Faire : An American Renaissance

If you want it straight from the source, here you are.

I didn't know what to expect from my purchase of Faire: An American Renaissance. As a small production, it didn't have a lot of critiques I could read up on. In fact, the only information I could find about the film came in the form of an debate on a Renaissance Faire message board. One board member attacked the movie, the other, apparently a former member of the faire featured in the film, defended it-- using the classic, "you weren't there, man" argument.

Oh well, I figured. It's worth the gamble. I'll bite.

I'm glad I did, because while the film's scope isn't as broad as I'd imagined, it really zeroed in on the experience of living a faire. The focus was on memories and the accounts of former and current participants. I found it an excellent exploration of what faire feels like, and what it means, and perhaps most interestingly, why it is so important.

Faire follows the development of one faire- and its sister faires- in California. Present-day interviews and film clips are interspersed with 70's vintage faire footage. I loved seeing video of the faire in decades past, because other than the grainy film, it could have been shot yesterday. Trends do come and go in the festival world, but nothing as dramatically as the everyday world.

The movie spent a lot of time looking to the past-- not just the historical past, but the history of the faire itself. In the early days, the faire was not for profit, much more focused on history and education, and, to hear the performers tell it, raunchier. It was pretty affecting to hear stories from crafters and performers who had watched their faire change into something unrecognizable, and ultimately, go under. One group bought their own faire, which is now entirely participant-owned. Everyone involved in the film seemed to share the sentiment that faire today is simply not as good as it once was- yet still better than anything else out there.

It seems to me that humans are hardwired to be nostalgic. So, is it true that faire was once better? Or does everything in the past seem somehow more worthwhile? It's sad to think that I've maybe missed the golden age of something I love so much. Or does it merely mean that my imagined memory of it can be more glorious than the truth ever was?
Camelot.