Film critic Phil Hall’s latest book “ The Weirdest Movie Ever Made:The Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot Film” examines the groundbreaking Bigfoot footage from a cinematic perspective. In this case, the subject matter surprisingly isn’t the weirdest part of the story.
Hall details the troubling history of the best Bigfoot evidence put to film to date by detailing how the film was distributed, toured and came to be. Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin’s expedition in Northern California birthed this documentary footage of a large, bipedal creature that moved in a way that baffled professional filmmakers and zoologists. Since the famous footage became national and the international news, Patterson and Gimlin’s lives changed forever.
The book shows how overall interest in the subject of Sasquatch, legalities and ownership surrounding the film really pushed Patterson to be the poster child of the Patterson-Gimlin film, which eventually saw Gimlin’s involvement fade away. If Hollywood was to ever make a fictionalized film about the two pedestrian filmmakers you could picture on on-air power struggle for celebrity in regards to Patterson-Gimlin and the personal promotion.
In addition to talking about how the film was traveled and the rights were acquired and re-acquired throughout the years Hall tries to take a filmmaker’s approach to the film itself in terms of the technical aspects on how it was shot, could it be hoaxed and how, and the cultural impact it had. Other film critics weigh in with their own thoughts and opinions about the film, which shows the documentary footage had an impact outside of just the world of cryptozoology.
If you are looking for a light read that provides historical background on the world’s most famous Bigfoot footage through the lens of the film community this is a book to get weird with.
-By MIKE DAMANTE