The Rainbow Man/John 3:16

Two frightening realities of modern American life--empty celebrity and blind fanaticism--have kept Sam Green's 1997 portrait of Rollen Frederick Stewart surprisingly fresh and relevant. A nondescript, sad-sack fellow who gained notoriety in the '70s by appearing at sporting events in an eye-catching multicolored Afro wig and cavorting for the television cameras, Stewart eventually became addicted to end-of-days television preachers, and started adding religious references to his costume--most notably his favorite verse from the Gospel of John--and producers stopped filming him. Desperate to get his message out, Stewart concocted a crackpot hostage scheme in 1992 designed to secure him TV time, but wound up with a long jail sentence instead. Green, who later went on to make the Oscar-nominated The Weather Underground, tells this misfit's story with almost equal degrees of irony and compassion, expertly knitting together newsreel and additional footage with excerpts from an interview with the incarcerated Stewart. The Rainbow Man/John 3:16 is at once a sympathetic portrait of a troubled man and an incisive commentary on the modern culture of fame. DVD extras include three of Green's shorts: "Pie Fight '69," featuring recently-discovered footage of an anarchic protest at the San Francisco Film Festival; a “making-of” documentary about Ladies and Gentlemen: The Fabulous Stains, the unreleased 1982 punk musical drama that's now become a cult flick; and "N Judah 5:30," an impressionistic portrait of a train ride. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)