. . . and cannily underplayed by the director.
Stan Kann's a talented theater organist, but that's not the reason to see this documentary.
See it, to find out how to show strangers, intimately, the arc of a person's public life (his private life is left private).
Watch it, to understand how to combine interviews and live shots and period "stock-footage" to tell a story rooted in time and place, with quiet humor and understated grace.
What I mean to say is, given Mr. Kann's love of things that blow (pipe organs) and things that suck (vacuum cleaners), it would've been easy to go for fatuous and stupid jokes.
This documentary is remarkable for the way the director gets out of the way, and just lets Stan and friends and stock footage tell the story.
The only part of this documentary that begins to drag slow, is toward the end, when at his birthday party is read out most of the Mayor of Saint Louis's Proclamation of "Stan Kann" day. I've watched this kind of thing happen for other people, and I can't imagine why the director left it in, except that Stan Kann bears the tedium of it very well, and keeps his face happy and composed, like an eager Terrier.
A story worth the time, even if you don't care about theater organs or vacuum cleaners, so long as you care about how to tell a story.
Stan Kann's a talented theater organist, but that's not the reason to see this documentary.
See it, to find out how to show strangers, intimately, the arc of a person's public life (his private life is left private).
Watch it, to understand how to combine interviews and live shots and period "stock-footage" to tell a story rooted in time and place, with quiet humor and understated grace.
What I mean to say is, given Mr. Kann's love of things that blow (pipe organs) and things that suck (vacuum cleaners), it would've been easy to go for fatuous and stupid jokes.
This documentary is remarkable for the way the director gets out of the way, and just lets Stan and friends and stock footage tell the story.
The only part of this documentary that begins to drag slow, is toward the end, when at his birthday party is read out most of the Mayor of Saint Louis's Proclamation of "Stan Kann" day. I've watched this kind of thing happen for other people, and I can't imagine why the director left it in, except that Stan Kann bears the tedium of it very well, and keeps his face happy and composed, like an eager Terrier.
A story worth the time, even if you don't care about theater organs or vacuum cleaners, so long as you care about how to tell a story.