Product Details

• Actors: Allan Gurganus, Paula Larke, Patricia Neal, Vlada Petric, Charleen Swansea
• Directors: Ross McElwee
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: First Run Features
• DVD Release Date: June 21, 2005
• Run Time: 107 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0008FXT6Y
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #91,381 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
The South is in North Carolina native Ross McElwee's blood, and like his best-known film, Sherman's March, Bright Leaves benefits from what he calls "a transfusion of Southernness." This is McElwee's most accessible autobio-doc since the groundbreaking March put him on the map. His films have ruminated wryly and profoundly on matters of love, family, marriage, and parenthood. In Bright Leaves, an obsession with a 1950 melodrama funds him pondering his family's tobacco-stained history and legacy. The set-up is irresistible: A long-lost second cousin introduces McElwee to Bright Leaf, a film starring Gary Cooper as a tobacco farmer embroiled in a bitter rivalry with a tobacco baron, who destroys him. Is the film a dramatized account of his own great-grandfather's "rise and subsequent fall to ruin"? Turns out old John McElwee created the Bull Durham tobacco brand, only to have it stolen from him by the powerful Duke family, who are considered royalty in McElwee's home town. Visiting the Duke mansion, McElwee can't help but ponder, "If things had gone differently, this would have all been mine."

But Bright Leaf is merely a starting point. McElwee wrestles with his "guilt over the global tobacco addition" in which his ancestors played a role. He notes the irony that later descendants all became doctors, and treated those ravaged by smoking. McElwee interviews relatives about his great grandfather, as well as modern-day tobacco farmers, current smokers (one engaged couple cannot make good on their pledges to quit), and cancer patients (fans of McElwee's films will be delighted to be reunited with Charleen, McElwee's former teacher). McElwee is the anti-Michael Moore. He is a kinder, gentler interviewer, and not at all confrontational. He has no agenda. As for Bright Leaf, he does manage to interview actress Patricia Neal, who was in the film, and the widow of the film's screenwriter, who gives McElwee a definitive answer. Along the way, there are several "stranger than fiction incidents," such as a visit to a former McElwee tobacco warehouse that now serves as a beauty school, and an interview with film theorist Vlada Petric, who, instead of being filmed seated in a movie theatre, insists that McElwee shoot him while Petric pushes him around in a wheelchair rigged to facilitate a tracking shot. --Donald Liebenson

Product Description
McElwee family legend has it that the Hollywood melodrama "Bright Leaf" starring Gary Cooper as a 19th century tobacco grower, is based on filmmaker Ross McElwee's great-grandfather, who created the Bull Durham brand. Using this legacy as a jumping off point, McElwee reaches back to his roots in this wry, witty rumination on American history, the tobacco business, and the myth of cinema.

See all Editorial Reviews

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another Great Film From McElwee, June 23, 2005

By	Jim M. (Springfield MA) - See all my reviews

Ross McElwee is one of the finest filmmakers working today. To call him a documentarian may give the wrong impression. His films are more personal essays on his life, and the people around him.

BRIGHT LEAVES is yet another essay of his. This one follows McElwee as he traces his family in North Carolina tobacco country. Upon seeing an old Gary Cooper film by the name of BRIGHT LEAF, which follows a tobacco farmer battling a larger one, he begins to wonder if the film was based on his great grandfather, who had a similar battle with the Duke tobacco family. This leads him to interview family, tobacco farmers, Patricia Neal (co-star of BRIGHT LEAF), and the wife of the author of the book the film was based on.

The only thing keeping my review from five stars is it isn't up to his earlier film TIME INDEFINITE, which I would name as probably one of the fifty greatest films ever made. If any other filmmaker had made this it would be in the five star range, but just in comparison to his other films, it isn't his best.

As for the DVD, while the transfer is very nice, there are very few extras. Just a few text screens, none of which add all that much to the film or justify the rather expensive price of the DVD.

But this is a must see for McElwee fans.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Documentary , January 30, 2007

By	J. Williams - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a wonderful documentary for those that like subjective and exploratory filmmaking. If you are looking for a point, or say a dummy's guide to attacking the tobacco industry or an expose, watch the nightly news. Bright Leaves is in the same vein as Stone Reader, in that both documentaries incorporate their filmmakers. While some may view this as narcissistic or unnecessary, more is revealed about human understanding and the implications of history than a selection of the facts.

5.0 out of 5 stars Leaving Something Behind, January 16, 2009

By	J. T. Robinson (Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The abundance of ancestry and family history websites on the internet today is not surprising. People cannot help being curious about their heritage, and will often spend time and money to discover what stock they descend from. Links to our past are hard to come by, and any morsel of personal history is uniquely interesting. Usually, family stories are passed down by word of mouth, and over time the story inevitably changes. Facts become muddled, people and events are forgotten, and eventually the truth is hard to find. On the surface, Bright Leaves is a story of one man's legacy with tobacco, but a closer look reveals there is much more to this documentary. A successful documentary must be entertaining and also explore a topic the viewer might not normally consider. In his documentary Bright Leaves, Ross McElwee uses his personal family history with tobacco to explore how history is passed from one generation to another. By approaching the subject honestly, and with a sense of humor, McElwee draws the viewer into his family's relationship with tobacco, provoking the viewer to consider his own family history in the process.

Bright Leaves is an alluring film, and the director, Ross McElwee, makes good use of multiple techniques to draw the viewer into the subject matter. Much of the film is shot from a shoulder-mounted camera, bobbing and drifting as if the viewer is the camera, watching the scene unfold in the first person. As the filmmaker explores the intimate details of his family history, utilizing this first person technique creates an almost personal relationship between viewer and subject. Suddenly the audience is a part of the story, strolling through fields of green tobacco or surveying an old family warehouse. This personal experience is heightened by the director's decision not to add unnecessary music or sound effects in the film. Instead of adding a soundtrack that might cloud or influence the viewer's emotions, McElwee utilizes the natural sounds of the environment, adding to the personal, first person element of the film. An excellent example of this is the opening scene in which the camera pans slowly over verdant rows of bright green tobacco leaves, rocking gently in the breeze. As the narrator reminisces over his family's relationship with tobacco, the only other noise heard is the buzz of insect life in the field. Another director might have used a clip of mournful strings to compound the emotional aspect of this reflection, but McElwee allows the viewer to form their own opinion without musical influence.

Camera technique may draw the viewer's attention, but it is not enough to keep an audience engaged in the development of McElwee story. The filmmaker draws the viewer in further by using a witty and often self-deprecating sense of humor. McElwee's entreating comments, dispersed throughout the film, prevent the film from becoming bland or mundane. Once, while McElwee visits his cousin in North Carolina, the camera roams over the relative's walls that are covered from floor to ceiling with vintage movie posters. As his cousin describes his overflowing collection of film reels and stills, McElwee wryly comments, "My cousin seems to like movies." Sly comments like this one lighten the mood and keep the audience entertained enough to stay attentive to the deeper themes of the documentary. At one point in the film McElwee attempts to film himself walking across a field in deep thought, but a small, yappy dog comes out of nowhere and attacks his ankles, ruining the shot. McElwee decides to add this footage however, providing comic relief, and adding to the honest feel of the film.

The technique and humor Ross McElwee uses to tell his story are effective at attracting and entertaining the viewer. His documentary is successful, however, because he provokes the viewer to reflect about his own family history. McElwee uses his family's history with tobacco as a platform for exploring larger themes of family legacy and generational relationships, moving beyond a simple account of his own genealogy. Early on, the audience learns that John Harvey McElwee, the director's great-grandfather, invented the famous "Bull Durham" strain of tobacco, which was subsequently purloined and exploited by the James Duke family. On numerous occasions, the director imagines what life could have been like had the circumstances been reversed. He travels with an old friend to the Duke mansion, now a National Historic Landmark, and just a few blocks away from the modest single family home he grew up in. In a state where the Duke name is seen everywhere, the only monument to McElwee's great-grandfather is tiny McElwee Park, nestled between industrial warehouses and labeled with a broken sign, partially obscured by weeds. Even in death the disparity between the Duke and McElwee family is apparent. The Duke clan is entombed in a grand cathedral while John McElwee lies beneath a simple headstone, recently nudged out of place by a careless landscaper. The director is not looking for sympathy over the disenfranchisement of his ancestors however. Rather, he comments on the random nature of life, where a detail as insignificant as a disloyal foreman can make a tobacco fortune the legacy of one family and not another. All too often we lament over "what could have been" without realizing the random ways fortunes are made and lost. McElwee doesn't despair over the path his family's legacy has taken; he simply wishes to reach an understanding of his families place in the world and history.

A recurring topic during Ross McElwee's exploration of his past is the movie "Bright Leaf" starring Gary Cooper. This movie, a major Hollywood production, becomes more and more similar to the John Harvey McElwee story as the director gleans bits of supporting evidence from relatives. The filmmaker initially wants to believe that this film is in fact a testament to his great-grandfathers life story, and by association, his family's legacy. At one point someone asks McElwee why the film "Bright Leaf" is so important to him. He states that the film is"...an example of fiction becoming a documentary...a home movie for me." Spoken by a man who films a good portion of his everyday life, it's easy to see how McElwee wants to believe "Bright Leaf" is a link to his past, a tinsel-town version of a family history he has yet to fully understand. Toward the end of the film, it is revealed that the plot to "Bright Leaf" was completely organic, and in no way based on the life or story of John Harvey McElwee. This leads the director and viewer alike to consider how legacies and history are passed down. How can we preserve the past for future generations?

As Ross McElwee surveys an old family tobacco warehouse, now used for storage, he recalls a time father asked him what he was going to do with all the hours of film he has. "What is the purpose?" he asks. The purpose, reflects the filmmaker, is to leave something behind, and ultimately that is the purpose of Bright Leaves. By investigating his own past, McElwee is leaving something behind for the future. In one scene, Adrian sits on the ground, tying his shoe for the first time. This scene has nothing to do with tobacco or Hollywood, it's "Just a little scene. Just a little moment." The narrator says, "I sometimes imagine my son, years from now when I'm no longer around, looking back at what I've filmed." In making Bright Leaves, Ross McElwee has left a slice of history for the next generation so that they might understand where and whom they descend from. At the same time the audience is forced to consider, "What is my legacy? How will my family's history be remembered?" McElwee's father, in one Christmas scene, listens to the annual "Silent Night" performance while wearing a yarmulke. His father is not Jewish, but McElwee never gets around to asking his father why he wore a yarmulke that Christmas, chalking it up as "one of those things I'll never know." Seconds later the viewer is going through a carwash with Adrian. He's very young and fascinated by the whirring machines that scrub the car from all sides. By splicing these two scenes together, McElwee is again commenting on leaving something behind for posterity. We can all relate to the first part of the scene - a question we never asked and will not get the chance to ask again. The clip of Adrian is a connection to the other end of McElwee's legacy preserved for the sake of preserving, a memory for when Ross is no longer around.

Bright Leaves is as much a story about tobacco as it is about relationships. Ross McElwee invites the viewer along as he wades through his family's complicated past, creating an enjoyable and meaningful film in the process. He encourages the viewer to consider his own history, as he shows the McElwee's. After viewing this documentary, the audience is left realizing that life is basically a series of "little scenes," and our relationship to the past can be explored in these moments. In an entertaining fashion, Ross McElwee has created a successful documentary that sheds light on a topic deeper than tobacco.