James Horak The Amazing Application of the Docudrama Genre in, Strange Culture (2007) (or, government exploitation of event to circumvent expectation of human rights in the fulfillment of social contract.)The making of, Strange Culture, establishes a genre form within a genre, so elegantly does it apply both a storyline and it's backing with factual event but incorporates the "director's cut" inside to the making at the same time. Although a feat not for the faint of heart, the production carries its flow in a highly clarifying manner and with the very warmth of both actors and those they portray, seemingly caught up in a labor of love. Even more astounding when the viewer begins to realize the concerns at hand are wrought upon the innocent by a monstrosity that has come to be made in and by the aftermath of America's single greatest outrage, 9/11, exploited to mindlessly move this society closer to a police state. The government's case against one man becomes solely a pursuit against both the academic world, the world of art and the rights of all to know from whence and by what manner their very food source comes; even the pseudo science employed in tampering with it genetically. A wake-up call we all need that touches upon every right we increasingly only presume to have. That a group of learned professionals, utilizing their own artistic talents, scholarly knowledge base and friendship as colleagues could put together such a talented art exhibition so incredibly poignant to the social and health concerns of their audience would obviously draw the concerns of the powers that be, the kind of elite that own Monsanto. In the end we do not know the designs of this most dubious actionable effort of government against its people was early-on instrumented. We do not know this, but we come to suspect it. The laudable performance of the talented and hauntingly beautiful Tilda Swinton, the superb choice of casting Thomas Jay Ryan in the lead role, and the participation and obvious concern of Peter Coyote are wonderful extra attractions. Writer/director, Lynn Hershman-Leeson, has done far more than a successful job. To attest to this is the placement of a scene in which a group of grad students in a class are asked, "does anyone know about the McCarthy Era?" When no one replies, we immediately know the utter importance of this film.JCH

marymorrissey if a subject is worthy of making a doc about I don't know what's with all the belles and whistles. it was clearly a matter of Ms. Swinson being available to come in for a day. there was some kind of a disclaimer "the Artist who was persecuted is too sensitive to portray himself so he's portrayed by an Actor" well the guy playing opposite her was no Actor so her little ball busting turns didn't play that well. was it really all that they could come up with to depict the defenseless dead Frau as this bitch who has one thing on her mind: complaining about the Art not being done in a timely manner in both of her scenes, like some producer? oh and she not exactly lovingly pushes this brown suit and ugly tie on the Artist contemptuously remarking that she got them on sale as if that mitigates her hopeless attempt in her comme des garcons or whatever and chic hairdo to do something about this tardy ass slob she married who is making a living hell of her self starting detail oriented efforts at office management. in fact the actual husband's brief talking head appearance directly following these scenes indicates that her 'editing' and "gift for pattern recognition" were essential to the team's work. it would have made much more sense for her to be upset that she was not going to be able to have a look at this "material" herself before it "went out" instead of just fretting about a deadline for this show that was already booked as though it would be canceled or something. Actually, Tilly's day playing reminded me a a little of that early comic bit of Meryl streep as the castrating lesbian in "manhattan"! and of course she looked as incongruous opposite the schlub portraying her husband as Ms streep did opposite Mr. allen.for the first 30 minutes or so, interspersed with talking head clips, which actually render them superfluous, we get a bonanza of these totally trite, not ready for prime-time reenactments in "Docudrama" form of 1) a couple of teacher/student scenes (I don't know how low the standards of SUNY Buffalo have gotten, but I would imagine most students at any college aside from maybe the University of Miami would be familiar with "the McCarthy era" from their high school US history class), 2) the obligatory cheesy "artistic integrity" scene ("the McCarthy era" prof who wears a different wild n crazy shirt in every scene a collaborator of the Artist who is far too serious about his Work darling to "go Hawaiian" or to wear a suit for that matter, has misgivings about an Idea, "Ok I get this cause I'm weird and I'm your friend but I don't know if it's such a great CAREER MOVE!" of course as any Artist worth his salt would, our hero has to get really real man, explaining the concept of Artistic Integrity both for us and for the professor. 3) the aforementioned BB. scenes between Tilda and the Artist, 4) the absolute pits: the scene in which the Artist discovers the corpse of his wife. which this performer was not at all up to (a note to the director: when an 'actor' is whimpering and screwing up his face pretending to cry but no tears come use eye drops!) in which they really might have done something to make it less obvious that Ms. Swinon was no longer in the building - all we see is a hand! and 5) the initial confrontations with the fuzz n the feds. After we've sat through all of this double iteration of the preceding information? We're treated to A RECAP of almost every bit of the same, this time in hipster graphic novel format! (the producers of the film apparently refer to this all encompassing style as "docurama" for what that's worth) The "docurama" format sucked in "American Splendor" too as far as I'm concerned but at least in that film they had real actors involved for the long haul not just one star coming in for a day, as in some cheesy B picture in which someone given top billing turns out only to turn up in 2 scenes. And they may have pointlessly, tastelessly and annoyingly switched formats but at least they didn't repeat scenes 3 times apiece!As far as I'm concerned they definitely ought to have just stuck with the talking heads, only for some reason it was deemed OK to "grab" some of the doc footage with really crappy sound and inadequate light and when the artist himself is actually introduced the camera even slips a bit: oops! I mean why not retake the shot or make some kind of cut or something. eliminate him saying, "I'm Steve Kurtz, the Artist" while the camera slips, since they put his damn name in a title on top of his little bit anyway, and didn't have anybody else introduce themselves in this fashion!?!?! I can't deal with this kind of carelessness and neither should you. As you might expect though, when Ms. S was working they actually bothered to use microphones and get proper sound and the lighting was more or less adequate. How much better it would have been to take some of the wasted time to interview some of the fuzz 'n' feds involved (not that it's likely though they would have been as cooperative as Tilly) than to indulge in all this inept playacting and decoration and duplication stretching the film to 70 min (I believe, for you see, I didn't even get to the part with peter coyote, by then I turned it off life is too short and it was better to read about what happened online, just as one other review here suggests might be a better alternative). I loathed this film and was forced to give it the lowest possible rating!

siderite It all starts with a real event, the arrest and then continuous harassment of Steve Kurtz from 2004 until 2008 for the sole reason that he used biological material as a kind of art form. The story, truly incredible, yet totally real, needs to be heard. It shows how, under the right motivation, the FBI can do almost anything to someone for no reason at all.The film, however, is made almost like a conspiracy theory flick, one of those artsy, liberal, intellectual in your face things that don't gather the normal crowd of people because they are simply weird for a common person. You see a long haired university professor that works with bacteria as an art form in order to promote awareness of genetically modification in the foods marketed in the US. He is ridiculous! However, what happens to him (and his friends) is completely real.Now, I think this story could have been told a lot better and it should have been because it is one of those tales that show how close a proud democracy can turn overnight into a dictatorship or a police state. There is one line in the film where Steve Kurtz says that if the legal precedent would have succeeded, the power of the Department of Justice would have doubled overnight, by simply allowing them to turn any civil misdemeanor into a criminal issue.Bottom line: whether you will watch this film or not, Steve Kurtz is a man you should at least read about, get your facts straight, see how it could all have gone wrong for all of us if he (and perhaps a lot of people in his situation) would have caved in to the pressure.

george-257 This film is a must see if you care or about the arts in the current political climate, or for that matter if you care about civil liberties in general. Strange Culture is very different from Lynn Hershman's other work--a unique documentary/narrative hybrid. An amazing and surreal performance by Thomas Jay Ryan. Though there is an amazing cast, the real star is Steve Kurtz, the Buffalo artist who is the subject of the film. Steve's heartbreaking retelling of his wife's death, and his subsequent arrest and legal wranglings is must see for anyone who believes are government is beyond reproach.This film is powerful, heart wrenching, and an outrageous indictment of the current state of political affairs.