'Dreams of a Life'

• SXSW Film

  Daily reviews and interviews

• The Dissolution of the First Family of Football

  BY MARK FAGAN

• Fab Four Restored

  BY RICHARD WHITTAKER

• Killin' It

  BY MARC SAVLOV

• What's Yours Is Mine

  BY MARC SAVLOV

• 'Beware of Mr. Baker'

  BY MARJORIE BAUMGARTEN

• 'Charles Bradley: Soul of America'

  BY AMY SMITH

• 'Fat Kid Rules the World'

  BY MELANIE HAUPT

• 'Keyhole'

  BY ANDY CAMPBELL

• 'God Bless America'

  BY MARJORIE BAUMGARTEN

• 'Dollhouse'

  BY MARC SAVLOV

• 'Compliance'

  BY MARJORIE BAUMGARTEN

• 'Black Pond'

  BY MONICA RIESE

• 'Dreams of a Life'

  BY WAYNE ALAN BRENNER

• 'The Comedy'

  BY ASHLEY MORENO

• 'Beast'

  BY JOE O'CONNELL

• Music Video Competition

  BY KATE X MESSER

• 'Thale'

  BY RICHARD WHITTAKER

Dreams of a Life

As shown in Carol Morley's documentary Dreams of a Life, Joyce Carol Vincent – a young and attractive woman who preferred, it seems, to conform her life to the shape of others' – died alone in a cheap London bed-sitter where her corpse wasn't discovered until three years later – TV set still going. Morley's diverse methods of restaging this real-life arc as a film are a joy to behold, with an effective array of illustrative gambits shifting or fading into one another in engaging sequence, in rhythms that are as smooth and compelling as the R&B songs Vincent used to sing. The potential of powerful communication in service of biography is achieved with such cinematic precision and grace – no missteps, nothing unintentionally jarring or clunky, no pandering or mawkishness – that we can only hope for a similar memorial for ourselves and those we love.

Saturday, March 17, 1:30pm, Alamo Ritz