A SEARING EXPLORATION OF FAILURE—PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL—THROUGH THE LENS OF DOCUMENTARY FILM AND THE PRISM OF SELF

In Failure Is the Only Subject, we encounter David Shields—memoirist, novelist, and filmmaker—undergoing psychoanalysis in the aftermath of divorce and in the throes of an addictive new relationship. Struggling to piece his life back together, Shields watches (and rewatches) documentaries about human disappointment by such groundbreaking directors as Werner Herzog, Errol Morris, Ross McElwee, Kitty Green, Adam Curtis, and Michael Winterbottom. 

Contemplating the filmmakers’ choices, Shields asks painful questions about his life, any life, life itself. What happens when the mask falls off and we come face-to-face with the abyss within? Is there a way to bear such harrowing knowledge—about ourselves and the world? Renowned for his discomfiting candor, Shields is at his best here: unsparing in his scrutiny.