Tonight: David Goodis gets his night back

The restored documentary Retracing the Footsteps of David Goodis screens live, and the man who wrote Dark Passage and Shoot the Piano Player finally gets an audience sitting in the dark with him on purpose.

He died in the same Philadelphia that made him, and the stone over him says BELOVED SON AND BROTHER and nothing else. No mention of the books. No mention of the millions of copies, or the France that still calls him a master. That omission is the reason this film exists, and the screening is the correction.

The project is a useful reminder for documentary video production in New Orleans: a strong film does not just collect interviews. It gives a subject a point of view, a place, and a finished form that can carry the story into the room. Bring your own bourbon.