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FILM COMMENT
March/April 2003
SPLENDOR IN THE MARGINS: PART 1
By Amy Taubin
above: American Splendor
By Amy Taubin
Same as it ever was but more so is a fair description of the Sundance Film Festival in 2003: more movies (thanks to the new World Cinema Documentary section), more subscribers, more stars and starstruck gawkers, more patrons, more parties, more corporate sponsors and hangers-on, more swag, more press, more pr companies, more traffic, more drunken frat boys clogging up the highways and by-ways. Maybe there were fewer studio suits and agents, or maybe they were sulking in their two-thousand-bucks-a-night condos, given that John Sloss, the genuinely indie lawyer/rep/producer/financier, was already in control of most of the noteworthy and/or potentially marketable films. The only element showing a marked decrease was the snow÷almost nonexistent for the entire ten days.
The schizophrenia that has characterized the festival in the post sex, lies, and videotape era was blatantly symbolized in the two events that shut down half of Park Cityās Main Street (Sundanceās version of Cannesās Croisette). In order of appearance, they were Ben Affleck and J.Lo doing some impulse shopping, followed a few days later by an antiwar demonstration organized by Scott Beiben of the Lost Film Festival. While antiwar sentiment ran high among both festival participants and Park City locals (some of the biggest cheers during the closing night award ceremony were for Maggie Gyllenhaal, Tilda Swinton, and Darren Aronofsky, who used the opportunity to get the antiwar message beyond Park City to viewers watching the festivities on Sundance Channel), apparently no one considered the possibility of closing down the festival in protest (à la Cannes in 1968) or accepting his or her award in the name of peace.
The immediate news from Park City is that among the nearly 125 feature-length films, at least a dozen were notable. As a group, the documentaries were more satisfying than the fiction films, but the dramatic competition showcased two inspired formal hybrids: Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulciniās American Splendor and Todd Graffās Camp. The former, a biopic of the underground comic book writer Harvey Pekar, won the Grand Jury Prize and was a favorite of critics and audiences alike. The latter, a musical set in a summer camp for teenagers who are so freaking retro they want to be Broadway stars, was passed over by the jury, largely ignored by the press, but embraced by audiences. (Sundance veterans know better than to trust any of what happens in Park City as an indicator of how a film will fare in a less hysterically acquisitive atmosphere.)
Letās hear it for Cleveland as a breeding ground for tenderly subversive American art. Remember the visual epiphany in the middle of Jim Jarmuschās Stranger Than Paradise, when John Lurie and Richard Edson visit Eszter Balint in the city sometimes known as ćĪthe-mistake-by-the-lakeä? The trio goes sightseeing to Lake Erie, but itās night, the snow is coming down heavily, and all they see is an undifferentiated field of gray÷no water, no sky, no horizon÷the emblem of the filmās hip minimalism and bleak humor. Harvey Pekar also hails from Cleveland, where he worked as a file clerk in a va hospital while writing American Splendor, the comic book series that detailed his daily life. Pekarās work is more homey than hip, garrulous rather than laconic: Jarmusch empties; Pekar clutters. But for both, splendor is found in the margins. Itās this post-Beat mix of depression and wonderment that Berman and Pulcini, who are less than half Pekarās age, capture in their adaptation.
Pekar and his wife, Joyce Brabner, are played by Paul Giamatti and Hope Davis (they deserved the special acting award that went to ubiquitous Patricia Clarkson). Sometimes, however, theyāre replaced by the real Harvey and Joyce, sometimes the actors and the real people hang out on screen together, and the scratchy narrating voice belongs to Pekar alone. Pekar became fascinated with the comic book medium in the mid-Seventies through his friendship with R. Crumb. Because he couldnāt draw, he wrote the captions, dialogue balloons, and outlined the visuals, farming out the drawing to Crumb and various other comic book artists. Thus, there were as many Harvey Pekars as there were artists who depicted him.
Berman and Pulcini, whose previous film was the affable, conventional Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasenās, negotiate the intricate shifts in register and emotional tone without a misstep. What begins as quirky comedy takes a dark turn in the filmās last act, which is based on Our Cancer Year, the novel-length comic that Pekar and Brabner co-wrote about Harveyās battle with lymphoma. At the risk of giving something away, Iāll just say that American Splendor has an amazing ending that finds transcendence in imperfection. What makes the film special throughout is the way its form mirrors its subject matter. On every level, itās a film about unlikely marriages: of documentary and fiction, comedy and pathos, live-action and animation, and, of course, of Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner. And there isnāt a forced moment in any of them.
No less original and sophisticated in concept, but looser and less polished in execution (which is to say its form is exuberantly matched to its subject), Camp is based on its writer/directorās experiences at a summer boot camp for aspiring show-biz kids. Graff honors the talent of his young performers by keeping the musical numbers visually intact, i.e., without the frantic editing that made Chicago so enervating. The plot revolves around an off-kilter romantic triangle: plain but steadfast Ellen and wisecracking but vulnerable Michael are best friends who both fall madly in love with new boy Vlad, whose need to be loved supercedes minor issues of sexual orientation. Vladās narcissism is what makes him a potential star, but itās also as agonizing to him as unrequited love is to Ellen and Michael. Graff reinvents the soapy, tastefully mature musical theater of the Stephen Sondheim era by infusing its songs with the longings and fantasies of adolescence. He cherishes the form (even the way the dialogue sounds in those long exposition scenes that bridge the eruptions of song and dance) the way Todd Haynes cherishes the tropes of the womanās picture. Camp is all about the cathartic joy of performing. Fearlessly wearing its heart on its sleeve, itās the anti-Fame, and I think it has legs.
Of the other competition buzz films leaving Sundance with distribution deals that guarantee their release: Peter Hedgesās Pieces of April is a silly sitcom with a Guess Whoās Coming to Dinner twist; Tom McCarthyās The Station Agent is little more than a three-character, metaphorically burdened off-Broadway play, but Peter Dinklageās understated performance gives it a bit of substance; Catherine Hardwickeās thirteen captures the hysteria of teenage girls, and its depiction of how a good girl can go bad overnight will give parents nightmares, but the script, co-written by Hardwicke and Nikki Reed (who also plays one of the two teen leads), is as overexcited as the girls themselves, and its affirmative ending is unearned.
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Amy Taubin is a contributing editor to Film Comment.
© 2003 Amy Taubin.
