Making a biographical film about a performance artist seems to me a special kind of challenge, because with performance art you have to be there when it’s happening. You could say the same about any live performance, except that a Beethoven Symphony or a Shakespeare play may retain their essential meaning across a variety of circumstances, while the kind of art Miller does responds to the immediate context and thus may be difficult to appreciate in a different time and place. How, then, to capture the essence of performance art in a documentary that by definition removes the performance from its original context?
Directors M. Heather Carver and William T. Horner meet this challenge by creating a conventional biographical documentary that relates Miller’s life story, includes many clips of his performances, using archival and features statements from a variety of talking heads including Public Theater Associate Artistic Director Mark Russell, actor and performance Gabe Levi, writer and activist Doug Sadownick (who was formerly Miller’s partner), Performance Studies Professor Craig Gingrich-Philbrook, and playwright and director Moisés Kaufman. Sticking to a tried and true formula seems a fair choice in this context: didn’t Thomas Mann say something about artists dressing plainly because their imagination was expressed in their work, not their appearance?
Born in Pasadena and raised in Whittier, Miller came to New York City at age 19 and threw himself into the ferment of the city’s theatre and performance scene. He co-founded Performance Space 122 in 1980 in a former school in the East Village that had become an artist’s squat and home to many social service providers. (NYC elementary schools are referred to as “P.S.” plus a number, so preserving the initials is a bit of an insider’s joke). Miller and his collaborators created an active performance space there, the first of several he would create; ironically, the location may be best known to the general public today due to its appearance in Alan Parker’s 1980 film Fame.
Miller was also keenly aware of his sexual identity and was shocked at how assimilationist the gay political scene in NYC was, compared to what he had experienced in California. His artistic coming of age coincided with the AIDS epidemic and he centered political content in much of his performance work; among other things, he is believed to have been the first person to have mentioned AIDS in any performance when he and his partner performed a pieces called “Live Boys” in March 1981. To give you an idea of the context of the time, Miller beat the New York Times by several months and U.S. President Ronald Reagan by years in recognizing the existence of the disease.
The subtitle of this documentary is not chosen by chance: many interview subjects argue that art by its nature is political and that performance art arose as a response to the AIDS crisis and continues to be an important way that artists can respond to current issues. That’s certainly true of Miller’s work, and he also comments on the role performance spaces can play in creating a sense of community among those not part of mainstream culture. Whether you are interested in performance art or not, this documentary is worth seeing for its exploration of the relationship between politics and art and for its presentation of how one particular performer made the two work together. And here’s a word to the wise: stay through the end credits or you’ll miss something worth seeing.
The SLIFF screening of Tim Miller Citizen Artist will be accompanied by a screening of the short film “Couture to the Max” (35 min.), a Dori Bernstein’s short film about the fashion prodigy Max Alexander who at 9 years old has already created an impressive portfolio that combines wild creativity with a commitment to sustainability. | Sarah Boslaugh
Tim Miller Citizen Artist: Performing Stories to Change the Ending will be screened on Nov. 8 at 3:30 pm at the B&B Theatres Creve Coeur as part of the 35th annual Saint Louis International Film Festival. Information about tickets and the full festival schedule is available from the Festival web site.
