![\"stone\"](\"http:\/\/smugfilm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/stone.jpg\")
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\nStone Reader
\n<\/b>Written and Directed by Mark Moskowitz
\n127 min.<\/p>\n
\n
\nStone Reader
\n<\/b>Written and Directed by Mark Moskowitz
\n127 min.<\/p>\n
Mark Moskowitz could have easily just hired a private investigator and called it day.\u00a0 Thank god he decided to make a movie rather than just find someone.<\/p>\n
Stone Reader<\/a> is a documentary about a guy who reads a book, likes it a lot, and wants to read the author\u2019s other work.\u00a0 He can’t find any, and decides to track down the author and find out why he never wrote anything else.\u00a0 This may seem like a pretty thin, simple premise, but the movie transcends that.\u00a0 It is literary, <\/i>with a clear narrative and linearity, and it tackles an overall theme (that unfolds beautifully). Like a great novel, it also meanders\u2014<\/i>\u2019hangs out\u2019 and ebbs and flows.\u00a0 It’s a movie made by a writer-at-heart who just happens to be a filmmaker and not an author, and a wonderful journey that you can\u2019t help but melt into. I love the arts (despite the fact that I think most\u2014and I really do mean most\u2014art sucks) and I’m attracted to people with passion and creativity.\u00a0 Mark is brimming with it.\u00a0 Without a shred of pretension he goes on and on about the books that influenced him, shaped his life, and informed his personality and aesthetics.\u00a0 He is a true reader<\/i> and a lover of literature, and although I don’t share his specific passion (I don’t give a shit about Ernest Hemingway or whatever) I can have the exact same intense, adoring conversation about the Detroit Red Wings (or, the movie Stone Reader).<\/p>\n Mark’s love of reading is infectious and warm and it washes over you like a blanket right out of the dryer.\u00a0 His filmmaking style is also just the right blend of classy and rustic.\u00a0 His beautifully photographed rural home and autumn landscapes offer the perfect backdrop for his internal and external wanderings.<\/p>\n There’s absolutely nothing cold about Stone Reader.\u00a0 Nothing harsh.\u00a0 The color palette is brown, intellectual and earthy; the sound track is acoustic, searching and distant, reflecting the warming glow of a natural world that nurtures our curiosities.\u00a0 Stone Reader is less a movie and more a campfire you spent building with your true love and are now snuggling in front of.\u00a0 And these styles are intentional and they sneak up on you.\u00a0 Moskowitz knows his subject matter, has a clear vision, and uses softness to penetrate you slowly, with ease. Stone Reader\u2019s soft edges are sharper than any of the jagged, stylized, showpieces that modern documentarians jam into their movies with the fruitless intention of \u2018spicing up\u2019 the material, such as the animated passages of American Teen<\/a> (which would be a great movie were it not for the useless CGI dramatizations of what its subjects are talking about).<\/p>\n In the movie, Mark talks about a novel that he once started writing and never finished.\u00a0 He mentions he’s not much of a writer and that he didn’t have any stories to tell.\u00a0 But someone \u2018without any stories\u2019 would’ve just hired a private eye and found the author in ten minutes. \u00a0With this movie, Mark tells a story without even knowing he was telling one.\u00a0 One about how much the art we love means to us, and why.\u00a0 About the joy of sharing that art with our loved ones.\u00a0 Art is a beautiful thing because it is both individual and communal.\u00a0 I love the things I love, and that has nothing to do with you.\u00a0 But connecting with someone who loves that same thing opens up something in both of us that can’t be explained. \u00a0The last few shots of this movie express this idea so beautifully that I cry every time.<\/p>\n Mark has not made a movie before or since. In fact, he is a living example of the one-and-done writers he discusses so frequently in his movie.\u00a0 And I suspect, like many of them, this is the ‘only one he had in him’.\u00a0 What’s amazing is that on his first and only try he not only hits it out of the park but also uses several very advanced narrative devices.\u00a0 For instance, the \u2018time tombs\u2019 scene, where Mark shows us film that is ”already in the movie” but not yet developed, and remarks that it’s funny how we, the viewers, have already seen the footage (by virtue of it being earlier in the movie) but he has not (by virtue of it not even being developed yet).\u00a0 His depiction of \u2018searching\u2019 is also particularly well-handled\u2014the shots of him driving are great (and, of course, wonderfully staged, since someone had to go set up the camera).\u00a0 And the excerpts from NPR radio interviews he uses not only gives us further insight to the theme, but also evokes the feeling of a long road trip.<\/p>\n Ultimately, Mark’s most genius device is himself.\u00a0 Inserting yourself into the narrative can be a dangerous gamble\u2014you could be super annoying and lame and ruin your own movie. (Such is the case in\u00a0Cropsey<\/a>.)\u00a0 Mark may be a tad weird, but he’s confident and driven and fun to follow around.\u00a0 \u2018Casting\u2019 himself was a good idea.<\/p>\n With Stone Reader, Mark did the most advanced thing any filmmaker can do\u2014he used the tools of cinema to tell a story, and he used that story to talk about a theme: reading, writing, and why books penetrate us. But, he doesn\u2019t see himself as a filmmaker. He sees himself as a ‘reader’, primarily.<\/p>\n Mark just loves to read, and I truly believe that.\u00a0 He doesn’t read or collect books to sound smart or to discuss them at dinner parties.\u00a0 He does so because books tickle his imagination.\u00a0 Stone Reader tickles mine.\u00a0 Thank you, Mark, for your movie.<\/p>\n 1 out of 1 stars.<\/i><\/p>\n
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\nWhat’s amazing about Stone Reader is that it’s refreshingly cinematic.\u00a0 However, I would bet the cinematic prowess of Mr. Moskowitz goes largely unnoticed by most viewers, as his devices are delightfully hidden under a very fluid presentation. But what could be more cinematic than that? Invisibility is the cornerstone of filmic style.\u00a0 Like any great v\u00e9rit\u00e9 work, we basically feel like we’re hanging out with the filmmaker for two hours (it is that long and completely sustains it’s length, surprisingly) but at the end, a complete story has been told.<\/p>\n