WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY ALEXANDER OLCH

PRODUCED BY SUSAN MEISELAS • USA • 2008 • 82 MINS. • THE FILM DESK

“Critics Pick. A mind-bending autobiography by proxy.”
– S. James Snyder, Time Out New York

“CRITICS’ PICK! Uses meditative, obsessive narration layered over dreamy footage to create a portrait that transcends vanity,
instead becoming a love letter to fading memory and the passage of time.”
– New York magazine

“Both a near uncategorizable feat of experimental documentary filmmaking
and a gorgeously constructed emotional portrait of a man grappling with the deepest of artistic and personal issues.”
– Scott Macaulay, Filmmaker magazine

“The most moving documentary of the year … beautiful and heartbreaking” – Anthem Magazine

“Extraordinary.” – William Johnson, Film Quarterly

“A stirring autobiography-by-proxy culled from 200 hours of footage… an act of memory preservation and facilitation whose eloquence,
largely free of pat analysis, captures the messy, paradoxical emotions that often remain irreconcilable to the grave.”
– Nick Schager, Slant Magazine

Richard P. Rogers (1943-2001) was a NYC baby boomer, born to privilege: a Harvard-educated WASP who became a first-rate independent filmmaker (QUARRY and ELEPHANTS both opened at Film Forum in the ’70s) and a gifted film teacher. But he was also a tortured, neurotic soul who freely admitted to being jealous of Steven Spielberg and simultaneously ashamed of the impulse. Torn between narrow class loyalties and broader professional goals and political values, Rogers found the time to juggle multiple relationships with the skill of a world-class Lothario, but was unable to complete an autobiographical film he had worked on for 25 years. His former student Alexander Olch collages a trove of material, including extraordinary scenes of Rogers’s mink-coated Gorgon-mom, and fictional sequences with Wallace Shawn as Dick. THE WINDMILL MOVIE is a heady, fascinating brew that brings together one man’s parentage, culture, education, and ambition — letting the chips fall where they may.

• Official Site
• Listen to our podcast: Q & A with producer SUSAN MEISELAS & filmmaker ALEXANDER OLCH (Recorded, June 17, 2009)
• Click here for information on the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s tribute to Richard Rogers on June 16
• Click here to read an article about the making of THE WINDMILL MOVIE in The New York Times
• Click here to read an article on the film from Harvard Magazine

THE WINDMILL MOVIE Film Poster Designed by Alexander Olch. Available online at at concession $25 plus tax & shipping

PLUS QUARRY Directed by Richard P. Rogers USA • 1970 • 12 MINS. FILMSOURCE INFORMATION