Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles (1999)

One of the most enigmatic artists of the 20th century, writer, composer and wanderer Paul Bowles (1910-1999) is profiled by a filmmaker who has been obsessed with his genius since age nineteen. Set against the dramatic landscape of North Africa, the mystery of Bowles (famed author of The Sheltering Sky) begins to unravel in Jennifer Baichwal's poetic and moving LET IT COME DOWN: THE LIFE OF PAUL BOWLES. Rare, candid interviews with the reclusive Bowles--at home in Tangier, as well as in New York during an extraordinary final reunion with Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs--are intercut with conflicting views of his supporters and detractors. At the time in his mid-eighties, Bowles speaks with unprecedented candor about his work, his controversial private life and his relationships with Gertrude Stein, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, the Beats, and his wife and fellow author Jane Bowles. This Edition features more exclusive footage of Bowles' last meeting with Burroughs and Ginsberg

Superficial, Standard Stuff, but the Swan Song of a Generation of Writers.

"Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles" was the first feature documentary by Canadian filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal. It is an amateurish and low-budget production that doesn't begin to approach the quality of Baichwal's later work. But this film was made 1994-1998 and became a sort of elegy to its subjects, especially to American expatriate writer Paul Bowles, who died in 1999. Baichwal was a fan of Bowles' writing in her youth and became personally acquainted with him in the 1980s. Here, she tries to capture some of the motivation behind Bowles' life and work through interviews with Bowles and those who knew him, including William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and the Hon. David Herbert, all deceased before the film was completed.

"Let It Come Down" takes a scattershot approach to Paul Bowles' life, and the interviews with him are reminiscent of many others that I've read. Bowles talks about his New England childhood, his youthful sojourn in Paris with Gertrude Stein, his career as a composer, his marriage to Jane, his delight in always being the "foreigner" among people unlike himself, international rule in Tangier after the War, and his writing, among other topics. We don't see Bowles' darker side or how selfish and cruel he could be. Like many of his admirers -and I consider myself a fan- Baichwal focuses on the exotic and mythic aspects of his life and character. This is not a probing or complete portrait of the man, but a film for his fans that reinforces the enigmatic expatriate persona that they conferred him.

Paul Bowles was 87 when he was interviewed for this film, and one difficulty in making a documentary about an elderly person is that nearly everyone who knew him in his productive years is dead. "Let It Come Down" interviews about a dozen people who knew Bowles at various stages of his life. One interesting tidbit is Jane Bowles' lover "Cherifa", who appears on film for the first time. Another is a reunion of Bowles, William Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg filmed in 1995 at New York's Mayfair Hotel, while Bowles was in town for a retrospective of his music. "Let It Come Down" almost entirely lacks context for its subjects and, therefore, is best viewed as a companion piece to the many books by and about Paul Bowles. It's nice to see how sharp the man was at the end of his life.

The DVD (Zeitgeist 2003): There are some Additional Scenes (25 min) that are worthwhile if you're a fan. There are 5 additional interviews with Paul Bowles, 2 additional conversations between Bowles, Burroughs, and Ginsberg in New York, and a brief scene with Burroughs. The scenes are listed in that order, by title, in case you can't figure out what they contain. There is a "Making-Of Essay" (text) by Jennifer Baichwal, in which she talks about her history with Bowles, making the film, and Bowles' reaction to it. There are Filmmaker Bios (text) of Baichwal and husband and cinematographer Nick de Pencier. January 1, 2008

Informative, imaginative intro to engimatic Paul Bowles

Filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal's Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles (1998), winner of the International Emmy Award for Best Documentary, explores the life and works of one of the most enigmatic artists of the twentieth century: composer, author, translator, expatriate, and iconoclast Paul Bowles (1910-1999).

Against the backdrop of exotic North Africa, the enigma of Bowles begins to unravel in this imaginatively-made film. Interviews with the reclusive Bowles, who speaks with a mixture of candor and secrecy, about his work and controversial private life, are intercut with the conflicting views of his critics and supporters. Highlights of the film include exclusive footage of the last meeting of Bowles, William Burroughs (Naked Lunch) and Allen Ginsberg (Howl) in New York in 1995; a scene of Bowles translating Moroccan storyteller Mohammed Mrabet; the first and only film appearance of his wife Jane's lover Cherifa, who is rumored to have poisoned her to death; a look at Bowles's work as a composer; and readings of his mysterious and poetic work accompanied by striking, and apt, visuals.

Bowles was the quintessential iconoclast. He left the United States in the 1940s after building a career as an important modern composer, to immerse himself in the culture of North Africa. A writer's writer, his associations span the elite cultural circles of the last century. At twenty, he was an intimate of Gertrude Stein and Aaron Copland; at thirty the peer of Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote and Gore Vidal; at forty, literary godfather to Beat writers Burroughs, Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac. (All of those artists were gay, lesbian, or bi, although the film identifies only a few as such.) His unorthodox marriage to novelist and playwright Jane Bowles - both were gay and had significant relationships with others throughout their 35-year marriage - is legendary. Together they formed the magnet which drew many writers and artists to the exotic freedoms of Morocco before its independence in 1956. After Jane's death in 1973, Bowles continued to be the destination for "pilgrimages" of a steady stream of international admirers, including filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal and Owsley Brown (his excellent documentary Night Waltz: The Music of Paul Bowles, complements this film), who captured different aspects of Bowles in his final years.

Let It Come Down (the title borrowed from his second novel) is structured around Bowles's wide-ranging monologue shot over several days, primarily in 1996, with various voices breaking in to comment, dispute and to try to clarify. Chief among these is his long-time friend William Burroughs, who acts as the primary commentator on Bowles's version of his life. At one point, Burroughs wryly comments that Bowles's autobiography, Without Stopping, "should be called Without Telling... because he doesn't tell anything... Nothing about his sex life. Nothing... That's very New England."

As Jennifer Baichwal wrote in her essay on the film (included on the DVD), "He tells you only as much as you need to know and then lets you find the rest." Her association with Bowles dates back to her early twenties when she ran away to Morocco, drawn by his dark, hypnotic prose. Subsequent visits deepened their friendship. Her film is also a strikingly impressionistic vision of Morocco, as reflected in Bowles's writings. She and cinematographer Nick de Pencier capture breathtaking footage of his adopted country, from the twisted medinas of Tangier and Fez to the surreal beauty of the desert, which serve as visceral metaphors for Bowles's interior world. There is something absolutely right about pairing actor Tom McCamus's (The Sweet Hereafter) reading of a passage from Bowles's best-known novel, The Sheltering Sky, with an abstract desert landscape at night: The sky a deep cobalt blue, with just a thin stretch of shifting sand beneath.

Towards the end of the film, we begin to learn more about Bowles's gay identity, including his passionate affair - which one friends calls "the great love of his life" - with Ahmed Yacoubi, a Moroccan artist who had the endearing habit of playing his flute for 10 minutes to a just-finished painting "to blow life into it." It is a rare treat to see home movies of a much younger, and joyous, Bowles (from the 1950s) cavorting with Ahmed.

In addition to providing the outline of Bowles's life and works and showing us his world, the film shrewdly leaves much unsaid. It lets Bowles's body, face, and intonations reveal - especially in the fascinating unedited sequences included in the DVD's Special Features section - as much about the man as what he says. It never tries to pin Bowles down, which of course is impossible. Intead it allows this enigmatic artist to remain as elusive as his enduring works. October 31, 2003

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