Sassy, iconoclastic, and never-married, Los Angeles filmmaker Susan Mogul rides shotgun with ex-lovers, almost lovers, and her Dad, in a road movie turned inside out. Conversations with each driving man - pornographer, tuba player, TV critic, long haul truck driver, and more - are catalysts to reflect upon the past and comment about the present.
The point of departure for her journey is a car accident when Mogul lost her first love in 1969. This tragedy haunts the film. Yet, as this multi-layered story about her relationships unfold, it is clear that Mogul’s loss, at the age of twenty, was the inspiration for her long time love affair with the camera.
Raucous anecdotes about her contentious relationship with Dad, the protagonist, and, her provocative video art from the past, are woven through this episodic and experimental film. The pieces of Mogul’s life accumulate and merge into the tale of a woman who, at the age of 58, comes to terms with her father, and, to her amazement finds love and intimacy in the course of filming Driving Men.
“Mogul looks at the men in her life, starting with her tragic first love and ending with a road trip with a new boyfriend forty years later. The often funny video tackles sex, desire, loss, family and the twisted threads of identity, as Mogul ponders being single and fifty. As with all her work, though, Driving Men is very much about a woman with a video camera…Mogul does this with insight, humor and a willingness to stand naked-literally and metaphorically - so that rather than merely being a diary, Driving Men is finally about the challenge of crafting a life.” - LA WEEKLY
“Brash and funny and sexy and a bit wistfully intense. Mogul’s men, lovers or friends or relatives, are a wild bunch. From the tragically lost Larry, to Ed the porn prince, to Ray, who had met his father in San Quentin and vanished, to Eric, the handsome aloof older man, to the charming blues freak Ron…I loved the collage of Jewish identity and feminism, intellectual ponderings and let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may sexuality. It’s a great way to (not) write a memoir.” - Lucy Lippard, Writer and Activist
“Driving Men presents middle class Jewish families expectations in a clash with a generation of feminist/artists/activists who now, over fifty, are re-evaluating their choices. The film is unique in its subject and speaks to the unconscious hopes and fears of a boomer generation. Brilliant!” - Janis Plotkin, Former Director, San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
“Driving Men teeters charmingly between art-house cinema and Hollywood flick, all the while provoking questions about the slippery nature of identity, memory and subjectivity…This sense of seeking ripples through the hilarity, heartbreak, and homecomings that constitute the events of Driving Men and fluidly stitches questions about the shifting constructs of woman and man, identity and truth, into a poignant love story.” - ARTFORUM
"Utterly original and constantly surprising. Driving Men is impregnated with an honesty that has vanished from today's films. Loss and identity have been treated many times in cinema, but rarely like this.” - Walter Salles, Director, Central Station and Motorcycle Diaries