Quintessential Directors: Barry Jenkins
A brief look at two Barry Jenkins films that have established him as one of the greatest filmmakers of our time.

Documentary about the spectacular but little known Viking ship burial find in 1874 at Nordfjordeid, Norway.
A brief look at two Barry Jenkins films that have established him as one of the greatest filmmakers of our time.
The film is a documentary focusing on heavy metal in the late 80s and tackles topics like drug addiction, alcoholism, sex, masculinity, and of course, rock and roll. However, this didn’t feel like any documentary I’ve ever seen before.
I suppose you could argue that the story wasn’t what Director James Cameron was aiming for, it was the visuals. The spectacle of it all was the point, and it certainly shows.
Perhaps the most amazing and groundbreaking quality about The Birdcage is how removed it is from both illness and insensitivity. Whereas films preceding it were often somber stories about the tribulations of being gay in a conservatively straight world, Nichols and screenwriter Elaine May expose the fallacies of conservatism as traditional values are thrown into a more open-minded space. They don’t care how far the community has fallen so much as how high they can rebuild themselves.
We are constantly being pushed to move on from mishaps and negative feelings. What happens if we're not ready to do so?