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Mar. 21st, 2014 12:50 amJulie's reading The Disaster Artist, the book about Tommy ("Oh hi Mark!") Wiseau making The Room, by Greg (Mark) Sestero, after meeting them at one of their Rocky Horroresque Room screenings in Toronto.
It's pretty hilarious. She got me rewatching the movie itself; I think the same think happened this time as when I first saw it - I physically burned out from laughing so hard about halfway through and then became sad at the transparent all-too-humanness of it. How everything occurring reflects some wish or fear, and how claustrophobic that becomes when you're not concentrating on the incompetence and outlandishness. It wouldn't be out of place on a double bill with The Act of Killing.
Julie was reading to me about Wiseau's admiration of A Streetcar Named Desire and Williams in general (!), which reminded me of Vidal's view that what drove Williams was the chance to rewrite his own earlier life, such that his characters are basically always versions of his nuclear family. Vidal remarked that while it meant Williams had around four real characters that he could keep returning to, and that this is a lot for a playwright and responsible for his success, he, Vidal, had like eight and therefore won. In reality Vidal's characters are either cardboard or Vidal, I'm afraid, which is probably why his plays and novels are already so faded.
But Wiseau was definitely trying to rewrite his own life, give it dignity as melodrama or tragedy. And not just the relationship part. There are two scenes where male friends play catch with a football in an alley and then one of them falls down - not his character either time. Or tall, virile Mark. It might just be further incompetence but The Room makes you realize how actively most films try to equalize heights not just when one actor's quite short but when one's tall. Mark and the drug dealer tower. He gets to tackle and humiliate both of them, though, and be admirable in various other ways - look, all the shopkeepers like him! But of course he's betrayed by Mark, by everyone. (Except the righteous party crasher, of course.) As various Lynch movies teach us, the anguish you're trying to suppress through fantasizing tends to invade that fantasy if you let it play too long. What's on your mind stays on your mind in Cloudcuckooland.
Julie says Sestero gave him the idea for The Room by taking him to see The Talented Mister Ripley, where Matt Damon reminded him of Wiseau - he doesn't say this but presumably Jude law reminded him of himself. Making Wiseau see it may have been a gentle way of explaining that he was afraid Wiseau might murder him some fine homoerotic day. Which, in a way, he did. Julie says Sestero looks clinically depressed. His career dream is gone. What he is in show business will always be directly connected to Wiseau and his terrible movie.
Which is also in the running for most entertaining ever made. Until you want to kill yourself. Only time I can recall the "laughing to stop yourself from crying" cliche feeling applicable.
It's pretty hilarious. She got me rewatching the movie itself; I think the same think happened this time as when I first saw it - I physically burned out from laughing so hard about halfway through and then became sad at the transparent all-too-humanness of it. How everything occurring reflects some wish or fear, and how claustrophobic that becomes when you're not concentrating on the incompetence and outlandishness. It wouldn't be out of place on a double bill with The Act of Killing.
Julie was reading to me about Wiseau's admiration of A Streetcar Named Desire and Williams in general (!), which reminded me of Vidal's view that what drove Williams was the chance to rewrite his own earlier life, such that his characters are basically always versions of his nuclear family. Vidal remarked that while it meant Williams had around four real characters that he could keep returning to, and that this is a lot for a playwright and responsible for his success, he, Vidal, had like eight and therefore won. In reality Vidal's characters are either cardboard or Vidal, I'm afraid, which is probably why his plays and novels are already so faded.
But Wiseau was definitely trying to rewrite his own life, give it dignity as melodrama or tragedy. And not just the relationship part. There are two scenes where male friends play catch with a football in an alley and then one of them falls down - not his character either time. Or tall, virile Mark. It might just be further incompetence but The Room makes you realize how actively most films try to equalize heights not just when one actor's quite short but when one's tall. Mark and the drug dealer tower. He gets to tackle and humiliate both of them, though, and be admirable in various other ways - look, all the shopkeepers like him! But of course he's betrayed by Mark, by everyone. (Except the righteous party crasher, of course.) As various Lynch movies teach us, the anguish you're trying to suppress through fantasizing tends to invade that fantasy if you let it play too long. What's on your mind stays on your mind in Cloudcuckooland.
Julie says Sestero gave him the idea for The Room by taking him to see The Talented Mister Ripley, where Matt Damon reminded him of Wiseau - he doesn't say this but presumably Jude law reminded him of himself. Making Wiseau see it may have been a gentle way of explaining that he was afraid Wiseau might murder him some fine homoerotic day. Which, in a way, he did. Julie says Sestero looks clinically depressed. His career dream is gone. What he is in show business will always be directly connected to Wiseau and his terrible movie.
Which is also in the running for most entertaining ever made. Until you want to kill yourself. Only time I can recall the "laughing to stop yourself from crying" cliche feeling applicable.
