Outside of the funeral process, the obsession with death that many Americans tend to have is never more obvious than in our movies and in our news media. That those dying of diseases and tragedies get far more coverage than the cures and the solutions that could have saved them is frustrating, and could lead to more social pessimism. And pessimism breeds murder, and murder breeds notoriety, and notoriety makes for great cinematic subject matter.
So we’ve come full circle, as the emotionally challenging film Blue Caprice, inspired by the 2002 Beltway Sniper attacks, has been picked up by Sundance Selects, which makes sense seeing as how the Sundance festival was where the film received all of its positive feedback. Though a nationwide release, limited or wide, is not mentioned, the film will open the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Arts’ 2013 New Directors/New Films Festival on March 20.
Blue Caprice is the feature debut for director Alexandre Moors, as well as screenwriter R. F. I. Porto. It stars Isaiah Washington (Grey’s Anatomy) as the dangerous brainwashing father figure John Allen Muhammad who mentors the abandoned Jamaican Lee Boyd Malvo (General Hospital’s Tequan Richmond) as they make their terror-filled journey from state to state. It also stars Tim Blake Nelson (Lincoln, Joey Lauren Adams (United States of Tara), and Leo Fitzpatrick (The Wire).
"Alexandre Moors has made one of the most distinct and haunting American independent films of the year, featuring unforgettable performances by Isaiah Washington and Tequan Richmond," said Jonathan Sehring, president of Sundance Selects and IFC Films.
Taken from the point of view of the killers, the film will no doubt do some heavy editorializing, forcing audiences to hate themselves as they side with Muhammad’s words. Sounds like I’m already assimilated, doesn’t it?
