Dead People
1983•18m•9.0•Released
Documentary
Filmed in 1974 and edited and released in 1983 (and then rereleased by its director in 2005), DEAD PEOPLE purports to document the final years of Frank Butler, a local fixture in the depressed burg of Ellicot City with a particular fondness for drink and tales of the dead. Over hazy 16mm footage two decades later, Deutsch adopted a painfully unsentimental view of his early approach, colored as it was by notions of ethnographic film and an undercurrent of fetishism for a man he considered somehow more "alive" than himself. While it chafes against notions of authenticity in documentary and incisively hints at the complicity of the subject in inventing his own history, DEAD PEOPLE simultaneously oozes nostalgia, transcending its own judgment as a gauzy memorial for the man Deutsch once called a friend.
Director
Roger Deutsch
Writer
Roger Deutsch
Languages
English
Cast
Frank J. Butler
Himself
Production
Producer
Roger Deutsch
Recommended
8
Joker: Put on a Happy Face
2020
7
Extremis
2016
6.2
Seduced and Abandoned
2013
7.2
Black Sheep
2018
7.7
Being James Bond
2021
6.2
Aquaman: Heroines of Atlantis
2019
7.8
Lionel Messi: Destiny
2023
8.7
Iron Maiden: Burning Ambition
2026
7
Directed by John Ford
1971
5.9
Trainwreck: The Real Project X
2025
7.8
Interstellar: Nolan's Odyssey
2014
7.5
The Show Must Go On: The Queen + Adam Lambert Story
2019
6.8
Looking for Richard
1996
7.9
John Candy: I Like Me
2025
7.4
The Walking Dead: The Return
2024
6.8
Spider-Man: All Roads Lead to No Way Home
2022
7.1
The Class of ‘92
2013
7.5
McQueen
2018
7.2
180° South
2010
7.2
Avatar: The Deep Dive - A Special Edition of 20/20
2022
Similar Movies
Η Ακρόπολη σε... τροχούς
1981
8
H.P. Lovecraft - Ipotesi di un viaggio in Italia
2004
Joseph Cornell: Worlds in a Box
1991
9
Cindy Sherman: Nobody's Here But Me
1994
Return of the Desert Bighorn
2018
How the Telephone Talks
1919
Vellberg
1974
Heimat in der Fremde?
1982
6
Où sont-elles donc ?
1983
6
L'Envers des choses
1983
Mafia
1964
6.5
Ask Me, Don't Tell Me
1961
5.2
Shake Hands with Danger
1980
6.6
30 Years of Garbage: The Garbage Pail Kids Story
2017
Manzanar
1972
6.3
Mermaids
2017
9
The Road Forward
2017
Toy
1984
5.6
Steal This Film
2006
The Invasion of the Arab Armies - May 1948
1973