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Feedback 4.23.05 Wonderful film with good character development (often missing from documentaries), and outstanding journalism. The story was developed and told by the characters themselves, you just let the story unfold without going on a crusade, a temptation that most journalists (Michael Moorer comes to mind) can't seem to resist. Do another, please. Warren Oakland, CA
I saw Bum's Paradise at the Red Vic on Tuesday. I wanted to say thanks, very refreshing, a privilege really, and I was impressed that you were able to create what seemed like a clear window into that world, which I'm sure is actually a monumental feat of intention and devotion. Watching it felt like entering the community. I ride my bike out at the landfill and greet the ghosts and appreciate that it's one of the few places around here that's so off the grid -- but I didn't know the history behind it and I'll buy the movie feeling that I'm donating to the spirit of it (then I'll work on getting a DVD player). So thanks again and keep up the good work. Emily Wednesday, April 7, 2004 3:20 AM CDT I can't sleep. So I thought I'd tell you guys (youze guys Philly talk) about our wonderful experience at the Ashland Independent Film Festival. Steve, Connor and I went while Ryan was in school. We saw two documentaries "Bum's Paradise" and "Nothing Without You". We enjoyed both films. Bum's Paradise is about a landfill in the Bay Area, (actually called Albany Landfill) where the homeless have settled for several years. The view from the landfill is gorgeous. San Francisco across the water and the skyline outlined by a gorgeous sky. It's quite picturesque (I like that word, it sounds educated if a word can be such). The homeless have settled there and built their shacks, erected tents, and made a life for themselves. The documentary is filmed by a man named Robert "Rabbit" Berringer who is a resident of the landfill. Rabbit has a degree in Fine Arts from Berkely and fell on hard times and has been homeless for several years. After seeing the documentary, the audience gets to question the makers of the film. Rabbit did the majority of the filming because he had access to the folks at the landfill day and night and because the producer/director of the film had to work full time at another occupation. We met Rabbit and asked some questions of him and found him very likeable. On Saturday as we drove through Ashland, we saw Rabbit sitting on a bench with some other folks and pulled our car over to the side of Main Street and asked Rabbit if he had plans for that evening. He said "no, I don't" and "who are you people" (are you laughing yet). We said "we met you after the screening of Bum's Paradise". "Would you like to come to our house for dinner tonight, we're having sloppy joes". Rabbit said "Sure". So Rabbit squeezed into the front seat with me while Steve drove us home and Connor, Ryan and Cameron were crowded into the back seat. I apologized to Rabbit for only serving Sloppy Joe's that night. He responded "hey that's okay, whatever you get from the dumpster is fine with me". We talked at the dinner table and enjoyed our gourmet meal. After dinner, Rabbit, Steve, Connor and I watched The Three Stooges. (Ryan and Cameron opted to play video games). There was a marathon on one of the channels. The four of us were hootin and hollerin. Belly laughs all around. It was so much fun. 50 years later and the stooges are still hilarious. Rabbit stayed at our house until about 9:30 that night. Steve had to get up at 5:00 so he drove Rabbit back downtown to where he was staying. Monday, Rabbit called our house to tell us there was a free showing of Bum's Paradise at 9:30 p.m. so Connor and I headed downtown and found out it was being shown in a bar. Connor being a minor, he was not allowed in. So we got to spend another hour with Rabbit talking outside of Louie's Bar and Grill and then RAbbit walked us back part of the way to where we had our car parked. Rabbit told those of us not allowed into the screening because we had minors with us that he wouldn't watch the documentary if his friends were not allowed in. So we had the pleasure of Rabbit's company again for about an hour Monday night. Connor and I gave Rabbit a goodbye hug and as we turned to walk back to our car, I felt the tears course down my face. I told Connor I was crying because I hadn't met such a gentle soul as Rabbit in a very long time. I bought two copies of Bum's Paradise. One to keep and one to loan out to anyone interested. At $20 bucks a pop, I couldn't resist. Thank you Rabbit for your fine company. I know you enjoyed our company as well. Goodnight All. Jeanie Dear Rabbit (and cc to Tomas in gratitude too) Tomas was in Milwaukee at the 1st Annual Milwaukee International Film Fest last week screening Bum’s Paradise. He was selling something at end of movie but I didn’t know he was so far in the hole until I went to web site. Thanks for making the film. It touched me very deeply. I was homeless once for 4 months then lived with my folks for a few humiliating years. I’d send you and the film $ but I’ve been unemployed for over 2.5 years except for a few months work. My last job was computer work but I’m an artist at heart and paint when I can. I face the mental health challenges some of the people on the peninsula faced. Sometimes it sucks. Other times it’s freeing. I can still drive a car and was given one recently. This weekend, I was coming off the off ramp. There was a young man. Red from the cold. Backpack on. Holding the cardboard sign that he was traveling and needed $. I only had a few $’s so I gave him a $1. Then I thought of what you said, what the people said, and what the movie showed. I wondered if I was less skeptical if he was really traveling and more open to give to him without worry about being taken in for a lie. Personally now I worry about losing my house. It’s cold here without one. I’ve worked awful damn hard to stay sane and sober. I equate my possible future homeless with a sinking to insanity. But your film somewhat showed me else wise. That I could find a way to live with dignity if I lose my house. Thanks Anonymous I enjoyed the movie at the Red Vic tonight. The homeless problem has always been controversial. People have a solution, think they know they problem, have no idea about the problem, blame it on the homeless people, blame it on people who go to Starbucks, blame it on gov. blame it on the mental institutions. But an opinion began to form after watching the movie. - we have (capitalistic) that has no room, acceptance or understanding for the people who don't fit and don't want to fit into this box full of valuable toys. What do we do with people who don't want to do a 9 - 5, but also don't care to live in a big house, with a big car, and big jewelry. There are also people who mentally can't hold down a job even if they wanted too. So because we have built our society on this system, it fails those who don't use it in the way it is intended. The truth is I am just a girl who has never had to worry about where my next meal would ! come from....I like living in a home, I like driving a car with automatic locks and air-conditioning. I like camping alot, but more than two weeks and I am ready to have get back and play computer games and buy a new pair of shoes, I fit into this type of society just right - but growing up in the beautiful wilderness of Alaska and with a mother who has a mental illness, I understand two types of realities and combination of those realities. One - The desire to live outside. To feel the sun, to smell the rain instead of office lights and smells of plaster and plastic. To be away from too many people and too many things and places. Peace. Two - With some mental illness, the mind can be chaotic enough without adding all the stimulation and stress that comes from too many people and too many expectations. Just finding peace and takin! g care of yourself is a full time job. And being able to be left alone with the ability to seek social interaction when desired is in a way it's own therapy even if not perfect. So tell me - I understand that everyone is different and each may have their own desires of what they want out of life. But what do you want and what do you think many others who are in your position want? To be left alone, to be respected. Understandable. But what about the city bums, are they a different breed? The golden gate park? trash is strewn everywhere and toilet paper full of shit when they move on. Am I wrong and selfish for not wanting this just because I just got my coffee at Starbucks? How do we co-exist peacefully? My brother and I thought if we ever make it wealthy - we would be buy large patches of land throughout t! he united states, and homeless people could live there. They could be given sections, first come first serve, and do with it what they want. If they want to live in a tent, if they want to build a wood, concrete whatever shelter they can....no homeowners association there. The only thing that is required is respect for your neighbor. (enough space that you are not on top of each other) with foliage to offer privacy from everyone- Only the basics would be offered....toilets, showers, drinking water. Each section would have enough area to grow your own food. The government should offer this, because just like I think John Paul said(I think) existence should be respected - but the government would never because it would be admittance to failure of the system, so then it is only up to private parties Do you think something like this would ! work? And if so for what percentage of the homeless? And if not...what do you think will? Oh, and if out of my own ignorance of saying something insensitive or "ignorant' I apologize. I've tried to consciously be respectful, but if you don't know what you don't know then....you just don't know. Jennifer Hi Jennifer, Rabbit and I loved what you wrote last November, and Rabbit has been saying that he is working on a response for you... How long has it been now? My response is to check out Dignity Village in Portland: www.outofthedoorways.org Rabbit and I screened Bums' Paradise there, and it's damn cool. Tomas Landfill Living - The Bay Area's Reality Tour Reporter Milan Gagnon took the 24 hour Rabbit Reality Tour! click to read story Are You On The Bus? Or, Are You Not On The Bus? Director (and Life-Adventurer) Tomas McCabe blithely indulges a remark on the posture of society in his spell-casting debut of “Bums’ Paradise” at the 1st Annual Milwaukee International Film Festival. Tomas bravely crawls into and sets up shop in a motley crue encampment comprised of “homeless” persons in sun-stroked landfill near San Francisco. This “wasteland” provides its residents with sanctity and a place they can call home. By Irony it just so happens to be the physical place that embodies the very excrement of a society built upon instant gratification and excessive waste. The residents of the Albany landfill choose this for their personal lifestyle over that of “city-life” just the same as many would chose Pepsi over Coke or visa versa. Tomas gifts the viewer with a rare and intimate quest into the definition inherent to “disposable”. By invitation only, McCabe gets his feet wet and his fingernails dirty in comparable style to Anthropologist Dianne Fossey for an insider look at the microcosm of his subjects. Tomas provides a pointed account of their lives through interview and narrative, with the help of one of the landfill’s residents. The viewer is drawn into this ominous world by a polite and generous introduction to the participants of this film in “just another homeless documentary” fashion. Far from that expectation, the viewer is then kept in the scope of their space with breakthrough cinematography that makes “The Blair Witch Project” seem like a family home video worthy of an award on a popular television show for kids (which I won’t name). Tomas McCabe’s “shoot from the hip” style allows the viewer the opportunity to see life as it happens. Texture, emotion, and sensitivity to intimacy are well shaped and framed from this vantage point- A true testament to a thorough editing process. Somberness alongside Solidarity pervades in a subtle undercurrent to this filmmaking. Contrasting the warrants of perhaps the “traditional white picket fence richness of the American Dream”, narrator “Rabbit”, a longtime resident of the landfill at Albany, bespeaks that the alternative to that dream is just as valid a choice, while the camera displays those thought-provoking realities. Mixology of tribal background noise coupled to a resolute score of rhythm and beats adds to the confusing elements on many clips which display the varying and often paralyzing properties of his subjects’ personalities. Schizophrenia, Bi-Polaris, OCD, and a myriad of other personality quirks that are typically wide-eyed from fear by the general public are played with harmoniously to the film’s emulsion. This allows a sensible comfort level, and even a dib of sincerity, to surface from within each character. This groundbreaking ceremony of the human condition provokes the morality of America’s perceptions of normalcy and acceptance. The freedom of self _expression, self sustenance, self indulgence, self reliance, self sufficiency, and even self (as viewed by others through preconceived notions) are microscopically displayed through Tomas’ lenses in glaring terms. His view irrefutable- and his vision incontrovertible, Tomas goes beyond recording the history of this phenomenal space in the universe. He begs the question scene after scene: What is “value”? What is “Art”? What is “Acceptance”? What is “Awareness”? What is “Community”? What is “Home”? Where does “mine” end, and “yours” begin in a “FREE” nation? One gets the sense that there is an undeniable presence of community, art, culture, class, and order. The subjects are “inclusive” as perhaps opposed to “exclusive” in their relationship to the camera and invite us to challenge the truth of their existence. This is directly attributable to McCabe’s strong understanding of the importance of their right to do as they please, just like the rest of humanity. The simplicity of democracy is emphasized in the individualism of _expression that the participants have created over the years. Displays of artwork have evolved on their stretch of land which echo sentiments of society. Formed largely out of what is at hand, the “indigents” show “art” and “culture” a thing or two in their fascinating and provocative works. Worthy of recognition as a prominent advocacy for the support of ongoing involvement in the rights of Homeless Persons and an emphatic victory for awareness of Mental Illnesses, this piece can be heralded as a victory for this small Albany Peninsula Community and perhaps the nation as a whole. Perhaps this is even a great personal victory for Tomas McCabe. His expanded understanding of freedom and self _expression is very evident in this work. I harbor no doubt in my mind this experience has been influenced directly by the relationships he formed with those from Albany. Ever Forward, Tomas. Be Free. On a personal note, I just want to thank you for having the vision and the dedication to bring this story to light. Regards, Jody Best of Luck! |
