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Incest and cannibalism seem to be the most taboo of taboos. In our
violent society, murder is in the newspapers and on television and movie screens
constantly; adultery earns a yawn. Even incest, though still despised, turns out to be far
more prevalent than was once thought. But cannibalism? Not exactly an everyday occurrence.
The thought of eating human flesh still gives most people deep shivers and, conversely,
holds a morbid fascination. It is just that fascination that David and Laurie Gwen Shapiro
choose to exploit in Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale, their
new documentary biopic about Tobias Schneebaum.
Schneebaum, 78 years old when the film was made, was a promising young
painter in New York in the early 1950s. He had lived for a time in Mexico and worked as a
shipboard cook which took him to Alaska and Asia; Schneebaum has the soul of an
adventurer. Keep the River explores the events of his life and, as well, probes
his motivations through his own words and actions as he participates in the filming. He is
openly gay and was so back in the 1950s when that was so taboo that only the most
courageous were out of the closet. (He was a friend of Norman Mailer, who says in the
film, "Toby was our house homosexual.") Schneebaum, per his own statements, was
"unattractive" and "slept alone for years," and was profoundly unhappy
about that; it was the motivation for his peripatetic ways.
He went to Peru on a Fulbright grant, initially to see Macchu Picchu.
While there, he heard about a native tribe, now known as the Amarakaire, deep in the
Peruvian rain forest, a tribe that had minimal exposure to contemporary civilization.
Ill-equipped and ill-prepared he walked off into the jungle, seeking these primitive
people, journeying to fill the needs of his heart--and his loins. He was accepted by the
tribe and lived as one of them for seven months, including having sexual relations with
the men. In this exotic culture, he was able to leave behind his self-image of being
unattractive and undesirable. "They were so fresh, so alive," he says, "so
interested in me!" It was liberating.
While accompanying a party of Amarakaire hunters, Schneebaum found
himself caught up in a raid on another tribe which resulted in killing and the subsequent
incident of cannibalism. He did participate in the latter, though minimally; the
experience made him understand that he had not, after all, found a refuge. He has been
haunted by the memory ever since.
Schneebaum subsequently sought out primitive tribes in Indonesia. He
lived with and became an expert on the Asmat people and developed loving relationships
there. He drew their artful carvings, creating a record of their art, and he wrote about
them. Later in his life he became a lecturer and tour guide on cruise boats plying the New
Guinea waters. (His apparently genuine sympathy for the Asmat seems contradictory to his
leading a group of videocam-toting tourists into a mass circumcision ceremony, fully aware
of how intrusive they were.)
It is Schneebaum's experience with the Asmat that seems far more
significant than the incident in Peru. The Shapiros are generous with their screen time
for this segment of his life; his reunion with an old lover from the tribe is genuinely
moving. But the Shapiros, with obviously exploitative motivation, structure their entire
film around the moment of cannibalism. (The working title for the film was "Once I
was a Cannibal.") They rearrange the chronology to place that earlier experience at
the end of the film, where it falls quite anticlimactically flat. They scatter throughout
the rest of the film references to the event, teasing the audience with hints of what is
to come. It's as if they didn't at all trust Schneebaum as an interesting subject in and
of himself or their audience to be interested in his life and accomplishments. He
announces openly onscreen, "I'm mad at the film crew. They are forcing me to do
things I do not want to do," in particular, returning to the Amarakaire.
The emotional neediness of Schneebaum's youth has obviously mellowed
with time--and with the love he found in the jungle--but it is clear in the film that he
relishes an audience. Whether in his television appearances or lecturing his tour groups,
he revels in being the center of attention. He is a man of considerable charm, talent, and
intelligence who has led a life rich with adventure. The great irony of Keep the River
on the Right is that the Shapiros play right into the neediness, putting Schneebaum
front and center where he likes to be, but then betray him, condescendingly and
manipulatively making it all turn on one relatively unimportant bite of flesh.
