Roy's World: Barry Gifford's Chicago

Really loved this film. I went in with very little knowledge of Barry Gifford beyond his film collaborations with David Lynch, and left wanting to read all of his stuff. As others have noted, 'Roy's World' operates in a similar space between reality and a sort of dreamworld…

Brett Wright

Imagine a “city symphony” film about Chicago but one consisting entirely of archival footage and animation. Then imagine that footage accompanied by voice-over narration of some of America’s finest actors reading stories about mid-20th century Chicago written by one of…

Michael Glover Smith

One of the year's best documentaries! Can't wait to show this to so many people, even if they don't live in Chicago or know who Gifford is! www.directorsclubpodcast.com/reviews/roynopemedusafire

Jim Laczkowski

This was lovely and atmospheric. I loved, at the end, seeing the photo of the Hollywood Theatre with the marquee Wild At Heart with Barry Gifford.

VJ

pulls off a pretty impressive balancing act documenting a city, childhood, body of work, and time, while refreshingly resisting talking heads and linearity, and accomplishes the rare feat of utilizing animation in a doc in a way that further expresses what's being spoken…

arlin

"If the name Barry Gifford rings a bell to Cine-File readers, it’s likely for his contributions to what you might call 'David’s world': David Lynch, that is. Lynch’s WILD AT HEART (1990) was an adaptation of a Gifford novel, and they co-wrote LOST HIGHWAY (1997) together.…

Scott Pfeiffer

A collage of archive film and photographs and animation overlaid by Barry Gifford's own recollections of his childhood, interspersed by readings from Gifford's stories featuring the (very) autobiographical Roy (as read by Willem Dafoe, Lili Taylor and Matt Dillon). The…

David @ LFF26

Finally watched this and I loved it so much. The archival footage. The jazz. The incredible prose and narration. I felt transported to a place I’ve never been and a time I never lived through. Watched this on Kanopy (the free streaming service from Los Angeles Public…

ericafarglow

A sign that i definitely need to educate myself on documentary form more because I didn’t quite get it until after speaking with the director on his intention to create something that defied the traditional “talking head” structure; what I originally believed was a…

Luke Socie