Author: The J.T. Leroy Story (15.)
Directed by Jeff Feuerzeig.
Featuring Laura Albert, Bruce Benderson, Dennis Cooper, Asia Argento, Panio Gianopoulos, Winona Ryder and Ira Silverberg. 100 mins
J.T. Leroy did a terrible thing, the worst thing you can do in 21st Century society – she upset celebrities. She did this by being an author who made stuff up, and in so doing invalidating their supportive, heartfelt, emotional guff. Laura Albert, an overweight American girl in her late twenties created the persona of 13 year old, drug addicted, son of a prostitute, gender confused kid, called J.T. Leroy, who spent his time at truck stops while mummy made some money.
As a documentary about an unreliable narrator, Author takes an unusual step – it lets the unreliable narrator tell her own story. This is further confused by the fact that the person telling us this story doesn't bear much resemblance to the person she is in the story. The Laura Albert we see telling us the story to camera (and we see her a lot, nobody else gets much screen time) resembles a Goth rock groupie delivering a kiss and tell memoir.
It's quite a tale to keep track of. Feeling suicidal she phones a child helpline and invents a persona, initially called Terminator, to express her feelings. Soon she starts writing and becomes celebrated as a great author – her books are like Last Exit to Brooklyn written as a misery memoir. At first she chose to be the reclusive author, but as she gets more famous and more celebrities are drawn towards her work she gets her boyfriend’s sister to don a blonde wig and pose as J.T. while she puts on an English accent to become his manager, Speedy.
It's a remarkable tale that questions the validity of Misery Lit, of biographical writing and explores how image is more important than talent in today's publishing world. The story plays out on answering machine messages. Everybody tape recorded everything – it was like the Nixon White House. A lot of the film features cassettes winding away in the background; these are the only authentication the film offers for its story.
It is all fairly squalid in places. All the way through you are wondering if you have missed something. How did she get so messed up? The reason is kept for a Rosebud style reveal at the very end, which is crass but ultimately moving and sad. That the film is entirely subjective is a problem but maybe not that big of one. The irony is that lost in the whole scandal is that Albert must be a phenomenally gifted writer to have been able to write outside of her experience so credibly – much more so than if she had simply recorded her life.
Directed by Jeff Feuerzeig.
Featuring Laura Albert, Bruce Benderson, Dennis Cooper, Asia Argento, Panio Gianopoulos, Winona Ryder and Ira Silverberg. 100 mins
J.T. Leroy did a terrible thing, the worst thing you can do in 21st Century society – she upset celebrities. She did this by being an author who made stuff up, and in so doing invalidating their supportive, heartfelt, emotional guff. Laura Albert, an overweight American girl in her late twenties created the persona of 13 year old, drug addicted, son of a prostitute, gender confused kid, called J.T. Leroy, who spent his time at truck stops while mummy made some money.
As a documentary about an unreliable narrator, Author takes an unusual step – it lets the unreliable narrator tell her own story. This is further confused by the fact that the person telling us this story doesn't bear much resemblance to the person she is in the story. The Laura Albert we see telling us the story to camera (and we see her a lot, nobody else gets much screen time) resembles a Goth rock groupie delivering a kiss and tell memoir.
It's quite a tale to keep track of. Feeling suicidal she phones a child helpline and invents a persona, initially called Terminator, to express her feelings. Soon she starts writing and becomes celebrated as a great author – her books are like Last Exit to Brooklyn written as a misery memoir. At first she chose to be the reclusive author, but as she gets more famous and more celebrities are drawn towards her work she gets her boyfriend’s sister to don a blonde wig and pose as J.T. while she puts on an English accent to become his manager, Speedy.
It's a remarkable tale that questions the validity of Misery Lit, of biographical writing and explores how image is more important than talent in today's publishing world. The story plays out on answering machine messages. Everybody tape recorded everything – it was like the Nixon White House. A lot of the film features cassettes winding away in the background; these are the only authentication the film offers for its story.
It is all fairly squalid in places. All the way through you are wondering if you have missed something. How did she get so messed up? The reason is kept for a Rosebud style reveal at the very end, which is crass but ultimately moving and sad. That the film is entirely subjective is a problem but maybe not that big of one. The irony is that lost in the whole scandal is that Albert must be a phenomenally gifted writer to have been able to write outside of her experience so credibly – much more so than if she had simply recorded her life.
