THE SIGHTSEER

by Geoffrey Wolff ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 14, 1973

Alone and darkly loitering on the perimeter of the experience he verities and records with his Bolex, the sightseer is Caleb Sharrow, the disciple of dual masters -- expedience and art. Thus in his first film, The Death Watch, he films his own father's demise and rightly attracts the comment of his twin brother Noel that he would ""blow up the world to film its end."" Noel is truly his better half serving his faith in God and Jesus and his fellow man and declaring himself in a Mississippi commune. And while Noel appears now and then, it is Caleb who is tracked to Turkey where he becomes intermittently engaged with the Turkish Veilah and her ""brother"" -- Veilah who marries and betrays him before he goes off again and is fortunately able to film an earthquake-caused holocaust which takes the life of a city and numberless people. . . Throughout it is difficult to divorce Caleb's ""loving lack of pity"" from his hardly pitiable lack of love and there is not a scintilla of warmth (or the humor of Bad Debts) to catch and hold your interest in this pitchblack, contemporary analogue which one sometimes suspects is no more than an existential rope trick.

Pub Date: Feb. 14, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1973

Categories: FICTION