Where There's a 'Wall' There's a Way: Bill Stone On The Epic Journey Of Making 'Triumph of the Wall'
In 2001, filmmaker Bill Stone set out to make a documentary about the construction of a stone wall. But like many documentaries, this initial intention morphed as that stone wall took it's sweet time being built. The builder -- Chris Overing -- had set out to complete the structure in eight weeks, but eight years later he was still at it and Stone was still filming him. In the meantime, though, Stone's film had gone from being simply about the construction of wall to becoming a rather epic (and at times both meditative and hilarious) look at the process of constructing both projects and personal identity and the journeys we take to get there. Indiewire spoke to Stone about the film, which some 13 years after he started filming opens Friday at the Quad Cinema in New York City. How did you get into filmmaking? And how did that lead up to...
- 5/30/2013
- by Peter Knegt
- Indiewire
"I'm not really sure what the focus of the film is anymore," Bill Stone states early in Triumph of the Wall, a documentary unlike any you'll come across this year. Charmingly self-deprecating, director Stone—who explains that he was neither knowledgeable about nor interested in stone walls, the film's topic, when he began production—isn't a loony genius or totally inept, though he comes across as both in equal measure. Stone opens with Chris Overing, a stonemason building a 1,000-foot stone wall in rural Quebec; he initially romanticizes Overing's task with a Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance-esque emphasis on mindfulness, but Overing, uninterested in philosophizing, turns out to be a guy who's just frustrated with his laborious work. The point-counter...
- 5/30/2013
- Village Voice
Like many documentaries, Bill Stone’s Triumph of the Wall began its life as one thing and transformed into something else. Initially Stone sought to document the construction of a 1,000 foot dry-stone wall by Chris Overing, a young man with an impressively diverse resume that lacked one necessary skill for the project: masonry. Overing estimated the project would take two months and Stone decided to chronicle Overing’s effort. The filmmaker had at the time “a vague idea of the film exploring commitment.” But Overing underestimated a bit: eight years later he was still constructing the wall and Stone was still …...
- 5/28/2013
- by David Licata
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
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