Tell Them Who You Are (review)

Fathers and sons. The epic struggle between these two family members is an age-old story. Throughout history many fathers have tried to guide and shape their sons' lives while their "rebellious" sons try to make their own marks on the world, separate from the lives their fathers have lived. It is a conflict that Hollywood has explored many times in fiction, often to humorous effect. In films like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, we have seen younger men strive to emerge from beneath the shadow cast by their fathers, very often forced along the way to endure inordinate amounts of criticism. (Poor Indy never seems to be truly able to please his father, no matter how hard he tries and how many treasures he unearths!) It is this playful and yet sometimes-biting familial bond that is at the core of director Mark Wexler's 2004 documentary, Tell Them Who You Are. In the film, Wexler, son of the famous Hollywood cinematographer Haskell Wexler, turns his camera on his eighty-plus-year-old father, and the results are the younger filmmaker's dream and the older filmmaker's potential nightmare.

Unlike other filmic biographies, Tell Them Who You Are is not simply a retelling of the life and career of one of the most outspoken cinematographers of Hollywood. Such a biography of Haskell Wexler could have been made of the man who directed the photography on such films as Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966), In the Heat of the Night (1967), and American Graffiti (1973)—there is indeed ample material. Wexler's son, however, works hard to make his documentary anything but a typical biopic. No, from start to finish, this film is a story about the relationship between a father and son who both just happened to have worked with some of the most famous people in both cinema and politics (Haskell's list includes names like Michael Douglas, Billy Crystal, Paul Newman, and Sidney Poitier, while his son has made documentaries that have given him access to Presidents Clinton and Bush). By the end, though, it is the loving and sometimes annoying ups and downs of "everyday" family life in the Wexler universe that provides this film with its unique chemistry.

Though the film is full of a number of interviews with famous Hollywood actors and directors with whom Haskell Wexler has worked during his long career (George Lucas and Jane Fonda's comments are particularly moving, while those including Julia Roberts and Elia Kazan provide for some interesting hilarity), it ultimately eschews any sort of focus on his career in the "business." Wexler instead primarily presents a portrait of his father as he is at the time of the filming, capturing the life of an elderly cinematographer concerned with his own mortality and yet decidedly unwilling to relinquish his career. In one scene, Haskell Wexler sifts through the newspaper reading obituaries, noting those who are his age or younger and attempting to figure out how many years he has left. The scene is not sad but sweetly comic, showcasing a man who is still very much aware that he is appearing on camera. In fact, much of the film is devoted to their continual discussions of just how the film itself is being (or, more importantly, should be) made. In true "fatherly" fashion, Haskell constantly critiques and second-guesses his son's directorial choices. As the more famous, more experienced cinematographer, Haskell cannot help but try to usurp Mark's duties behind the camera. In fact, in several scenes, Haskell points his own camera at his son and vice versa, and the perspectives often switch so that both men can be seen filming each other. This relationship is one in which neither side willingly wants to give up control. It may be Mark Wexler...