Product Details

• Actors: Billy Crystal, Micheal Douglas, Jane Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Ron Howard
• Directors: Mark S. Wexler
• Writers: Mark Wexler, Robert DeMaio
• Format: NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: IMAGE/THINKFILMS
• DVD Release Date: July 27, 2006
• Run Time: 95 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000ARXG3Q
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #108,247 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Tell Them Who You Are" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Haskell Wexler was one of the most important cinematographers of the '60s and '70s who continued to work into the new century (in his eighties, no less). Besides earning two Oscars, he directed Medium Cool, a landmark, uneasy mix of fiction and documentary, and was a visible liberal activist. He also looks to be a pain in the butt. That aspect is brought into focus with his son's Mark's curious, self-therapeutic documentary. Both a biography of the genius with the camera, and a warts-and-all portrait of his father, the film, narrated by Mark, is a cinematic way to deal with a challenging upbringing. The senior Wexler has not lost any of his vitality or gruffness--he openly challenges his son about setting up a scene or the importance of catching a sunset. Talk about reality TV! There are several famous faces interviewed about the craft of filmmaking, but the most interesting comments come from those who know very well about dealing with famous fathers (including Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas). Equal time is given for Wexler's greatest achievements (including Bound for Glory, and American Graffiti) as well as his failures (he was fired from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest). It's not the easiest film to watch, but filled with honest, raw emotion including how this grand cinematographer deals with his colorblindness. Genius may love company, but sympathy may be hard to find for a cameraman who states there's "never been a movie I thought I could direct it better" and a son who finds such a public way of dealing with his own demons. --Doug Thomas

Product Description

Mark Wexler's cinematic blend of biography and autobiography centers on his relationship with his father, legendary Oscar-winning cinematographer and filmmaker Haskell Wexler, whose long and illustrious career is a virtual catalogue of 20th-century classics. Haskell's collaborations with such world-class filmmakers as Elia Kazan, Milos Forman, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola and Mike Nichols include such works as Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?, American Graffiti, Coming Home, Bound for Glory and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The film features interviews with many of these artists, along with such luminaries as Jane Fonda, Michael Douglas and Sidney Poitier. But the true "star" of TELL THEM WHO YOU ARE is Haskell himself, a controversial, larger-than-life character who challenges his son's filmmaking skills while announcing with complete conviction that he could have done a better job directing most of the movies he's shot. As these two men swap positions on camera and behind it - sometimes shooting one another simultaneously - the film looks with honesty and compassion at their attempts to reconcile before it's too late.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tell Tehm Who You Are, June 13, 2008

By 

Victoria J. Faria "Vicki Faria" (Paradise, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tell Them Who You Are (DVD)

Thank you, I received it very quickly and enjoyed receiving it. I collect Julia Robert Movies.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars good study of a family, December 27, 2005

By 

William Gerstein - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tell Them Who You Are (DVD)

I am partial to those stories that really get at the heart of a family. Mark Wexler needed to do this film to work out his relationship with his parents. It worked. As you see this film forget that his father had a life where he worked with famous people. This story gets played out with most of us regular people. Worth seeing by all.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Like father, like son" is a proposition fraught with peril for the Wexlers, January 14, 2006

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Tell Them Who You Are (DVD)

Haskell Wexler is one of a handful of cinematographers who have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, having won a pair of Oscars for filming "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and "Bound for Glory." Other nominations came for "Matewan" and "Blaze." He was also nominated for "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" along with Bill Butler, because Wexler was fired during the shoot. Two minutes into this documentary, you will understand why that would happen. You will also quickly figure out that this 2004 documentary is not about a great cinematographer, but about the relationship between Wexler and his son Mark, who is the one making the documentary.

The title of the film comes from Haskell Wexler's advice to his son when Mark started getting involved in the business. What it meant was tell people your father is Haskell Wexler. Born into a privileged life, Wexler got into making documentaries and established a reputation as a first-rate cinematographer and as an outspoken liberal. The son of Wexler's second wife, Mark talks about the point in his life when he realized that the U.S. government was bigger than his father and became a conservative, more out of a need to tick off his father than out of profound ideological conviction. That becomes part of the inherent tension between the documentarian and his subject (Wexler refuses to sign the release form for the film despite Mark's plea to trust him), but there is also the fact that Wexler thinks he knows more about making a documentary than his son. He probably does, but the old man (Wexler is in his early 80s), has no compunctions about communicating his superiority.

There are some clips from Wexler's films, both well-known ones like "In the Heat of the Night" and "Coming Home," and his lesser known and more political efforts, such as "The Bus" and "Introduction to the Enemy," both of which he directed. There are interviews with actors (e.g., Julia Roberts, Ron Howard), directors (e.g., Norman Jewison, George Lucas), producers (e.g., Michael Douglas), writers (e.g., Studs Terkel), and a few cinematographers (e.g., Conrad L. Hall). But time and time again the emphasis is more on the man than on his work, and because of Mark's presence the conversations often turn to the topics of fathers and sons, although with no small degree of irony it is Jane Fonda who makes the most pointed comments on the topic of fear to both Wexlers.

What is probably the most amazing thing about "Tell Them Who You Are" is that Mark Wexler would attempt to finally get out of his father's shadow by making a documentary about him. But clearly this sort of public exorcism is what the younger Wexler required. However, the portends are not good when he ignores his father's advice and makes a big mistake early on when filming his father's 80th birthday party. Still, the fact that this could be the final nail in the coffin for the relationship between these two is what makes the present as important as the past in this documentary.

One thing you need to know is that the payoff for this documentary comes not at the end, when we find what Haskell Wexler is going to do next, but on one of the DVD special features when his son finally shows him the documentary we have just watched. If you have any doubts about what "Tell Them Who Your Are" is all about, what you see (and hear) there will settle the matter. There are also uncut interview clips with several of the actors and cinematographers who appear in the documentary, with the Martin Sheen one being the most fascinating of the bunch as he speaks eloquently about fathers and sons.