Uncovering Wolfen

Since DVDs, with all their bonus materials, began their triumphal rise in the 1990s, longer and shorter documentaries about films and their making have become ubiquitous. However, most of them primarily serve marketing purposes and remain correspondingly superficial. Works like »Hearts of Darkness« (1991), this magnificent documentary about the making of Francis Ford Coppola’s »Apocalypse Now« (1979), still remain rare. With »Uncovering Wolfen«, Stewart Buck has now created a new gem among film-historical documentaries. Extensive, always in-depth interviews with producer Rupert Hitzig, novelist Whitley Strieber, and actors such as Diane Venora and Tom Noonan come together to form a fascinating panorama of the shooting and postproduction of Michael Wadleigh’s »Wolfen«. At the same time, Buck firmly situates the creation of this milestone of horror cinema within the social and political conditions of the late 1970s and early 1980s. In this way, his film also becomes an impressive portrait of New York during a period of extreme societal upheaval.