Word: iras
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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BEST BOY Directed by Ira Wohl...
...camera that has worked this change in the eye of the viewer belongs to Ira Wohl, a gifted documentary film maker who is also Philly's cousin. His approach during three years of filming was quite unlike the disdainful stare of cinéma verité, although much of what he recorded is bleak. The tone of the film is passionate advocacy, and its real subject is the dignity of love in a family hard-pressed by age and illness. Pearl, Philly's mother, is in her late 70s, and Max, his father, is three years older...
...With Ira and a woman friend, he makes his first trip to the zoo. "See what he does?" says Ira at the monkey cage. "Yeah!" says Philly. They move on to the tigers. "How do you like that?" Philly is excited and happy. "Yeah!" he answers. Back home he chatters happily with his mother about the outing, as a four-year-old child might do. Perception of Philly as a large, awkward child is a way for the viewer to think of him without horror. But he is not a child, and Wohl's film leads onlookers past this...
...Ira suggests that it is time for Philly to move to a residence for retarded adults, and Pearl forlornly agrees. He is there, sparkling with happiness, as the film ends...
That was last July. Pearl died in February, but not before she and Philly saw Ira's movie together...