Melody Gilbert has always considered herself a global citizen of sorts, having worked in television and film everywhere from Wisconsin to Romania. But in 2001, her sportswriter husband Mark Wollemann landed a job at the Star Tribune, and the couple settled down in Minneapolis. That was when her work as a documentary filmmaker started to assume Midwestern tones. Projects such as Married at the Mall [of America] and A Life Without Pain are anchored by Minnesota characters, and her latest, Urban Explorers: Into The Darkness, was inspired by her nights out with a group of local rogues who navigate underground drains and abandoned buildings for sport. The film features an indigenous soundtrack as well, with excellent tunes from such favorites as The Owls, Dave Salmela, and Kid Dakota. Beyond the Minnesota streak, though, what truly unites Gilbert’s work is an interest in members of fringe societies, and in “humanizing the outsiders,” as she said in a phone interview. And what if she herself were banished to the fringes—the very outer, uninhabited edges of society—say, The Rake’s desert isle? Which books, CDs, and DVDs would she require to hold up?
1. Dark Days—an incredible documentary, available on DVD, by Marc Singer. It’s about a group of homeless people who lived under the Amtrak train station in New York City. Singer documented a handful of troubled, endearing people with a humbling ability to survive and create their own subterranean society that—for better or worse—mimics the above-ground world. I could learn a few things from them while I’m stranded.
2. Fargo, because I would need to remember where I came from. And it makes me laugh … every time!
3. Carole King’s Tapestry, because if I’m stranded on an island, it’s “Too Late Baby.”
4. Candide, because I better get optimistic about where I am. As Voltaire writes, “All is for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds.”
5. History of Art by Anthony Janson. This is the textbook you get in college Art History 101. It gives written and visual meaning to the captivating story of what artists have tried to express—and why—for more than thirty thousand years. I could sit on my island and ponder this for years to come.
Urban Explorers: Into The Darkness premieres at Walker Art Center on March 16 & 17; for more information, call 612-375-7600 or visit www.urbanexplorersfilm.com or www.walkerart.org
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