We Live in Public 2009

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: We Live in Public looks at one man's experiments with issues of privacy. Read more

John Hartl, Seattle Times: We Live in Public is the kind of nonfiction film that seems to have been conceived to prove that truth is stranger than almost any fiction... Read more

Noel Murray, AV Club: On that count, Timoner is correct: Harris is unduly obscure. But was what he accomplished really all that great? Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Midway through We Live in Public, one Quiet participant delivers the hard social lesson of cyberspace: "The more you get to know everyone, the more alone you become." Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: If anything, the film is a reflection of the Web zeitgeist, where observation comes easily but insight is rare. What saves the documentary from becoming a complete frustration is the sheer, stunning prescience of Harris. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: A snapshot of several New York eras that coincide with the Internet's growing pains. Read more

V.A. Musetto, New York Post: There must be a reason why, after all these year, Timoner chose to make a movie about Harris. If you figure it out, please let me know. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: This is a remarkable film about a strange and prophetic man. What does it tell us? Did living a virtual life destroy him? Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Harris, who appears throughout in interview footage, is an interesting mix -- someone with a serious inability to connect with other people and yet at the same time someone with a consistent ability to see the future. Read more

David Fear, Time Out: Using archival material and footage Timoner herself shot over the previous ten years, We Live in Public would be fascinating by virtue of its subject alone. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: The big question is whether we're now living in a more pragmatic time. Read more

Rob Nelson, Variety: Like Timoner's DIG!, this astounding new docu burrows into the thin and darkly funny spaces between artistry and vanity, isolation and community, collaboration and exploitation, sanity and madness. Read more

Nick Pinkerton, Village Voice: What is disturbing is not Harris's self-absorbed insistence that his own emotional hobbling somehow reflects an overarching social-technological pattern, but, instead, Timoner's uncritical cinematic collusion. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: Josh Harris focuses the lens on himself. You probably have never heard of him. And when the film is over, you may wish you still hadn't. Read more