped Rogers family buddies Bob Balaban and Wallace Shawn for help) to shape into a story.

As it turns out, there are tears and laughs here for everyone, since TheWindmill Movie covers much more than just drunken aristocrats who summer in the Hamptons. We even learn that rich folks are as fucked up as the rest of us — and maybe more.

Unfortunately, a man died (from cancer) in the making of this explicitly introspective life tome; it was the only way he saw to complete his masterpiece.

Related: Review: Capitalism: A Love Story, Food on stage, The Big Hurt: The decade ahead, More more >
  Topics: Reviews , Harvard University, Bob Balaban, Bob Balaban,  More more >
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