Digital technology would seem to have rendered obsolete those old role-playing fantasy games like Dungeons & Dragons in which a bunch of players, often in costume, would use odd-shaped dice, their imaginations, and not much else to create a Tolkien-like epic of heroism and strife.
But for Stefan Pokorny, subject of Josh Bishop’s energetic, occasionally hallucinatory documentary, “The Dwarvenaut,’’ D&D was a way of life -- and a way of making a living. A trained artist, he had fallen in love with the game as a kid growing up in Brooklyn in a tough neighborhood. After a difficult period of adjustment after graduating from art school he was able to combine his artistry with his gaming obsession and started Dwarve Forge, a small company crafting miniature dungeons and other meticulously rendered tiny architecture, creating an imaginary world of wizards and dwarfs and other personae, figures as elaborately carved as netsuke. Selling his game pieces at gaming conventions, he eked out enough money to survive.
But when the popularity of communal gatherings of D&D obsessives playing their game in basements declined, replaced by the solipsism of computer games, Pokorny grew worried. So he adjusted, turning the Internet to his own purposes through Kickstarter. He began raising money — $6.4 million and counting — to create his ultimate project: the realm of Mythras and the city of Valoria.
Since the world being shared in “The Dwarvenaut’’ is a figment of Pokorny’s imagination, it is fitting that Bishop include his subject in every frame. Pokorny’s exuberant, articulate voice-over is ubiquitous, drawing one into his unique point of view as he riffs about his aspirations, his creative process, his business savvy, his life story, and his heavy drinking. “The Dwarvenaut’’ is available on VOD.
www.dwarvenaut.com.
Campaign cut-ups
IFC has announced the lineup of documentaries to be lampooned on “Documentary Now!’’ the spoof series that begins its second season on September 14. Once again it stars Bill Hader, Fred Armisen, and Seth Meyers and is hosted by Helen Mirren. That’s correct, Oscar-winning Dame Helen Mirren.
This being an election year the show includes “The Bunker,’’ an episode that is a spin on Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker’s “The War Room’’ (1993), which covered Bill Clinton’s run for the White House in 1992. Good luck to them coming up with anything wackier than what has transpired already in the current election cycle.
www.ifc.com/schedule
‘Zero’ hero?
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman had shorted Herbalife stock (i.e., bet on it losing value), accusing the company of being a Ponzi scheme. He claimed it lured in sales staff with promises of big paychecks, when in fact they seldom broke even, paid not for the products — which they had bought in advance — but for each sucker they lured into working for the company. Herbalife, Ackman contended, exploited its employees, in effect stealing their money.
But perhaps of more interest to him, the company was financially untenable and bound to fail. Ackman bet against the stock, expecting it to fail, thus making billions for himself.
That was the plan. But as Ted Braun’s documentary “Betting on Zero’’ points out, things got complicated. Other billionaires put off by Ackman joined the fray, the courts have gotten involved, the press has feasted on the story, and who will be the ultimate winner remains unresolved. But it’s not likely it will be the poor losers lured in by Herbalife’s promises.
“Betting on Zero’’ will be screened by newportFILM on Thursday at 8:10 p.m. on the Ochre Court Lawn, Salve Regina University, 100 Ochre Point Ave., Newport, RI. The event is free and open to the public.
https://www.newportfilm.com/film-events/films/betting-zero
Auteur! Auteur!
Published in 1966, “Hitchcock/Truffaut,’’ a book of interviews with Alfred Hitchcock conducted by François Truffaut, marked a dividing line between the era of the old studio system and the rise of new maverick filmmakers. Truffaut, one of the progenitors of the French New Wave and an adoring acolyte of Hitchcock, elicited from the master his insights and rules underlying a filmmaking philosophy that left nothing to chance, meticulously planned each shot, and regarded actors as “cattle.’’ Thus enlightened, Truffaut went on to add to an oeuvre that violated pretty much every rule that Hitchcock proposed.
Critic and film historian Kent Jones’s documentary “Hitchcock/Truffaut’’ includes snippets from the actual 1962 interviews, clips from some of the films discussed, such as “Psycho’’ (1960) and “Vertigo’’ (1958), and commentary from various filmmakers on how the book influenced their careers. Among these directors are Wes Anderson, Olivier Assayas, Peter Bogdanovich, David Fincher, Richard Linklater, Martin Scorsese, and Paul Schrader. (What, no Brian De Palma?) Both book and the film are invaluable resources for appreciating, understanding, and, if you are so inclined, making films.
“Hitchcock/Truffaut’’ debuts on HBO on Aug. 8 at 9 p.m.
www.hbo
Peter Keough can be reached at petervkeough@gmail.com.
