The film Bright Leaves was an intersting though obviously tainted work in the sense that the filmmaker is obviously quite biased from the begining. There is a lack of objectivity that is made very apparent in the begining when the director learns of an old hollywood movie portraying his great grandfather. What struck me from the begining and what he never seems to be capable of appreciating until the very end when he meets the wife of the author of the book upon which the movie was based is the fact that just because Hollywood made a movie about something, does not make it true.

I found the fact that this came as a great shock to him be...well, very shocking. Hollywood is utterly notorious for dramatizing things that are otherwise not very dramatic and especially for taking liberties with historical facts that would not otherwise make for an entertaining movie. Still, while this is a fault on the part of the filmmaker in the documentary, it's a very human fault to have. He is clearly desperatly attached to this romantic notion of his otherwise virtuous great grandfather who was run out of buisness by a greed and unscrupulous competitor. As non-fiction goes, its very frank and very honest.