DRIVER 23
Dir. Rolf Belgum, 1998
USA, 72 min.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 – 7:30PM
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 13 – 5PM
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23 – 10PM
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 28 – 10PM

THE ATLAS MOTH
Dir. Rolf Belgum, 2001
USA, 72 min.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 – 10PM
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9 – 10PM
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 13 – 7:30PM
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 – 7:30PM

A true-life This Is Spinal Tap, Rolf Belgum’s two-film verite opus documents musician/deliveryman Dan Cleveland as he attempts to take his fourth-rate “progressive metal” band Dark Horse out of his cluttered Minneapolis basement and into the limelight. Filmed over seven years and only occasionally venturing outside Cleveland’s house, these two documentaries offer a portrayal of obsessive determination undaunted by terrible decisions, harsh reality and repeated failure. Cleveland has a severe form of obsessive-compulsive disorder which he treats with extreme doses of Zoloft and Prozac, and as we watch him strive for glory, his delusions of grandeur appear alternately psychotic, moronic, misguided and yet ultimately inspiring. He remains valiantly if obliviously steadfast as we witness his marriage crumble, his bandmates quit, his talent questioned, and his ill-conceived schemes – such as a horrifyingly dangerous rope-and-cinderblock pulley system designed to move heavy musical equipment – fail miserably. But despite every possible setback, Cleveland constructs the makeshift “Jury Rig” Recording Studio in his basement and ultimately completes, after nearly a decade, Dark Horse’s debut CD “Guts Before Glory.” Taken together, Belgum’s films, made for under $700, deserve to be placed alongside American Movie as a classic portrait of quixotic ambition gone awry.