Oak Cliff Recap

Plus Barbara Walters and remembering my sweet cat

Barton Weiss

and

Elijah Barron

Jun 30, 2025

Greetings all,

I am very much enjoying this year’s Oak Cliff Film Festival, which ends today as I write this. There were good films, good people, and good conversations about cinema here. In one of those, Chris Vognar remarked that he had noticed that the documentary features were better than the narratives. I have noticed that in other festivals I have attended in the last few years, but it is not true everywhere. Documentary films certainly have a moment, and we are at a moment when we need the thoughtful perspective that docs can bring us. But while documentaries are killing it at festivals, getting distribution or being picked up for a streaming service, unfortunately, is another story, especially if your film is not a true crime or celebrity film.

But I noticed a troubling trend in these two documentaries. I hope that it was just these films, but I fear that it is more widespread. The two films (I will not mention them or their filmmakers’ names) were films that pay tribute to either a person or a group of people. The problem is that the filmmakers are so in love with their subjects that they let the repeated praise go on and on and on and on. Indeed, the subjects in these films were great, but the film's editing was not. With both films, getting a better editor to cut them down would help them get that distribution deal they are looking for. Perhaps it is the teacher in me, but this is cinematic malpractice that is fixable. So, all of you out there who are editing a film that sings the praises of your subject, watch the film with a test audience and see if you can feel the reaction.

This festival has some great live cinematic events, which I love. One of the most inspiring programs of the festival was the Maya Deren Project, which had live original score performed by ten thousand lakes. They showed four of Maya Deren’s films, which were very influential to me as a young filmmaker. One of the films, “The Very Edge of Night,” I had never seen before. The film that Deren is most known for is “Meshes of an Afternoon.” I have seen it over the years with a soundtrack by Teiji Ito. You can see that version here. Seeing it with a new, live score made it come alive in a new way and helped me see the film differently.

I had a great screening of my short, and thanks to all of you who came out to see it.

I strongly recommend seeing “The Life of Chuck " in theaters this week. With most films, you have an idea where things are going, but this film constantly surprises you in a good way. Unfortunately, when I saw it, I was the only person in the theater, which was very sad.

The Texas Theatre is showing the 25^th anniversary of Wong Kar Wai’s “In the Mood for Love,” which, by itself, is a reason to go see it. But there is a special short that Wong Kar Wai showed in a master class at the Cannes film festival, and now you can see this gem as well. It is showing Friday, Saturday, and Sunday with two screenings each day.

-Bart

It’s all here.

Her single-minded drive to land another “Big Get” interview, which in later years sparked a heated rivalry with Diane Sawyer, a younger new colleague at ABC News. Her unbending determination to succeed as no woman had before in the heretofore insular man’s world of network TV journalism. Her failed marriages and rocky relationship with only child Jackie, an adopted daughter. Her willingness to look the other way in a zeal to court and consort with people of power, even when they included the onerous Roy Cohn,

That’s the breadth and depth of “Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything,” a new and as she would say, “fassss-cinating” documentary available on Hulu.

My interactions with Walters were numerous throughout the years, usually on the phone. She generally was as good an interviewer as she expected her interviewees to be. One of the earliest came in 1982, when the subject turned to her huge 1970 bestseller “How to Talk with Practically Anybody About Anything.” Walters said that publishers had wanted her to do a “little updating” so it could be re-released and everyone could enjoy another nice payday, Even Walters couldn’t surmount this obstacle.

“I called them and said, ‘You can’t reprint this. There isn’t anything that isn’t dated. Almost everybody in it seems to be dead and blacks are called Negroes. It’s so foreign to me now. It’s just hopeless. Do me a favor and just throw the book away.’ “

At the time she was putting finishing touches on her 20th entertainment special, featuring guests Willie Nelson, Clint Eastwood and Carol Burnett. Walters said her ideal trio of interview subjects would be Greta Garbo, Jacqueline Onassis and Leonid Brezhnev. Except that “I’m not sure it would get any ratings. And if we’re not viable enough to compete, ABC will say, ‘You’re a lovely girl, it’s all been very nice and you don’t have to put on the interview specials anymore.’ “

She went on to hook her biggest fish of all. Monica Lewinsky agreed to a sit-down after Walters lured her away from a previous agreement with Walters’ admirer Oprah Winfrey, who’s interviewed in the documentary and wasn’t at all happy to be one-upped at the time. Walters’ Lewinsky interview remains the highest-rated one-on-one encounter of all time.

Walters went on create “The View,” which remains a staple of ABC’s daytime lineup. And on her final episode of that show, in May of 2014, a who’s who of prominent women showed up to fete her. They included Sawyer, Winfrey, Hillary Clinton, Katie Couric, Jane Pauley, Kathie Lee Gifford, Connie Chung and Joan Lunden, to name a few.

Waters died in 2022 at age 93. Another broadcast news legend from her heydays, Bill Moyers, passed away last week at age 91. So now let’s get busy on a first-rate documentary about him.

-Ed