CinemaOSMovie · 1983 · 0h 18m

Dead People

90%(1)IMDbDocumentary

Filmed in 1974 and edited and released in 1983 (and then rereleased by its director in 2005), DEAD PEOPLE purports to document the final years of Frank Butler, a local fixture in the depressed burg of Ellicot City with a particular fondness for drink and tales of the dead. Over hazy 16mm footage two decades later, Deutsch adopted a painfully unsentimental view of his early approach, colored as it was by notions of ethnographic film and an undercurrent of fetishism for a man he considered somehow more "alive" than himself. While it chafes against notions of authenticity in documentary and incisively hints at the complicity of the subject in inventing his own history, DEAD PEOPLE simultaneously oozes nostalgia, transcending its own judgment as a gauzy memorial for the man Deutsch once called a friend.

Directed byRoger Deutsch

Play
Status
Released
Runtime
0h 18m
Language
EN
Released
January 1, 1983

Featuring

Cast & crew

1 credited
Starring

Frank J. Butler

Himself

Creative team
Directed by
Roger Deutsch
Written by
Roger Deutsch
Produced by
Roger Deutsch

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