# Nearer My God To Thee



## sebastian

Hi all,

I just wanted to create a thread to express my extreme pleasure at having viewed the Marc Israel film, "Nearer My God to Thee", at the Reelheart film festival in Toronto several weeks ago. And while i have no idea what Marc's intentions are regarding his film, i'd like to encourage everyone here to pounce upon any opportunity they might have to see it. Hopefully it will be watchable at a film festival near you or perhaps he'll make it available online or do whatever it is you high-tech kids do these days.

Now, i had intended to post this "review" (for lack of a better word) the following morning with the ideas and aesthetics of the film still bouncing about in my brain. Unfortunately...procrastinating moron that i am, i'm only doing it now when the emotional charge from the film has dulled somewhat and i've forgotten many of the specifics i had hoped to address. Nonetheless, i would be utterly remiss if i didn't draw attention to a film that is both so relevant to our current collective dilemna (that being, depersonalization/anxiety/general miserableness), and also such an hilariously poignant documentary overall.

I did have my doubts. I used to study film in university and have thus attended my share of "small and intimate" festivals. I feel quite confident in my position that the vast majority of these films are nothing but hopelessly esoteric yawn-fests which always seem to dangle the possibility of being interesting in front of you for a few minutes before they inevitably collapse under the weight of their own tedious symbolsim. The couple of short films which preceded Mark's were a stark example of this. One was a pointless exposition of some malcontent who thought he had Stigmata (the relevance of this affliction and furthermore, the relevance of everything else in the film, including the annoyingly laconic dialogue, was totally lost on me...and believe me, i was desperately searching for some sort of relevance). The second short, which followed two preteens skipping out on church to go traipsing about in a field and saying wistful things about God and what not, had me excited for a few minutes as it was photographed quite idyllically...but, as usual, it just ended up getting swallowed by it's own pretensions to symbolism, none of which i actually "got". It was basically like a short episode of The Wonder Years but without the plot...it wasn't without it's charm, this one, as the two kids playing in it were interesting and the scenery was quaint, but the whole point of even taking the time to make a film like that was utterly lost on me.

Anyway...i'm not just picking on these two shorts for the sake of picking on them. Lord knows i've seen worse and really what can one expect from a small film festival like this. But the real reason i brought this up was to illustrate how enormously pleased i was when Marc's film began. There I was...regretting my decision to spend my friday night at an obscure film festival when i could have been out murdering my brain cells with copious amounts of alcohol. I had actually just come to this thing in the first place to meet two people off the board (Dreamer and Methusala), who had both said they were also going there...and i figured it was the least i could do considering how far they had to come and how easy it was for me to get there. My expectations for enjoying the film itself were pretty low at this point.

Then, it began.

"Nearer My God to Thee", in a nutshell, is Marc Israel's journey through a seeming multitude of both psychological and physical afflictions. Marc, as it comes across in the film, is a young man who is tearing at the seams...ripped apart by depression, tendinitis, self-doubt, anxiety, and acute depersonalization. He would have daily episodes where he would get "stuck" (I can't remember the term Marc used over and over in the film to describe this sensation that he would get (I think it was "stuck" and "unstuck"...reminds me of a Cure song)...if anyone remembers it, please let me know...it's driving me nuts. I should have written this damn thing the day after when i remembered all this) out of reality and his world would become distorted. He would get "stuck" for awhile and then slip back. Anyway...Marc chronicled his life in a very intimate style and weaved together a tale of torment, combining his arcane afflictions with the real-life tragedy of driving away the woman he loved. The story(which wasn't told entirely linearly and which was extremely engaging in the way he slipped back and forth temporally) took Marc (and us) to Brazil, to visit someone called John of God, a faith healer. It detailed both his experiences there, while waiting to visit this "last hope" of his, and related his impressions of the others waiting to see John of God. These commentaries, while utterly hilarious, also served to heighten our awareness of how isolated the narrator felt. How alone. There he was, shuffling along beside others who seemed so ebulliently optimistic...as if he were the only unfortunate soul among them who was thrown overboard without a life raft.

There were several things which struck me about this film. Firstly, the entire thing was shot in a very intimate manner. It seemed to me as though Marc walked around literally everywhere with his camera. It was his closest companion. He would whisper plaintively to it late at night, manipulate it into the most awkward of positions simply so he could be doing something else while he filmed, and he would capture the most beautiful and bizarre things available to him on his journey. I had a real sense of identification with the narrator. I mean, it was as if the camera were a friend of his that he could confide in, joke around with, and lament to. Several times Marc would curl up with his camera and tell us that nothing was getting better...that he felt as lost as ever and that he seemed to be the only one in Brazil who was not imbibed with a most fervent optimism. Or, at other times, he would openly wonder if he would be able to have sex with a woman before it came time for him to have his surgery with John of God. The vicissitudes of his mind were a pleasure to watch and feel a part of. One felt as though they were truly along for the ride...tumbling about with the vagaries of his "madness". This was due mostly to the compelling intimacy of the film and through corollary, as a fellow sufferer of this "madness", i could personally, not only identify with the bad stuff, but also the wry, jaded humour and the disenchanted fatalism which seems to colour his world.

As much as i hate to employ the single most overused adjective in film reviews everywhere to describe the way this film effected me, i must 
nonetheless defer to it as it so pointedly illustrates Marc's film. It was incredibly "visceral". There was nothing pretty about this diary. This is not just the version of his life that he wanted us to see. This is everything. He lays bare his weakness...his vulnerabilities...he opens himself up in a way that John of God never could and he shows the world exactly who he is and what he's going through during this journey. This takes tremendous courage. It really does. There were shots of him when he was unshaven, unkempt, dissheveled...he looked utterly horrible, and here he would be querulously molesting his audience in the most unattractive manner imaginable. There was no vanity at all. I was watching some scenes thinking, "Good God man, clean yourself up!" or "I can't believe he put that in there! That must be humiliating!" (An example of this could be when he showed the camera his mutilated penis which had become bruised as a result of the frustrating way he had to masturbate due to his tendinitis). I mean, this was not some touched up, idealized, version of his torment that he was showing to us. This was the real deal. It was both enormously refreshing and shockingly true. I was so impressed with how much he exposed of himself that it's gotten me to think about my own writing and how guarded it seems in comparison. This was nothing short of a visual diary. In here lay Truth. Ugly, human Truth.

The film was also quite extraordinary in other, more enigmatic ways. I was especially intrigued by the way the film itself seemed to be guided by a destiny of it's own and how the whole episode actually plagued the "real world" where Marc's editor was struck with the same afflictions that he had (tendinitis)...and that his editor's roommate started convulsing upon viewing a "John of God" infomercial...and how Marc's editor became afraid of the supernatural forces which seemed to surround Marc and his film. It was interesting also how Marc asked out his thoroughly attractive relief editor by confessing on film that he liked her, and how she found out about this while editing it!

In spite of it's melancholy subject matter and the precarious mental state of it's author, this film was remarkably inspiring. And that is not to say that everything turned out well in the end and the conclusion was nothing short of miraculous and that we should all be getting round trip tickets to Rio to be saved by John of God, the Brazillian prophet. The inspiration was far subtler than that, and far more profound. There were many other little facets of the film which, assembled together, painted a wild portrait of a life emerging out of darkness. Sense being made out of chaos. It was...if nothing else...a diary of hope.

I don't know how Marc is feeling these days or whether he has other tales to tell (incidentally, it would be a horrible shame for the world of cinema if he were to quit here), but i really don't see how someone who can infuse his art with such passion and such inspiration could be anywhere near as hopeless and emotionally captive as he has convinced himself that he is. It was a singular experience, Marc. Thank you.

People, do yourself a favour, and see this film!

s.


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## Martinelv

I've seen it Seb, out of atheistic morbid curiosity, and while I really didn't know what he was trying to get at, it didn't seem to be too preachy. Self-indulgent, yes. Not sure what to make of it.

But who am I to comment. My favourite film in Alien.!


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## sebastian

Martinelv said:


> I've seen it Seb, out of atheistic morbid curiosity, and while I really didn't know what he was trying to get at, it didn't seem to be too preachy. Self-indulgent, yes. Not sure what to make of it.
> 
> But who am I to comment. My favourite film in Alien.!


No shame in that. Alien was a great movie. In any case, thanks for responding. I'm going to move this to the News section so it doesn't get prematurely buried.

s.


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## Dreamer

Martinelv said:


> I've seen it Seb, out of atheistic morbid curiosity, and while I really didn't know what he was trying to get at, it didn't seem to be too preachy. Self-indulgent, yes. Not sure what to make of it.
> 
> But who am I to comment. My favourite film in Alien.!


Martin,
How did you get ahold of it? Seb, I and Methusala saw it at a film festival in Toronto -- not in "distribution" unless you got a copy of the DVD. Confused. Are you referring to "Tarnation"? No comparison. I felt Tarnation was clearly self-indulgent. I found Marc's film to be genuine. The fact that he sought John of God, hasn't been properly diagnosed for years, speaks volumes re: his suffering.

I liked the fact that versus using a lot of "titles" and "subtitles" in Tarnation, this was straight out filming. The medium used completely.

Marc's work has inspired me to get back into filmmaking myself. Have a degree in it. Project #1, a videolog of DPers, long overdue, and hopefully an educational piece for MH professionals.

Marc found no solution in John of God, but documented many fascinating things including his own angst.

My vote is for "Nearer My God to Thee". We still need to have a film about DP. SO damned difficult to expressed. SO DAMNED difficult.

Best,
D


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## phenomenalworld

sebastian,
i just came across your words today, as i've been laying low in cyberspace due to aforesaid tendinitis & the continuing crisis...
i was very touched by your "review". i've made several films o'er the years, but never submitted them to festivals, hence never had but a trickle of friends & family really see my work. so, to hear what someone thought of, say, this film, who doesn't know me from the day to day arena of life is very refreshing. moreover, you're a great writer, & i enjoyed yr musings on film festivals & the other films you saw just as much. "like the wonder years but without a plot" had me in stitches, as did other things. you had me laughing & also teary-eyed (i'm a big crybaby, as you know from the film).
anyway, i can't type much, but you really made my day & i'm just so glad you liked it and DERIVED MEANING from it, which is maybe the most (and maybe the very best) thing we can ask from this precious dot we sit on called existence.

i'm gonna strike up another topic, whereby i announce the film screening in Connecticut in early October, and also make available the film for purchase for home consumption.
hats off to you,
marc


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## phenomenalworld

sebastian,
i just came across your words today, as i've been laying low in cyberspace due to aforesaid tendinitis & the continuing crisis...
i was very touched by your "review". i've made several films o'er the years, but never submitted them to festivals, hence never had but a trickle of friends & family really see my work. so, to hear what someone thought of, say, this film, who doesn't know me from the day to day arena of life is very refreshing. moreover, you're a great writer, & i enjoyed yr musings on film festivals & the other films you saw just as much. "like the wonder years but without a plot" had me in stitches, as did other things. you had me laughing & also teary-eyed (i'm a big crybaby, as you know from the film).
anyway, i can't type much, but you really made my day & i'm just so glad you liked it and DERIVED MEANING from it, which is maybe the most (and maybe the very best) thing we can ask from this precious dot we sit on called existence.

i'm gonna strike up another topic, whereby i announce the film screening in Connecticut in early October, and also make available the film for purchase for home consumption.
hats off to you,
marc


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## sebastian

Marc,

Thanks for writing all that. I know it must have been a bit of a strain what with your tendinitis. And i truly appreciate your comments on how you appreciated my comments! I would definitely be interested in purchasing your film and would be interested in viewing anything else you do or have done in the past.

You are truly a talented film maker and we simply can't have enough artists these days!

Keep us updated.

s.


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## phenomenalworld

I mentioned this on the latest fim screening post but I thought I'd reprint here:

I can mail out DVDs of the film to anyone who will kindly send $15 (or whatever you can afford - don't be shy to skim a couple dollars off the top if it's too much) to me via snail mail:

Marc Israel

62 West St. #3

Northampton, MA 01060

USA

If anyone from this board attends the Connecticut event, please introduce yourself to me afterwards. Thanks.


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