(Filmmaker in person)

All too often, filmed theatrical performances are as flat as the screens upon which they are projected. Not so with John O’Keefe’s phenomenal adaptation of Walt Whitman’s lovingly radical and radically loving poem from 1855. A quintet of camera operators (including the director, William Farley, who returns to the festival after last year’s Darryl Henriques Is In Show Business), don’t merely film one of the most gifted solo performers in the world, they accompany O’Keefe as he celebrates every moment and beat of the poem just as Whitman celebrated every moment and beat of his life. John O’Keefe goes beyond a recitation or interpretation of the poem; he inhabits it.

(2007, 49 min.) – G.R.