It's difficult for me to imagine a trilogy that more consistently and unabashedly makes me happy than Hal Hartley's Long Island trilogy. Now, technically, it's not really a trilogy in the classic sense, other than the fact that all the stories occur in Long Island. Last night I began a re-watch (well, yet another re-watch) of the trilogy, beginning with The Unbelievable Truth. It stars Robert Burke as Josh and Adrienne Shelly, in her film debut, as Audry. It's a classic Hartley film, full of quirky malcontents, clever dialogue (often repeated), smalltime crooks, unexpected music/dance numbers, its own sense of timing and logic, and essential truth. Burke and Shelly are great, and it made me both happy and sad because I recently saw him in Hartley's latest, Where to Land, and I'm reminded of her tragic passing (murdered, just as her own directing career was kicking off). It featured bit pieces by Hartley regulars such Edie Falco (long before the Sopranos), Bill Sage, Christopher Cook, and Mark Bailey (providing one of his guitar solos). Falco and Sage were both in Where to Land. I think he made the movie for $75,000, which shows what you accomplish with intelligence and creativity. Whenever I see some absurdly overblown CGI-generated "blockbuster," I just think about how many brilliant little gems like The Unbelievable Truth are not being made. Even now, decades later, Hartley, long a darling of critics and movie-lovers, has to crowd source funding (and I always invest). I can't recommend The Unbelievable Truth (and almost any Hartley film) too highly. All my my Hal Hartley DVDs will be making their way to Sicily.
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