Denizens of the Roaring 20s

‘BLOODY NOSE, EMPTY POCKETS’ IS A BEER-SOAKED GENRE BENDER

BY JOE NOLAN, FILM CRITIC

The Ross Brothers’ Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets pictures the patrons of a Las Vegas cocktail lounge on the last night before the dive closes for good. Co-directors Bill Ross IV and Turner Ross acted as camera operators from the bar’s 11 a.m. opening to its last last call in the wee hours, capturing all the laughter, dancing, arguing, falling, slurring, crying, hope and sadness in-between.

But that’s not the whole story.

The Roaring 20s bar is actually located in the Terrytown suburban neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana. A quick online search for the spot turns-up four star Yelp ratings, a working phone number and a bright green “Open” status in its Google business listing. The Ross Brothers invited a number of barflies they’d met around New Orleans to appear in their film the day after Donald Trump was elected in 2016. The cast of non-actors was simply told to come to the Roaring 20s to celebrate the very last night at their favorite watering hole. The directors and their cast spend nearly the entire film in the bar with exteriors exteriors in Las Vegas to round-out the fiction.

The filmmakers actually hadn’t thought of their movie as a documentary until they were approached about screening in the non-fiction category by programmers at this year’s Sundance Festival. And even though the bar-closing narrative is a filmic fib, the Ross Brothers capture real people, portraying themselves in real time, and the real-life humanity they put on screen eclipses the pieced-together particulars of their premise. Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets recalls experimental documentaries like Casting JonBenet, Framing John Delorean, and even The Beaver Trilogy in its blending of fact and fiction. Purists attack films like these, but these projects’ irreverent and inventive takes on truelife filmmaking are some of the most fascinating cinema being put on screens right now.

“When I was young I left my home and went away, to Vegas.” The strains of Buck Owens’ “Big in Vegas” opens the film, accompanying an image of a homeless man named Michael crossing the street to the Roaring 20s. He rests his head on the bar while the bartender pours his breakfast. “The best part of waking up is bourbon in your cup,” chimes the barkeep who asks Michael “Did you sleep last night?” before the scene cuts to Michael shaving in the bar’s bathroom. He stashes a bag of belongings and a small stack of library books in a quiet corner of the bar.

The Ross brothers use chapter titles to organize vignettes of characters interacting: “We hold these truths to be self evident,” “It was fun while it lasted,” “As the sun went down and the music did” play” etc. The directors mix their closeups with the bar’s CCTV footage as well as impressionistic exterior drive-by sequences which transform Vegas’ nocturnal cityscape into a colorful wash of storefronts, streetlights, and illuminated signage.

Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets is about a bar, and alcohol culture, but it’s mostly about people at the margins of society who escape the realities of the outside world in the air conditioned darkness of a lounge, in a jukebox song, in a lively conversation, and at the bottom of a glass. The denizens of the Roaring 20s include senior citizens, single mothers, singing bartenders, a black drag queen, military veterans, laborers and artists, loving lushes and mean drunks.

“When nobody else don’t want your ass you can come here,” remarks one customer who also confides to losing many friends in an unspecified war, and tears up at the indifference veterans face at home. But when the plinkety-plink strains of a music box version of “America the Beautiful” wind down at the end of the film the Ross Brothers leave their audience and their cast of castaways with the question, “Where to now?”

Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets opens for streaming at Belcourt Virtual Cinema on Friday, July 24. Purchase your 48 hour rental at https://www. altavod.com/content/bloody-nose-empty-pockets-belcourt

Joe Nolan is a critic, columnist and performing singer/ songwriter based in East Nashville. Find out more about his projects at www.joenolan.com.