By way of illustration, David often cited films by directors like Richard Linklater (“Slacker” “Dazed and Confused”), Robert Altman (“Nashville,” “Short Cuts”), Paul Thomas Anderson (“Boogie Nights,” “Magnolia”) and Spike Lee (“Do the Right Thing,” “Summer of Sam”), as well as TV dramas like “The Wire” and “ER” that are organized around communities and institutions. Members of such fictional community are rarely all brought together unless it’s to bear witness to something much greater than any one of them, such as the earthquake at the end of “Short Cuts” or the rain of frogs in “Magnolia.”
Or losing David.
Dozens of trajectories converged at his service last weekend. It happened at Cress Funeral Home in Madison, Wisconsin, not far from the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus where he and Kristin were based—David as a film professor and department head, Kristin as an Honorary Fellowship in the Dept. of Communication Arts. In that room were gathered filmmakers, film critics, historians, programmers, archivists, and former students, with much Venn diagram overlap between categories. They came from all over. There would have been even more, packing an already-full house to bursting, if the Cannes Film Festival hadn’t been happening simultaneously.
“David used his platform and prominence to bring visibility to the work and ideas of others involved in the ecosystem of cinema, including filmmakers, critics, scholars, archivists, and programmers,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison film and media studies professor Eric Hoyt, addressing a room that proved his assertion and then some. “These were acts of generosity and support.”
The word “ecosystem” is key. David was part of it, and helped grow it: globally, nationally, and locally.
The community of Madison-area film professors, students, administrators, and programmers, past and present, was well-represented. “Such a lovely gathering,” James Schamus, Columbia University professor, former studio head (Focus Features), and Oscar-winning screenwriter (of “Brokeback Mountain”), told me afterward. “I’d say one of David’s least heralded accomplishments was the co-creation of a truly collegial academic cohort at Madison; his memorial was rightfully as much a celebration of it as it was [of David] by his colleagues.”