The Disaster Artist (15.)
Directed by James Franco.
Starring James Franco, Dave Franco, Seth Rogen, Ari Graynor, Josh Hutcherson, Jacki Weaver and Zac Efron. 104 mins.
Tommy Wiseau (pronounced Why Zoh, rather than Whiz Oh, as I'd always assumed) is a fantastic movie star name: it starts out Italian American mobster and ends up French intellectual. It suits him because he is the ultimate, all-inclusive Hollywood movie star. Just as Chaka Khan was every woman, he's every movie star: Lon Chaney playing Dracula, Mickey Rourke Before and After; all the Expendables rolled into one; a Christopher Walken impersonation that doesn't know he's an impersonation; a miracle of reinvention who lies about his age and past. He' a follow-your-dreams idealist and possibly a sexual predator: you can't get more Hollywood than that. He is a monster with a pure spirit.
Wiseau's claim to immortality is writing, directing, producing, starring in and paying for The Room, a terrible movie often claimed as the worst ever made, which has become a cross between Plan 9 From Outer Space and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Wiseau is a modern day Ed Wood, but unlike Wood's epics, The Room has proved endlessly watchable, and for over a decade it has played to packed screening where the audiences shout along with the atrocious dialogue and weird line readings and throw around American footballs and plastic spoons. (It gets shown regularly at the Prince Charles Cinema off Leicester Square, though it seems to have made way for previews of this.)
Franco's film tells the story of his co-star Greg Sestero (Franco, D.) who comes to Hollywood with Wiseau (Franco, J.) after meeting in acting class. After getting nowhere Wiseau decides to make his own break by writing and directing a film but during the chaotic shoot, Wiseau's obsessive and possessive nature comes the fore.
The first thing to be said about The Disaster Artist is that it exceptionally entertaining and frequently hilarious. Told by Judd Apatow that not in a million years will he make it in Hollywood, Wiseau asks, “but after that?” It's fun but there's substance to it. We laugh at him but we don't look down at him, even though the film reveals some fairly unpleasant aspects of his personality. The film is packed with star cameos (Bryan Cranston, Sharon Stone, Kristen Bell) and what really makes the film something more than just a good time is its humility. The big names are attracted to the story because deep down they realise how close they are to Wiseau, how random success is even if you do have talent, and how random success is if you don't have talent.
James Franco is an actor who can be anything between woeful and wonderful, but this is his moment. He is helped by some marvellous prosthetics but this is an inspired performance. The only little criticism is that while everybody keeps talking about his unidentifiable Eastern European accent, to me he often sounded a bit Charlie Chan.
The film has a lot to say about the forces that keep driving people to Hollywood to desperately seek success but what I took from it is the detrimental effect method acting has had on the culture. Early on the pair drive out to see the place where James Dean died. Wiseau is a believer in pure emotion, that everything must be about emotion and as long as something is emotional it is good. In acting class he rolls around on the floor because it's emotional, his script is illogical and his behaviour on set is irrational because he is searching after pure emotional expression, and for him that overrides any discipline that acting, writing or directing requires. The theories of Stanislavsky and Adler were full of discipline and craft but gradually that has been whittled away. Now on reality TV nothing more is required of a reality performer than that they can throw a strop on cue, even if that emotional outburst has no clear motivation.
Directed by James Franco.
Starring James Franco, Dave Franco, Seth Rogen, Ari Graynor, Josh Hutcherson, Jacki Weaver and Zac Efron. 104 mins.
Tommy Wiseau (pronounced Why Zoh, rather than Whiz Oh, as I'd always assumed) is a fantastic movie star name: it starts out Italian American mobster and ends up French intellectual. It suits him because he is the ultimate, all-inclusive Hollywood movie star. Just as Chaka Khan was every woman, he's every movie star: Lon Chaney playing Dracula, Mickey Rourke Before and After; all the Expendables rolled into one; a Christopher Walken impersonation that doesn't know he's an impersonation; a miracle of reinvention who lies about his age and past. He' a follow-your-dreams idealist and possibly a sexual predator: you can't get more Hollywood than that. He is a monster with a pure spirit.
Wiseau's claim to immortality is writing, directing, producing, starring in and paying for The Room, a terrible movie often claimed as the worst ever made, which has become a cross between Plan 9 From Outer Space and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Wiseau is a modern day Ed Wood, but unlike Wood's epics, The Room has proved endlessly watchable, and for over a decade it has played to packed screening where the audiences shout along with the atrocious dialogue and weird line readings and throw around American footballs and plastic spoons. (It gets shown regularly at the Prince Charles Cinema off Leicester Square, though it seems to have made way for previews of this.)
Franco's film tells the story of his co-star Greg Sestero (Franco, D.) who comes to Hollywood with Wiseau (Franco, J.) after meeting in acting class. After getting nowhere Wiseau decides to make his own break by writing and directing a film but during the chaotic shoot, Wiseau's obsessive and possessive nature comes the fore.
The first thing to be said about The Disaster Artist is that it exceptionally entertaining and frequently hilarious. Told by Judd Apatow that not in a million years will he make it in Hollywood, Wiseau asks, “but after that?” It's fun but there's substance to it. We laugh at him but we don't look down at him, even though the film reveals some fairly unpleasant aspects of his personality. The film is packed with star cameos (Bryan Cranston, Sharon Stone, Kristen Bell) and what really makes the film something more than just a good time is its humility. The big names are attracted to the story because deep down they realise how close they are to Wiseau, how random success is even if you do have talent, and how random success is if you don't have talent.
James Franco is an actor who can be anything between woeful and wonderful, but this is his moment. He is helped by some marvellous prosthetics but this is an inspired performance. The only little criticism is that while everybody keeps talking about his unidentifiable Eastern European accent, to me he often sounded a bit Charlie Chan.
The film has a lot to say about the forces that keep driving people to Hollywood to desperately seek success but what I took from it is the detrimental effect method acting has had on the culture. Early on the pair drive out to see the place where James Dean died. Wiseau is a believer in pure emotion, that everything must be about emotion and as long as something is emotional it is good. In acting class he rolls around on the floor because it's emotional, his script is illogical and his behaviour on set is irrational because he is searching after pure emotional expression, and for him that overrides any discipline that acting, writing or directing requires. The theories of Stanislavsky and Adler were full of discipline and craft but gradually that has been whittled away. Now on reality TV nothing more is required of a reality performer than that they can throw a strop on cue, even if that emotional outburst has no clear motivation.
