01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, August 7, 2005

BY ANDY SMITH
Journal Arts Writer

Early in Cherry Arnold's Buddy, her documentary on former Providence Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr., we hear an audio collage of overlapping voices describing the former mayor:

"Talented. Energetic. Articulate. Aggressive. Bully. Audacious. Arrogant."

One word never used is "boring." And neither is Buddy.

Filmmaker Cherry Arnold succeeds in capturing Cianci's vivid personality in her documentary, which is being shown this week as part of the Rhode Island International Film Festival.

"The mayor's here!" Cianci calls out cheerily as he strides into an art opening. "Where can I buy some expensive art work?"

The mayor is indeed here, with his glib one-liners, his constant cheerleading for Providence, his instinct for the political jugular, his uncanny ability to work a crowd.

As for the darker side of Cianci, that's a little tougher to capture on camera.

But Buddy includes a memorable scene in which Channel 6 talk-show host Truman Taylor attempts to ask Cianci some pointed questions about the FBI's corruption probe, Operation Plunder Dome.

An angry mayor turns on Taylor like a pit bull. Cianci accuses Taylor of inviting him onto the show under false pretenses, and with particular relish points out Channel 6's low ratings.

Arnold's challenge in Buddy is to compress a 30-year political career, and to portray the complicated man behind it, in a film that runs 86 minutes.

To do so, she assembled a vast collection of footage and interviews into a compelling portrait of the colorful and controversial Cianci.

The former mayor, now serving time in federal prison on a criminal conspiracy charge, remains a polarizing figure for many Rhode Islanders.

Arnold does her best to maintain a balanced portrait, and as a result Buddy probably won't entirely satisfy either Cianci's ardent defenders or his detractors.

Of necessity, there is a lot of material left out, with the most glaring omission being Cianci's unsuccessful 1980 run for governor against J. Joseph Garrahy.

But there's still an abundance of juicy material.

Naturally, we hear about the infamous assault case that drove Cianci out of office in 1984.

Buddy shows 1984 footage of a prosecutor standing before a judge and detailing Cianci's brutal attack on Raymond DeLeo, who was supposedly having an affair with Cianci's estranged wife.

The prosecutor tells how Cianci assaulted DeLeo with his fists and feet, and a glass ashtray, a fireplace log and a lit cigarette.

In sharp contrast, there is Cianci's swift, breezy dismissal of the incident in a 2002 interview:

"I had a fight with him, but it wasn't like it was published in the paper, it was way over-publicized and it was sensationalized and all, and I pleaded guilty to an assault charge with a dangerous weapon, which was an ashtray -- threw it at him, didn't hit him with it, and I guess he was offended by that . . . ."

Buddy may be a documentary, but at bottom it is still a movie, and the key to any movie is its memorable scenes.

Here Arnold delivers the goods, from Cianci's grainy TV commercials as an independent, "anti-corruption" candidate in 1974 to his final, testy meeting with the media just before he went to federal prison at Fort Dix, N.J.

Meanwhile, a Greek chorus of journalists, professors, politicians, businessmen, Cianci staffers and citizens all comment on the former mayor, good and bad.

Bert Crenca, artistic director of Providence art/performance space AS220, says the group could never have accomplished what it did without Cianci.

But Dennis Aiken, the FBI agent who led the Operation Plunder Dome investigation, talks about the cost of civic corruption under Cianci: "Did the city look nice? Yes. Did you have faith in your government? No."

What's surprising about Buddy is the poignancy that surfaces.

There are scenes of Cianci working a crowd in 1994, on the very day that his former girlfriend, Wendy Materna, is marrying another man in Barbados.

Everyone, it seems, is asking Cianci about Materna. Cianci has to say, over and over, that she is being married in Barbados. This afternoon.

"Bad move . . . for me," he mutters.

In 2002, just before Cianci is due to begin serving his prison sentence, he has a final, dispirited meeting with city department directors. No one can bring themselves to say goodbye, and the meeting closes with a very awkward silence.

Paul Campbell, one of Cianci's staffers, describes spotting Cianci, sitting alone at a table on a Friday night at the Custom House Tavern in downtown Providence, scribbling something on a piece of paper.

In the end, Buddy portrays a man so consumed by his role as mayor that there is nothing else left.

To feel pity for Buddy Cianci is an unexpected emotion, but that is how you feel walking out of Buddy.

****

Buddy

Rated: No rating.