I hate it when film reviews are basically synopses, but you need some background on this one. What a fucking story. This artist Steve Kurtz, has been working for years with a collective that blends science and art to stage exhibits that question and teach the general public about such things as genetically modified organisms. One morning he awakes to find his wife of more than two decades dead of a heart attack. She had never had a single health problem and there was no history of heart disease in her family. Distraught, Kurtz calls the police, they show up, see all his crazy vials and scientific gear and bring in the FBI. Pretty soon Kurtz is being accused first of poisoning his wife, then of being a bioterrorist. The feds impounded all of his computers, files, and even his wife’s body. They can’t get any real charges to stick, but the geneticist Kurtz had been working with made a plea bargain, agreeing to testify against Kurtz in exchange for immunity. As it stands, Kurtz has no idea what evidence they have on him, if any, what they can really charge him with, or when his trial might happen.
San Francisco director and multimedia artist Lynn Hershman-Leeson found out about Kurtz from someone in her carpool who was friends with him back in Buffalo. An artist mildly obsessed with science and technology herself, she decided Kurtz’ story needed to get out as soon as possible and contacted him about making a documentary. Because he wasn’t allowed to talk about the case Hershman-Leeson had to hire an actor (Peter Coyote) to play Kurtz. The director told Heeb that Kurtz initially told her he didn’t want his wife Hope to be portrayed in the film, but eventually agreed, if Tilda Swinton, her favorite actress, could play her. Hershman-Leeson had already worked with Swinton twice before (Teknolust and Conceiving Ada) so it wasn’t quite as lofty a request as it sounds.
With Tilda on board the director set about staging and shooting the re-enactment in five days, interspersing it with interviews with Kurtz’s colleagues, friends, and eventually Kurtz himself who was suddenly able to talk about the case after all. It could have been a very rough effort, but the end product is a tight, well executed, interesting and mildly terrifying account of what happens when countries suffer from paranoia.
The film screened at Sundance and at the Berlin Film Festival before making the rounds of indie theaters. It’s now available on DVD from Docurama, and Kurtz is using the DVD both to raise awareness about his case, and as a fundraising tool to help his legal defense.
Sounds incredible! Tilda has experience with films that skirt the line between reality, re-enactment, and fiction – she played the film executive in Adaptation. I am definitely seeing this!
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