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April 01, 2006
Fingered: Toback gets the look-back
It's that time of life: over at SF Chronicle, Mick LaSalle salutes the Roxie's retro of the work of James Toback, along with the world theatrical premiere of Nicholas Jarecki's doc, The Outsider. "He is a truly witty filmmaker, with superb timing, a feel for the rhythms of conversation and storytelling. Few filmmakers have ever been so capable of imprinting a specific personality on their work, and of those, even fewer have been able to do it without becoming self-indulgent or testing an audience's patience... His fascination with women is boundless. His presentation of women is especially interesting, because this is a filmmaker who is unapologetically male, who makes no pretense of any special sensitivity and whose guy characters (who often seem like an extension of Toback himself) are often motivated by a rampaging lust. Yet his depiction of women is consistently full, nuanced and convincing. He evinces a respect and a thrall for women, without any sour edge of hostility or creepiness."
LaSalle does the film-by-film roster, concluding that "Toback's knowing sense of himself is an appealing quality, one related to his genuine interest in other people. Few personal filmmakers are as lacking in self-absorption. His curiosity about others is dynamic and rapacious and is probably why the subjects he covers are wide-ranging and his casts are enormous.Toback's films form one long, extended conversation about the most interesting and vital subjects in life." [A 2002 Salon profile allows for a mite more crunchiness to the Toback id.]
Posted by pride at April 1, 2006 04:58 PM
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