[The 90’s raw: Soloways, Julie Wilson, Brady, Brady belt]

Camera original footage shot for The 90's. This video spends the majority of its time at a theater preparing for a production of the play adaptation of The Brady Bunch, where the filmmaker speaks with the directors and actors. Most of the rest of the tape concerns the filmmaker, Blumberg, speaking with a woman, Julie Wilson, about nostalgia and the 90s for the show he is taping for (The 90s).

0:00Copy video clip URL Open on a black screen, sounds that seem to come from inside a car filter in.

0:07Copy video clip URL Blumberg pays for a taxi and then gives some background as to what he’s working on (a segment on aging for a TV show called The 90s on public television)

2:07Copy video clip URL Blumberg goes to an apartment to talk with Faith and Jill Soloway. They are directors for the play adaptation of the Brady Bunch that is currently touring in New York but was based originally in Chicago at the Annoyance Theater. They begin talking about their age while walking to their theater saying they feel young and that they haven’t changed over time, “I feel like the same girl I was at 12…I feel the same as when I was 20.” They talk about how the play adaptation of the Brady Bunch came into being, saying they watched the show on TV in Junior High and High School with the expectations that this was what life was like. They also comment about what they find funny about Brady Bunch, “what we find funny are actually shams,” drawing attention to the constructedness and triteness of the TV show and as a result their play. The sisters begin talking about their generation and how it is defined as being after the Baby Boomers (Yuppies) but before the MTV generation they reference an author who has defined them as Generation X, the Lost Generation.

20:00Copy video clip URL The camera enters their theater to build props for their show that evening and they begin talking about their early life. They perform a cheesy song that they had composed when they were children and then improvise another song about the 90s.

27:15Copy video clip URL Blumberg cuts between several shots and settles on a shot from the back of a taxi cab of a Russian man speaking about age with Blumberg. He seems to communicate a similar sentiment as the girls, that nothing really changes, “At 50, I feel like 30.”

29:10Copy video clip URL We return to the theater hosting the Brady Bunch and Blumberg talks with the Soloways again. They talk about living in the entertainment industry, “The thing is to keep playing, I don’t want to start working.”

33:19Copy video clip URL The camera moves outside, a woman enters the shot and introduces herself as Julie Wilson, someone part of an anti-nostalgia piece for Blumberg and she chats with Jill Soloway about the show. Blumberg defines his show, the 90s, as real people deconstructing the TV stereotypes that both women seem to have a problem with. Jill Soloway goes on to communicate something she wishes she knew as a child, “When a lot of people believe something, [that] doesn’t make it true.”

43:48Copy video clip URL Jill Soloway leaves the shot to go back inside the theater to work and Wilson walks with Blumberg to get some food. On the way they chat about nostalgia to which Wilson has some rather strong feelings against it, “Nostalgia can keep people from living in the present…I think it creates an artificial fellow feeling…it helps us to relate to each other but it’s not necessarily true.” They talk about the stagnation of art, culture, and politics and Blumberg comments “20 years ago there was a new great musician every week…there was a new #1 hit every day.” They get food from Dean&Deluca and talk about consumer culture and appearances not matching up to reality, which Wilson seems to take serious issue with. Wilson continues on this path of counter-culture critique of society, “I think people should not resist getting older,” and returns to the subject of nostalgia about which she says, “There’s gonna be a perpetual childhood,” through nostalgia of classic rock, Brady Bunch, etc.

1:06:12Copy video clip URL Cut away to various shots of the city and then we return to a dress rehearsal of the Brady Bunch.

1:31:11Copy video clip URL The characters of Alice and Greg Brady perform a few takes of one of their scenes for the camera. Blumberg goes on to talk to a few of the actors about their characters and the show as a whole. He spends quite some time with Susan Messing, the actor who plays Carol Brady, talking about different epochs of human history, “the 70s was the decade of me, me, me” and how the 90s is the era of social responsibility for the mistakes of the 70s.

1:53:10Copy video clip URL Cut to outside the theater where one of the actresses performs a few takes of the cheer she performs in the play. The camera returns inside where it takes the name and role of most of the actors.

2:04:00Copy video clip URL Video ends.