It鈥檚 too early to suggest that NUTS! will be a seminal work in the career of documentary filmmaker Penny Lane, assistant professor of art and art history. But reviews pouring in from the Sundance Film Festival, where Lane recently premiered the story of goat testicle transplant pioneer Dr. John Romulus Brinkley, have roundly praised the movie.
鈥淲hen I found Brinkley鈥檚 story,鈥 Lane told Sundance, 鈥淚 thought it was readymade for a film. His biography is a tragedy 鈥 it鈥檚 a classic American story of someone who was born with nothing and, through his own hard work and genius, works his way to the top, then falls in this very spectacular way.鈥
Claiming that he could cure male impotence by transplanting goat testicles into his many hopeful patients, Brinkley used his quackery to erect a media empire and nearly rose to the governor鈥檚 office in Kansas.
But delve any further into the biography of John Brinkley and you鈥檒l find that fact and fiction fuse. Lane has used a creative combination of archival material and animation to tell that unreliable yet entertaining story, and the critics have responded. Here鈥檚 a sample.
Lane, whose last success was the inside-the-White-House found-footage collage Our Nixon, is offering catnip for audiences of a certain type. For those who listen to They Might Be Giants, play along with NPR鈥檚 Wait Wait鈥 Don鈥檛 Tell Me! and subscribe to Mental Floss, Nuts! is their Star Wars. But you don鈥檛 need to be a bookish dweeb with your hands up at Barnes and Noble readings to enjoy it.
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Lane employs a squadron of animators to tell Brinkley鈥檚 story, using his authorized biography as her template 鈥 up until the moment she stops, artfully turning the story on its head. The results are a glorious look at the American dream running head-first into innocent gullibility.
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As illuminating as it is immensely entertaining, Penny Lane鈥檚 doc uses charming hand-crafted animation to trace how Brinkley ballooned a wacko epiphany into a vast media empire built on nothing but hot air. It鈥檚 a chronicle of the American dream in action, and the fact that it鈥檚 all true didn鈥檛 stop Lane鈥檚 film from ending with the best twist of this year鈥檚 fest.
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Lane primarily relies on various styles of animation to tell Brinkley鈥檚 story, but more importantly, she frames that story on Clement Wood鈥檚 biography The Life of a Man: A Biography of John R. Brinkley. Using this as the narrative framework almost makes you feel like you鈥檝e stumbled into a museum dedicated to Brinkley鈥檚 greatness, but if you鈥檙e patient with NUTS!, you鈥檒l get a reveal worthy of a true swindler.
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Watch Lane discuss the film on the , and keep an eye out for your chance to see NUTS! later this year.
Related Links:
https://vimeo.com/blog/post/penny-lane-on-sundance-career-growth-and-creating