Bright Leaves

Over the course of years, Ross McElwee has developed a very personal and individual style of film making and this film is a masterful example of this. Personal has to be taken literally in the case of McElwee. Often, in this film too, his own family story plays an important role, without losing sight of topics of more general significance. McElwee mixes the intimacy of home movies, the stimulation of social satire and the reflection of historic essayism.McElwee again treks south (to where his best known film Sherman’s March was set) for a film that starts as an investigation into his genealogy. Visiting a cousin, a passionate film collector, he sees the film Bright Leaves, a classic melodrama from 1950 starring Gary Cooper by Michael Curtiz, about a large tobacco industrialist who is broken by his competitor in a foul way. The McElwees believe that the fallen tobacco baron in the film was their great grandfather. The film maker then sets out to investigate and finds evidence for this family legend. He doesn’t find any hard evidence (more the contrary), but as he searches, he makes a mildly satirical film about present day America, its evil tobacco industry, the dangers of smoking for personal health and a few other things he finds on his way.