Grooming the competition: Vance Malone

If I had the leverage, I would force Ken Burns and Michael Moore to watch Vance Malone‘s short documentaries. They would learn a lot. In 15 minutes or less, Vance introduces viewers to individuals and ideas in a non-judgmental, yet stunningly intimate fashion that casually provokes thought and, sometimes, tears. His latest short, THE POODLE TRAINER, reps a new, more subdued cinematic approach for Vance, and yet he achieves similarly potent results. The portrait of the titular Russian dog-whisperer, gradually reveals the reasons for her single-focused ambitions and the haunting hollowness of her self-determined success. The filmmaker allows audiences to draw their own conclusions, thus empowering all of us to revel in our discoveries.

THE POODLE TRAINER screened at Sundance this week, the third of his shorts to be exhibited at the fest. The other two: LOSING LUSK and OCULARIST. Sadly, none of these are available on-line.* (For music lovers, all these films are scored, brilliantly, by Auditory Sculpture; these aural contributions a hallmark of Vance’s complete aesthetic control of the short form. Order Auditory Sculpture’s album, That Might Be You But This Is Me, here.)

I had the pleasure of……screening Vance’s first short doc, OCULARIST, at the 1 Reel Film Festival at Bumbershooot back in 2003. (I still consider it one of the five best short docs I’ve ever seen!) Subsequently, I commissioned — not fiscally, sorry, Vance! — another short inspired by my question: What In God’s Name? Renamed(?) WHAT IN THE NAME OF GOD, you can watch this film here. (A p.s.a. Vance shot, PERMISSION, can also be seen by clicking this sentence. It does more to challenge perceptions of a very divisive, public issue than a thousand progressive celebrity rants or right-wing bible thumpings.)

Please, let me know what you think. Then, drop Ken and Michael a line. Tell them to keep an eye out for the competition. Vance Malone has triumphed in the short form; I eagerly await his first feature.

*Truth be told, you can watch OCULARIST on Auditory Sculpture’s site, but it is far from the ideal forum to view such visually compelling work.