Filmed in 1974 and edited and released in 1983 (and then rereleased by its director in 2005), DEAD PEOPLE purports to document the final years of Frank Butler, a local fixture in the depressed burg of Ellicot City with a particular fondness for drink and tales of the dead. Over hazy 16mm footage two decades later, Deutsch adopted a painfully unsentimental view of his early approach, colored as it was by notions of ethnographic film and an undercurrent of fetishism for a man he considered somehow more "alive" than himself. While it chafes against notions of authenticity in documentary and incisively hints at the complicity of the subject in inventing his own history, DEAD PEOPLE simultaneously oozes nostalgia, transcending its own judgment as a gauzy memorial for the man Deutsch once called a friend.
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Not streaming anywhere
Not on any streaming service in United States, and not available to rent.
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Cast
4 people
Roger Deutsch Director
United States release January 1, 1983 · Produced in United States
Production
United States
Produced in
Languages
Original language
English
Spoken on screen
English
Release dates
United States · January 1, 1983
Theatrical
United States
November 1, 1995 · Premiere · Collective For Living Cinema
February 6, 2004 · Premiere · San Francisco Art Institute Film and Video Festival
September 26, 2004 · Premiere · Cinematexas
February 1, 2005 · Premiere · Annapolis Reel Cinema Festival
August 25, 2005 · Premiere · Chicago Underground Film Festival
September 1, 2005 · Premiere · The International Experimental Cinema Exposition
April 8, 2006 · Premiere · Full Frame Film Festival
France
November 1, 2004 · Premiere · Rencontres Internationales de Cinéma à Paris
Italy
October 1, 2003
United Kingdom
October 7, 2004 · Premiere · Raindance Film Festival
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Some details come from TheTVDB.