16mm at Anthology Film Archives (introduction by Andrew Lampert who in the mid-‘00s preserved Manupelli and Lucier’s collaborations)
A series of Norm Macdonald jokes shot on gorgeous, insanely saturated reversal 16.
There is a non-zero chance that no one will ever see this film again—what a shame it is that this has never reached greater circulation. According to Lampert, who had extended contact with both the star and the director, Manupelli was quite the character. In fact, in 2008 when the Dr. Chicago movies were being shown for the first time in almost 40 years, he failed to show up to his own Q&A, and then for another screening, showed up completely high out of his mind, cackling throughout the show. He also evidently had a darker side since he was known to have burned or thrown out much of his art—Dr. Chicago Goes to Sweden is completely lost to history because he unspooled its reels out the window of his car as he drove home from its first showing.
Manupelli’s personality is imprinted on Cry Dr. Chicago: it’s manic. It has things to say, but it couldn’t care less if it really communicated anything in particular. It’s equal parts hilarious and off-putting. Much of its comedy is through the simple endurance of a gag. A lot of it doesn’t land at all.
But Manupelli was also a man of extraordinary prescience—it’s evident within and without the film. Within, we see Dr. Chicago’s voracious hankering for buying up prisons, a striking portrait of the avarice fueling the 1980s era of prison privatization. And yet, this film came out back in 1971, years before full privatization was a twinkle in America’s demented eye (and coincidentally 1971 is the same year Nixon gave his famous war on drugs/“public enemy number one” speech that triggered a wave of increased incarceration).
Then outside the film, Manupelli started the Ann Arbor Film Festival in 1963, the fourth-oldest film festival in North America, and the oldest experimental film festival. The festival continues on to this day and maintains its relevance within independent cinema.
So what’s interesting to me, then, is that this dude doesn’t have a Wikipedia page! What’s a man gotta do for a page!
I think I might be rambling at this point, but it suits the film, so it’s alright. Anyways, my point is that Manupelli seemed to be prone to both contemplative thought and hysterics. And consequently Cry Dr. Chicago embodies that annoying type of person, maybe a family friend you vaguely know, who’s always spieling long-winded rubbish that many years later you think back on and go, “Huh, some of that was kinda beautiful.”
Note: I, too, would bet the villa on Sheila.