Oeuvre is an in-depth examination of the entire body of work of an important director.
If there's a defining quality to Richard Linklater's fluid, eclectic body of work it's a certain quiet restlessness. Like his contemporary and occasional collaborator, Steven Soderbergh, Linklater makes a lot of films and rather than producing the same kinds of films again and again, he's usually trying something different, which is why his oeuvre includes indie romances, animated sci-fi, a sports comedy, period pieces, Gen X gabfests and one about Orson Welles. It makes sense that he'd tackle documentary and the short and little-known Live from Shiva's Dance Floor is one of the two he filmed in the '00s.
It's somewhat ironic that one of his least seen films came out the same year as School of Rock, his most popular mainstream movie. The subject of Shiva is Timothy "Speed" Levitch, the absurdly gregarious protagonist/raconteur of an earlier documentary, The Cruise. Levitch had a small part in Linklater's Waking Life and this short film can be seen as both a tangent of that film and coda to The Cruise. Filmed on a summer day in NYC, the movie is little more than a snapshot of Levitch walking around the city and sharing his thoughts. As in The Cruise, this shows Levitch as a guy who has a lot on his mind and really, really likes to talk. That quality is both an asset and a drawback. On the one hand, he clearly has a wealth of anecdotes, stories, random observations and philosophical musings. On the other hand, sometimes you just wish he'd shut up. Even though it's only 20 minutes, the overall effect was more exhausting than invigorating. It didn't provoke thoughts so much as make me look forward to the end.
One of Linklater's most distinctive features as a director is that he genuinely likes his characters and allows them lots of time to just talk, something that can be found in almost all of his features, but especially in Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise and Waking Life. Here, filming in a simple, on the fly manner, he lets Levitch launch into a free wheeling, stream of consciousness monologue for 20 minutes that touches on, among other things, 9/11, the founding fathers, money and capitalism, Wall Street, personal space, the Hindu goddess Shiva, joy and, of course, New York City. Levitch, despite his youth, comes across as a bit of a hippie, extolling freedom, joy and non-conformity, quoting Thoreau and Eastern religions and even sporting frizzy, Abbie Hoffman hair. While there's nothing wrong with this, there's not a lot about his thinking that is particularly original or interesting, which is ironic, as he talks about the need for original thinking. His love of the urban environment may separate him from other free spirits and he does, quixotically, try to make sense of 9/11. Perhaps it is refreshing to have a personal and wholly apolitical take on that event, which has become a magnet for bullshit and political rhetoric, but it also comes across as a bit naïve. He calls it a "parable" and sees it as a part of the process of creation and destruction or the dance of Shiva, a god who is both destroyer and benefactor. This may be a nice idea, but it's hard to see a terrorist act that killed 1,000s of innocents as anything but that.
Levitch's thinking rarely escapes bumper sticker platitudes like "disorientation is life" and "being lost is a really beautiful feeling." I half-expected him to tell us to fly our freak flag high. Linklater's direction is self-effacing to a fault, employing some subdued, simple piano music and stock shots of NYC. It is a generous film in that it is essentially a showcase for Levitch's musings and ramblings. If you're glutton for punishment, you can watch the "annotated" version on the DVD, in which the action pauses for Levitch to offer commentary, as if you needed more of him talking. The film did win a "special commendation" at the Tribeca Film Festival, where judge/presenter Sandra Bernhard called it "a testament without ideology," as if ideology is just something you can easily avoid. It is perhaps best viewed as one man's attempt to grapple, in a vaguely philosophical, occasional Buddhist, not very original way with some big issues, and as Linklater's continuing belief in the power and necessity of people talking. One of the great things about Linklater is that if you're not crazy about one of his movies, you can be sure he'll be working on a new one soon.
by Lukas Sherman
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