The Outsider

We are not really into giving props to Documentaries. This time we must make an exception being that Nicholas Jarecki directed the film - he is the youngest of the filmmaking Jarecki brothers clan and his hustle is tight.

His first hustle was the book "Breaking In: How 20 Film Directors Got Their Start." His second hustle was "The Outsider" and his third hustle is an interesting project by Bret Easton Ellis one of our favorite American writers. So yeah, Nicholas is a young NYC based filmmaker we must keep an eye on. We feel this young talented cat has a very bright future in the game we call filmmaking.

THE OUTSIDER

A film by Nicholas Jarecki

The Outsider, a feature-length documentary from first-time writer/director Nicholas Jarecki, is a film about film, specifically, the power of film to create, to move, and to endure. It follows one of America's most obsessive and intriguing filmmakers, James Toback, writer/director of 11 movies including: Two Girls and a Guy, Black and White, The Gambler, Fingers, Bugsy, and When Will I Be Loved, starring Neve Campbell.

Filmed over an 8-month period, The Outsider follows Toback through all phases of the making of his new film (shooting, editing, scoring, and release). The movie develops through frank conversations with him about his obsessions (gambling, drinking, drugs, and sexual exploration) and how they manifest themselves in his films by interweaving clips from all of his movies. The film also contains candid, revealing conversations about film and life with Toback’s collaborators including: Woody Allen, Robert Downey, Jr., Mike Tyson, Harvey Keitel, Neve Campbell, Norman Mailer, Brooke Shields, Barry Levinson, Jim Brown, Robert Towne, Brett Ratner, Roger Ebert, Bridget Hall, Damon Dash, Woody Harrelson, Bijou Phillips, Jeff Berg, Dominic Chianese, and Power from Wu-Tang Clan.

The result is a surprising and highly entertaining examination of an industry that is changing and a man struggling against great odds to define a place within it. George Bernard Shaw observed: “The reasonable man adapts himself to fit the world around him. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to fit himself. Therefore all progress is made by unreasonable men.” James Toback is an unreasonable man; as film lovers, we’re much the better for it.

Who Is Nicholas Jarecki? Twenty-six year old Nicholas Jarecki is the author of the 2001 Doubleday book Breaking In: How 20 Film Directors Got Their Start. A graduate of NYU film school, Jarecki has directed several music videos and commercials. This is his first feature film.

Who Is James Toback? James Toback has been many things: son, husband, father, gambler, drinker, lover, writer, actor, and film director. His passion and undying quest to philosophize on the existential elements of life, madness, death, and themes of identity have driven him for almost 30 years to create richly textured films that challenge contemporary themes and beliefs.

He conceptualizes, writes, produces, casts, directs, edits, and promotes his films. He demands full creative control over his projects, yet he is an avid collaborator, and enjoys allowing his actors and crew to contribute to his projects in many unexpected ways. A great fan of improvisation, Toback often works without a script, giving actors only a rudimentary outline of their motivations and objective, enabling them to invent their own mores of dialogue. Actors are so taken with him that he often gets the top talent from films, fashion, and sports to be in his movies, usually for no pay.

But the creative freedom that Toback enjoys and the control that he demands come at a price: his division from the grand world of old Hollywood to which by all rights as he approaches 60 he should be a charter member. Veteran producer and film theorist David Thompson said that Toback, “has the haunted soul of an outsider with the privileged position of an insider.” Toback’s need to explore ideas that contravene popular moral or political view, that attempt to reveal the abyss, ruminate on concepts of dread, mortality, and sexual identity, has conflicted with the current Hollywood view of commercial filmmaking. The result is clear: Toback has to work with low-budgets (one to five million dollars), and smaller distribution networks than high-octane blockbuster releases. But this is nothing new. Since the emergence of blockbuster films in the 1980s, personal, author-driven filmmaking has become more and more difficult to widely distribute.

This does not faze Toback. He continues to live as a man driven by passions – his primary passion: to create, by whatever means necessary.