This
is a movie that is best watched with a finger on the pause button, yet it is
only just starting its festival run. Hopefully, you read Vulcan-fast, because
there is a lot of intriguing back-story that flashes across the screen in
fictional news articles. Whether or not the mysterious disappearance of a
recent college graduate has anything to do with the controversial life of the
late political theorist Stephen Taubes is open to speculation, but the writer’s
coy advocacy of ideological violence certainly seems to represent these
divisive times. Look not for answers, but only more questions in Ricky D’Ambrose’s
Notes on an Appearance (trailer here), which screens
during this year’s New Directors/New Films.
After
an extended period of slackery, David Hidell accepts a Brooklyn-based research assistant
position with his former college friend, Todd, who is working on a definitive
Taubes biography, thanks to a considerable grant. Despite his Ivy League
pedigree, Taubes is no bourgeoisie James Q. Wilson. He is an avowed anarchist,
who railed against capitalism and democracy. Rather awkwardly for his admirers,
it has also come to light that he pseudonymously wrote for a Europe journal
with a reputation for fascist and anti-Semitic leanings.
There
is the tantalizing possibility Hidell was made to vanish because he discovered
something embarrassing about Taubes, but D’Ambrose steadfastly refuses to
indulge in crass mystery/thriller conventions. Frankly, he is more interested
in epistolary forms, sort of like Eric Baudelaire’s hybrid doc Letters to Max, which also has
authoritarian sympathies. When it comes to the drama, such that he allows, his
approach is not unlike the deliberate artificiality of Eugène Green and the
extreme distancing of For the Plasma, which
makes sense, considering the crossover personnel it shares with Appearance.
There
are times when it is hard to tell if Appearance
is deliberately satirizing the hyper-pretentious Brooklyn literary scene,
or so deeply immersed in it, it inadvertently launches into self-parody. That
uncertainty is highly problematic. Regardless, D’Ambrose does not want you to
get involved in the narrative—and you won’t. The cast does everything they are
supposed to, scrupulously following his direction. Yet, what really captures
our imagination is Nation magazine
contributor, Russia apologist, and Trump-collusion denier Stephen F. Cohen lending
an eerie voice to Taubes and his ideology of menace.
