Fans of the 1992 documentary Visions Of Light should appreciate seeing one of the stars of that film, cinematographer Haskell Wexler, getting a documentary all to himself, directed by his son Mark. But while Tell Them Who You Are does delve into cinema's philosophies, it also documents a son's troubled relationship with a prickly celebrity father. Toward the beginning of the movie, Mark shoots Haskell's star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame as it's sculpted and filled in, and he leads with a flurry of testimonials from the likes of Sidney Poitier, Billy Crystal, and Ron Howard (who confesses that he and his American Graffiti castmates were more impressed by Wexler than by George Lucas). But Tell Them Who You Are quickly shifts from jovial tribute to cinéma vérité, as the elder Wexler hijacks the film and urges his son to make it more like Medium Cool.
Haskell wants Mark to ask questions about his sloppy parenting, libertine ways, and radical politics. Mark isn't opposed to hearing his father open up, but the two have different ideas about filmmaking. The younger Wexler prefers talking-head interviews, voiceovers, and explanations. His dad says documentaries shouldn't be "show and tell," and tries to get Mark to abandon his journalistic objectivity and mix it up with him, shooting scenes rather than monologues. In one of Tell Them Who You Are's central sequences, the father and son bicker over whether to catch a sunset's light from a hotel balcony, or from just inside the window. The two-time Oscar winner gives his kid a lecture on image vs. content, all while maneuvering to get the best possible lighting.
Tell Them Who You Are is indulgent by design, and the elder Wexler may be right about his son's aesthetic failings. The film follows the blueprint of other "search" documentaries like My Architect and Divan, telling the audience exactly what's going through the filmmaker's head, with little ambiguity. But Haskell is wrong in thinking that a movie about his talents is inherently inferior to a movie about what an asshole he can be. As touching as it is to see Haskell visit Mark's mom, now in the Alzheimer's wing of a nursing home, Tell Them Who You Are needs more sequences like the interviews with Michael Douglas and Milos Forman, who fired Haskell from One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest because they couldn't stand his petty mutinies. As Wexler insists that he was let go because of pressure from the FBI, a different model for Tell Them Who You Are emerges, one in which Haskell's delusions of grandeur, personal weaknesses, and professional gifts prove inextricable.