Product Details

• Directors: Ralph Arlyck, Steve Wax
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: Unrated
• Studio: Docurama
• DVD Release Date: March 27, 2007
• Run Time: 87 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000KJU1H8
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #88,817 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Following Sean" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

In 1969, young San Francisco filmmaker Ralph Arlyck won awards and sparked controversy when he interviewed his 4 year old upstairs neighbor, a boy named Sean, who--among other things--discussed smoking pot. Many years later, Arlyck returned to California to find Sean again, and over the following decade crafted Following Sean. This rich, complex documentary delves into Sean's life, his family, and Arlyck's own family to create a meditation on work, parents and children, and personal freedom. What's most striking about Following Sean is that these fundamental questions never feel forced or ponderous, but rise up organically from the simple facts of his subjects' lives. Furthermore, Arlyck's editing is sharp, fluidly moving forward and giving this potentially aimless material a compelling momentum. Fans of Ross McElwee (Sherman's March, Bright Leaves), The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, or Crumb will savor Following Sean's similar mix of the ordinary and the profound, as will anyone interested in an unfiltered, ambivalent, and authentic view of 1960s America, one that weighs the cost as well as the thrills of that almost mythical era. --Bret Fetzer

Product Description

What happens to a 4-year-old kid who grew up smoking pot and running barefoot on the wild streets of 1960s San Francisco? In FOLLOWING SEAN, a magical blend of deeply intriguing personal narrative and street-level investigation, filmmaker Ralph Arlyck tracks down Sean--the boy who had been the subject of his controversy-sparking 1969 documentary--to find out what he’s like 30 years later.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A quiet, contemplative and moving documentry, January 29, 2007

By	P. Vidali (Upstate NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Following Sean is a great documentary-- it's not one that hits you over the head with its message, but instead ruminates on life during the 60s and the passage of time. Part of it is about what has become of the 4-year-old child running around Haight St that the filmmaker interviewed in 1969, but it's also about what has become of all of us. The film weaves together the director's own life with Sean's, as we discover strange parallels and sudden twists. When you're done watching, you'll be left thinking about your own friends and family, and how each generation changes while still influenced by the past.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Overly Padded, April 30, 2008

By	Susan Y. Schoonover (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The premise for FOLLOWING SEAN is fascinating. In 1969 while living in San Francisco Ralph Arlyck made a short documentary film about his four year old neighbor Sean which won many awards. Sean lived in a "crash pad" above Arlyck's Haight-Ashbury apartment with his free thinking "hippie" parents, a couple of siblings plus assorted visitors and the precocious child spoke articulately (and to many shockingly) on camera about pot smoking, speed freaks and his contempt for the police. The background of Sean's parents is also interesting as his father is the son of a banking family while his mother's parents were prominent Communists active in the organization of longshoremen.

Arlyck moved back to the east coast following the success of the first "Sean" film but years later decides there might be another documentary to be made if he updated Sean and his family's lives. Similarly to the subject of another well received documentary, STONE READER, Sean and his family are not that hard to find and their lives are not particularly extraordinary. So to pad the movie to more of a feature length Arlyck includes lots of footage about his own family - his elderly left leaning Brooklyn parents, his French wife and his two college age sons, one of whom in my favorite quote from the movie tells his dad he is just "fishing for sound bites" when he grills him on his reaction to the current Berkeley counterculture.

The fact that Sean and his family are currently leading pretty normal lives is interesting in itself and I wish Arlyck had been content in just updating their story and getting some of their recollections and reactions to their lives in "The Haight" circa the late 60's. Yet like so many documentary filmmakers Arlyck just doesn't seem to be able to keep the focus off himself or realize that a longer length doesn't necessarily equate with a better film.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Film Here, December 31, 2007

By	nat david "nat" (evanston, il) - See all my reviews

This is not only a movie about "Following Sean" but also a film about following the threads of several generations in multiple families including the filmmaker's own family. If there was anything wrong with this film it is that it had to end. There is still so much we want to know about the direction the lives of the various characters take. Bottom line is that this is one great film. Highly recommended here. Nuff said.