Charlie's Proof / 2013

Charlie Smith recalls segregation, working construction and moonshine. But the real subject of this documentary short is the septuagenarian's wry manner of dodging Kevin Jerome Everson's questions. By focusing on the kind of dissembling, familiar speech that a more traditional documentary filmmaker would cut, Everson suggests that the work of portraiture has less to do with getting the facts than taking the long way around the barn. - Max Goldberg