Friday

Redeeming Barbara
Kopple's 'Hamptons'

It's been trashed unfairly. Good, if short on verite

By Ethan Alter

   It was badly marketed by ABC, ignored by audiences and unfairly lambasted by critics, but Barbara Kopple's "The Hamptons" remains a fascinating program.
The four-hour tour of the posh Long Island summer resort area is fascinating if only because it's such a clear example of the right hand--the network here-- not understanding what the left hand--Kopple over there--was up to.
    If you believed ABC's hyperbolic promos, "The Hamptons" was going to be the world's first "reality miniseries," certainly one of the most meaningless genre descriptions ever coined. It would provide viewers with a titillating, tattling look at the lives of East Long Island's rich and famous.
    But if the network had genuinely wanted a program that shallow and superficial, it should never have handed the job to Kopple. A two-time Oscar winner and internationally acclaimed documentary filmmaker, Kopple is renowned for her critical eye, which allows her to peer with keen insight into American society.
   Her best-known films, "Harlan County U.S.A" and "American Dream," are, simply put, required viewing.
   Neither is easy to watch. "Harlan County U.S.A" in particular is a raw piece of work, both technically and emotionally. But they provide an invaluable examination into this country's class system.
    Additionally, they are both excellent examples of cinema verite, the revolutionary form of documentary filmmaking that was developed in France and America during the late 1950s and early '60s. Kopple, in fact, got her start working for two of the giants of the movement, Albert and David Maysles, the directors of such classic verite documentaries as "Salesman" and "Gimme Shelter." Their influence can be seen in much of her work, from "Harlan County U.S.A" to her most recent pre-Hamptons film, "My Generation," which compared and contrasted the three Woodstock concerts.
   While "The Hamptons" retains many of the hallmarks of verite--no narrator or overarching "story," lots of handheld camerawork--it doesn't quite belong to that school.
   That's primarily intentional. Since she's reaching the largest audience of her career with this series, Kopple is understandably interested in making the finished product accessible to all viewers. That explains her reliance on more traditional documentary elements such as establishing shots and talking head interviews.
    The biggest difference between "The Hamptons" and traditional verite, however, is that the series lacks the fly-on-the-wall perspective that the movement is famous for. Although viewers still observe people going about their daily lives, there's rarely a sense that the subjects have forgotten about the camera's presence.
   Their self-awareness frequently causes one to wonder: Exactly how much of what they're saying is for our benefit?
   Of course, it's important to keep in mind that many of the people profiled here are accustomed to living their life in front of the camera. From celebrities like Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley, to PR flacks like Lizzie Grubman, to the yuppie Wall Street types schmoozing "The Hamptons" party scene, these men and women have already constructed a public image for themselves that they can switch on as soon as the videotape starts rolling. And because the director is rarely able to follow them into their homes, there's little chance of catching them in a more private, revealing moment.
   Several of the negative reviews appeared to blame Kopple for the superficiality of some of the subjects featured in the film.
   I don't think that's fair. If she was making a documentary about a certain person or specific group of people, than this charge might carry more weight. But she's painting a portrait of an entire community and, like it or not, these kinds of people are a major presence in the Hamptons.
   It's not as if the director deliberately ignores the other residents in favor of celebrities and hangers on. Kopple actually does an excellent job profiling people from all walks of life: storeowners, fishermen, even a local police officer, whose retirement from the force is an emotional high point of the series.
   Is there more that could be said about some of these subjects?
   Absolutely.
   There are certain people I felt deserved a greater amount of screen time. For example, an entirely separate documentary could have been made about the waiters who toil away all summer in the area's hip restaurants and clubs. It also would have been fascinating to learn more about the community of painters that call the Hamptons home. But within the time she was allotted, Kopple did the best she could to cover all of the community's disparate groups.
   She also deserves credit for standing up to what I'm sure was tremendous pressure on behalf of ABC and not focusing on some of the more salacious events of that summer, most notably Grubman's infamous car accident and the resulting media circus.
    It would be interesting to know how strong a presence the network actually was in the editing room. For all the attention Kopple pays to the Hamptons as a whole, the party crowd does seem to dominate the screen at times, which may have been the result of ABC exerting its influence.
   Or perhaps there wasn't enough interesting footage to fill four hours and the party sequences are there as padding.
   Certainly, "The Hamptons" is not consistently insightful. Kopple's camera picks up on a number of interesting, if somewhat obvious, themes, such as class differences, the lack of diversity, and the enmity between the summer and year-round residents.
   But she exhausts these ideas after awhile, and by the time the series enters its final hour, Kopple seems to have run out of things to talk about.
   An interesting contrast to "The Hamptons" is Frederick Wiseman's 1999 documentary, "Belfast, Maine," which is also a study of a small town community. Unlike Kopple, Wiseman, who directed the landmark documentaries "High School" and "Titicut Follies, " strictly adhered to verite conventions, even though he detests that word, in making his movie.
    Wiseman simply observes life in Belfast with his camera, never asking questions of his working class subjects or interfering in their routine. The result is a challenging film that would never be shown on network television, but it achieves the mixture of social commentary and poetic realism that Kopple was obviously aiming for.
    "The Hamptons" isn't the failure many would like you to believe, but the experience will hopefully inspire Kopple to return to her verite roots.

-Ethan Alter is a New York writer and a regular contributor to Media Life.

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