In this episode, I speak with filmmaker and journalist Toby Perl Freilich about why some subjects demand the documentary form. Freilich contrasts writing's breadth with film's "shallow medium that packs a punch," arguing that moving images—especially archival footage—can create an unusually immediate kind of understanding.
Our discussion centers on Freilich's feature documentary Maintenance Artist, centered on Mierle Laderman Ukeles—best known as the long-time artist-in-residence for the New York City Department of Sanitation. That movie, along with several others, are featured as part of the Portland Jewish Film Festival later this month.
We explore the subject of the film and her radical insistence that "maintenance labor" is both essential and worthy of dignity. Freilich and I also discuss Ukeles's institutional critiques (including her famous "mummy/vitrine" intervention at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art), her reframing of "invisible" work, and the film's Jewish ethical undercurrent (tzelem Elohim and a values-based Jewish imagination rather than "ritual-object" Judaism). Finally, my guest offers a rare window into craft: the years-long fundraising, the editorial architecture shaped with her editor Anne Alvergue, and the deliberate design choices that keep the film visually "clean" while dealing with the aesthetics and politics of waste.
Enjoy my conversation with Toby Perl Freilich.
The Genesis: Conversations About Jewish Arts and Culture is conceived of and created by Rabbi Josh Rose, and is a program of Art/Lab: Jewish Arts and Culture. Theme music by Rabbi Josh Rose.
Links
Art/Lab: Innovating Jewish Arts and Culture: https://artlabpdx.org
Maintanance Artist, film website: https://www.maintenanceartist.com
Portland Jewish Film Festival (at OJMCHE): https://www.ojmche.org/events/portland-jewish-film-festival/sting
Mierle Laderman Ukeles and the Art of Work - at the New Yorker Magazine.
