Browse by Artist: COHEN & PETER SILLEN, JEM

Artist:	COHEN & PETER SILLEN, JEM
Title:	Benjamin Smoke
Label:	PLEXIFILM
Format:	DVD
Price:	$21.00
Catalog #:	PLEX 003DVD

"Benjamin Smoke is the highly acclaimed documentary by directors Jem Cohen (Fugazi: Instrument) and Peter Sillen (Speed Racer) on legendary underground musician Benjamin. Benjamin Smoke follows the crooked path of this fringe-dweller, speed-freak, occasional drag-queen and all-around renegade living in the hidden Atlanta neighborhood called 'Cabbagetown,' and playing with his band Smoke. Benjamin Smoke is a hauntingly beautiful yet unflinching look at a performer whose life has had a profound effect on many artists, including R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe, Cat Power's Chan Marshall and Patti Smith, who appears in the film. The DVD extras include two moving performances of songs written for Benjamin by Cat Power and Vic Chesnutt. Over a decade in the making, the film traces Benjamin's life from his childhood, to his work with Smoke and previous band the Opal Foxx Quartet, to living with HIV. But Benjamin Smoke is not a traditional music documentary; it is an intricate collage of inteviews, live performances, and time-lapse cinematography, all intercut with still photographs by award-winning photographer Michael Ackerman. What results is an open window into Benjamin's relationship with drugs, music, friends, lovers and the world around him, a little-known and rapidly disappearing pocket of the American South. Above all, Benjamin Smoke is an extension of the performer and his music and a portrait of a true American original." Specs: 78 minutes, color/black & white, super 8mm & 16mm, 1.33:1 (original ratio); NTSC format, region 0.

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