Six Months - Judy and Ray Schmitt’s most intense film
2007 83 mins. Real Earth Productions
The Schmitts have created a rare cinematic masterpiece that I will never forget. Judy and Ray Schmitt have been making films since 1975, creating more than 30 films. Many of their films have been profiles of WV’s leading artists including Abby Wathen, an actress and model from Huntington now living in Los Angeles; Ai Qiu Hopen, a bronze sculptor who lives in Sutton and Shanghai, China; actor/director Jim Walker of Sutton’s Landmark Studio; Lucien “Lulu” Ferrenbach, a French born ornamental iron sculptor now living in Lost River, WV; The Tusing Sisters of Hardy County, famous for their weaving and spinning; Robert Singleton, a world-famous painter now living in the Eastern panhandle; Jim Clark of War, McDowell County who is a leading landscape photographer; Artist Tom Pumroy from Paw Paw who is a multi-talented artist; and national artists Adriana Miller, a Middle Eastern dancer who was well-known in Washington, D.C. and Rita Dove, seventh Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.
After making biographical films of these and other people, they finally turn the camera on themselves. The result is a self-portrait of their lives 360 degrees. The title comes from a visit with a Johns Hopkins cardiologist concerning Ray’s Marfan Syndrome. The MD explains the threats posed to his health by an expanding aorta. In six months he will need more tests to determine if he needs major surgery or not – surgery that may alter his personality. Recently his oldest son almost died from the same condition, surviving because of a medical helicopter ride from Winchester, Va. to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. Another son with severe mental problems has finally found relief at a local program that has turned his life around.
For 83minutes, from minute to minute, viewers ride the roller coaster of their lives as they travel to Sutton, WV to show their new films, drive to Nashville while making a film about a recently deceased friend who was a Nashville legendary musician, visit college fraternity brothers at a reunion in Myrtle Beach, SC and friends at the Schmitt’s annual Octoberfest in Mathias, asking them about their own health issues and encounters with death. Other films that will come to mind include Ross McElwee’s films such as “Sherman’s March” and Woody Allen’s “Love and Death.”
This film is a road film in the best sense of the word. Like other great road films including “Easy Rider” and “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” two of the greatest road films ever made, everything is shown, both good and bad.
This film also reminded me of another great film about death – Wayne Ewing’s feature documentary on the million dollar funeral for Hunter S. Thompson called “When I Die.” Ewing had made an earlier film – the last one about Thompson called “Breakfast With Hunter.” “When I Die” is about the amazing time and energy and money spent on creating the funeral event for one of America’s greatest writers and social critics. Other recent great films about death include the 2006 Romanian masterpiece, “The Death of Mister Lazarescu” and the best film of 2006, “The Fountain” which is about finding the Fountain of Youth. As us Baby Boomers face our deaths, it’s nice to see films about the universal experience. I would rate this film by the Schmitts to be the single best one I have seen.
The Schmitts’ own film on Robert Singleton, “Until I Become Light” discusses Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, the most famous person in the U.S. on “death and dying” who was a friend of Singleton’s. (I met her once myself in Minneapolis at a program in the 1970s.) Their excellent film on traditional hog butchering in Appalachia, “Whole Hog” is also a very well made film about the much happier lives of “free-range” hogs than those spending their lives in factories.
WV filmmakers interviewed include Jesse Johnson and Kevin Carpenter as well film critic/exhibitor Steve Fesenmaier.
I kept on thinking of a better title for the film than “Six Months.” How about “The Meaning of Life and Death”? As a person who faced his own death last spring, spending 9 days in the hospital, and then dealing with my own possibly life-altering operation for six months, I found this film extremely insightful, touching, funny, and humane.
The good news is that after six months Ray was told he did NOT have to have the operation. The funniest part of the film is Karl Mohn, Ray’s road trip companion, who has an obsession with Dick Cheney. Mohn believes that Cheney was a lot better person before his own major heart surgery. Maybe the film should be called “I am NOT Dick Cheney, but………”
Ray was named 2004 West Virginia Filmmaker of the Year. Many of his films have won awards at The WV Filmmakers Film Festival in Sutton including a recent film “For the Love of Theater” that was given the “People’s Choice Award.” Both Judy and Ray were chosen to be “West Virginia History Heroes” in 2006. They have been active for years promoting local history and culture, serving on the board of the Lost River Museum. Ray is a native of Long Island, NY and Judy comes from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Hopefully millions of people will get to see this film on PBS’s P.O.V. or some other national broadcast. I have never seen a better film on facing one’s own mortality, including the Schmitt’s own film on heroes like Abby Wathen and a dozen others. Bravo – four stars!!!!
Their website - www.realearthproductions.com.
WV Filmmakers Film Festival website - www.landmarkstudio.org/wvfff/
