3198. Making And Unmaking (2020)

Starring: Shaun Rose, Andrea Stangle, Charles Trainosky

Director: Shaun Rose, Andrea Stangle

Running Time: 62 mins

Making And Unmaking is an American documentary about the making of the film Upstate Story, and the tumultuous years of director Shaun Rose as he strived to complete his film.

It’s easy to look at a film like this and wonder: why would I watch an hour of a man talking about a film he made? Thousands of films are made every year, so what makes this one so special? Well, Making And Unmaking is a documentary that answers that very question in brilliant fashion, providing a powerfully honest look at the creative process in a way that you’ll never see from the biggest Hollywood talents and studios.

If you haven’t seen Upstate Story, it’s a film that’s more than worth your time, and one of the best low-budget films I’ve seen in a very long time. This film, in detailing the making of Upstate Story, takes a frank, emotional and genuinely gripping look at the ups and downs of making movies.

Narrated and fronted by director Shaun Rose, Making And Unmaking offers a vitally important message for anybody out there who wants to achieve their dreams but feels they can’t quite make it. With a brutally candid eye for the difficulties in real life, this film honestly and straightforwardly show us that not everything goes to plan, but hard work and determination are almost always rewarded in the end.

Much of the documentary revolves around Rose’s personal life while his plans for Upstate Story changed dramatically over the course of a few years. Once known under a different name with different characters, actors and more, the long and often exhausting process that Rose and his friends and colleagues went through to get their movie made is spelled out in brilliantly honest detail.

In that, this film offers a far more relatable window into the filmmaking process than any big-budget Hollywood studio could ever offer. Much like Upstate Story, Making And Unmaking is a low-budget production, consisting almost entirely of monologue-esque narration by Rose either directly to camera or over clips from the years of making his film.

However, despite its lower budget, the heart and soul on display in this film is so unique, once again proving that you don’t need millions of dollars to tell a great story, and it’s often in these kinds of circumstances that we see something as original and uniquely honest as Making And Unmaking.

At times, it’s fair to say that this isn’t the most cinematic documentary ever made, with occasionally frustrating inconsistencies in camerawork that sees Rose switch from talking to an ‘interviewer’ to talking directly to the camera, as well as some rather overlong looks back to the behind-the-scenes of Upstate Story.

Compared with Upstate Story, Making And Unmaking isn’t quite as striking a piece of cinema, but there’s no denying the value of the story it tells, and the fact that you just aren’t going to find another documentary like this from mainstream productions. So, while it may have its inconsistencies here and there, Making And Unmaking is a documentary that’s absolutely worth your while, which is why I’m giving it a 7.5 overall.