This past weekend WALDEN: LIFE IN THE WOODS had it's world premiere at the Denver Film Festival. Director Alex Harvey chatted with Selig Film News a few weeks back about the excitement of the world premiere, the years it took to make the film, and the importance of the number 3. Here is our chat with Director Alex Harvey!
I had three chairs in my cabin.
One for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. — HENRY DAVID THOREAU
This quote impacted Alex Harvey, Laura Goldhamer and Adam Chanzit's lives as it set in motion years of creating the feature film, WALDEN: LIFE IN THE WOODS. It was this intriguing trifecta appeal that helped start my chat with Alex and it set in motion a half hour discussion about life, the beauty of filmmaking and about making something meaningful to a community. Here is my interview with Director Alex Harvey.
Walden: Life in the Woods is a radical, western re-imagining of Henry David Thoreau’s classic "Walden." Taking place over twenty-four hours, the film interlaces Solitude, Friendship and Society: three contemporary narratives about the trappings of modern life and the unlikely transcendentalists who dream dangerously of escape.
In "Solitude," eighty-year old Alice plays detective of the soul, wading through her murky past, trying to uncover a core memory, which leads her to attempt to break free from the walls of her dementia—and her nursing home. In “Friendship,” Luke leads his partner Guy on a surreal journey into the Rocky Mountains as well as into parts of himself he dares not confront. In “Society,” family man Ramirez moves through the morass of a middle class existence—mortgage, health insurance, failing home appliances—and spends a biblically hilarious day navigating the bureaucratic inferno of civilized society.
Throughout the day, the ordinariness of our characters’ minutes ticking by collides with sudden sublime and surreal interruptions. As Thoreau knew, intuition comes in glimpses and flashes, fits and starts. The three narratives have literal intersection, yet they merge most pointedly in the climax of the film in a moment of spiritual epiphany at three different “ponds." In moments of crisis, the characters confront what Thoreau thought was ultimately more profound than the wilderness: our inner wild.
For more information about the film please go to WALDEN: LIFE IN THE WOODS. Speaking of trifectas. Here is Alex in the wildness of Colorado, his Walden and finally at this weekend's wonderful world premiere.
