I AM SECRETLY AN IMPORTANT MAN I don't know if any place is a good place for poets.-- Steven Jesse Bernstein (1950-1991)
In the opening credits to his film about Steven Jesse Bernstein, Peter Sillen paints the darkest portrait of Seattle since Trouble in Mind. While you could make a similar case for Police Beat, Sillen films the Jet City like an Edward Hopper painting. The guy sitting at the counter, nursing a cup of black coffee: Bernstein.
The rest of it doesn't feel as noirish, though artist Susy Schneider recalls how she and Jesse used to shoot guns. Unlike Kurt Cobain, however, he wouldn't turn one against himself (or anyone else). Talking about his work to network anchor--and one-time King County executive candidate--Susan Hutchinson in 1989, however, Bernstein does use the word "dark."
Sillen uses home movie footage to show Jesse typing, reading, and smoking cigarettes. (Towards the end of his life, Bernstein called to ask me to bring a pack to the hospital. I declined, and he let forth a stream of blood-curdling invective. To this day, I don't know how he got my number at KCMU. I later found out he called several colleagues until he found one, Scott, willing to yield to his illicit request.)
Other speakers testify to Bernstein's loyalty, compassion, and unbridled rage, of which I got a small taste. Amongst the interviews, Sillen works in poems via text, readings, and recordings alongside shots of Bernstein's Seattle: neon-lit bars, noisy factories, and brick storefronts.
Visually, the film recalls A.J. Schnack's Cobain documentary, About a Son, except his subject's image is largely absent from that film; here, it's everywhere. Fantagraphics curator Larry Reid notes that the press dubbed Bernstein the godfather of grunge, but Reid more accurately describes him as an orator.
Jesse opened for Big Black and Nirvana, but he was more of a beat poet who played in jazz bands and performed with a stand-up bass player. I met his stepson, Julian, when I was working at Cellophane Square. One day, he told me Bernstein was teaching him to play blues guitar.
Sillen also interviews relatives, like his brother,
Jeff, who looks almost
nothing like him, and
Northwest notables, like
photographer Charles
Peterson, Slim Moon (Kill
Rock Stars), Bruce Pavitt
(Sub Pop), Dave Reisch
(Holy Modal Rounders), and
Steve Fisk, who produced
Prison. They talk about his
need to create, his time in
mental facilities, his problems with drugs and alcohol, and his move from LA.
In the annals of local cinema, I Am Secretly an Important Man doesn't just document a fascinating figure, but gives pride of place to Old Seattle, aligning it closer to Martin Bell's Streetwise than to the work of Alan Rudolph or Robinson Devor.
What comes through most clearly is that no one looked, talked, or wrote quite like Bernstein. If you've heard of him, then you already know how he died, and there's no need to rehash the details (he took his own life). Suffice to say that, as in many of the better profiles, Sillen prioritizes the man's life and work over his demise.
Unfortunately, too many filmmakers, operating under the best of intentions, begin with the untimely death of their subject before working their way backwards (John Walter's How to Draw a Bunny, a portrait of artist Ray Johnson, is one of the few to make a virtue out of this tired trope). The impression is that their film wouldn't exist otherwise. That's morbid.
Despite the darkness inherent in Bernstein's poetry, it was also funny, and he knew how to have a good time--until he didn't. Of everyone, Jeff sums him up best, "In some ways, he was like the guy who goes in and turns up the contrast on everything." This is a short film, and it can't address every issue, but Peter Sillen does something similar: he turns the contrast up on a person worth remembering.
I Am Secretly an Important Man plays the Northwest Film Forum 10/22-28. The NWFF is located at 1515 12th Ave. be- tween Pike and Pine on Capitol Hill. For more information, please click here or call 206-829-7863. Images from Anna Jennings and Arthur S. Aubry (another KCMU alumnus).