The SmarK DVD Rant for American Splendor
“Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff.”
Not every comic book hero is super, and not every comic book is about men in tights and vaguely homoerotic groups saving the world from crazed madmen.
Take, for instance, the strange tale of Harvey Pekar, a file clerk from Cleveland who became the unlikely star of a hit series of underground comics in the 60s and 70s called American Splendor. I first found out about Harvey through the documentary “Comic Book Confidential” in the 80s, and from his bizarre appearances on Letterman. If ever there was an unlikely candidate for celebrity, it’s him.
And yet here we are, with a movie about the comic book that is based on his life.
Huh.
The Film
Not quite a documentary, but far from a glossy Hollywood-ized biopic, American Splendor is a very much in-your-face telling of the life story of Harvey Pekar. I know that “in your face” is one of those buzzwords that people hate to the point of self-parody, but this is a very unpretentious movie, and yet a strangely captivating one at the same time.
Paul Giamatti plays Harvey, who seems completely incapable of being happy and has an endless stream of opinions on what exactly is wrong with the world, but only expressed in the form of the small. Harvey isn’t the kind of guy to complain about the government — hell, he works for them. His problems never extend past the old Jewish woman in front of him at the supermarket, or people wanting to buy his GOOD jazz records. Plus the usual human tragedies — loneliness, depression, horniness. Not necessarily in that order.
Then one day, after talking with longtime friend (and emerging underground star) Robert Crumb, Harvey decides to write a comic book about his own life and experience. Crumb himself is the subject of a fascinating documentary (called “Crumb”, oddly enough) that shows what kind of messed up people really inhabited that scene in the 60s. Anyway, Harvey can’t draw worth shit, so he makes stick figures to represent the people in the panels, and Crumb (and later other artists) handled the drawing duties, interpreting things as they saw fit. The comics become a hit with the comic world, but as is often the case, being relatively famous doesn’t translate to having enough money to live on your talents. It does, however, attract the attentions of Joyce Brabner, a fan from Delaware who has the uncanny ability to diagnose any social disorder just by meeting the person. She is perhaps the only person able to see through his gruff exterior and find whatever is beneath the surface. In Harvey’s case, more gruffness and misery. He’s not a happy guy. With some people (like myself), venting the frustrations of everyday life through writing is a wonderful way to relieve annoyance at life in general, but Harvey seems to feed off misery, generating a field of it around himself and then complaining how lousy his life is. It’s a weird way to live your life, but he’s still around in real life, and still trying to deal with his own celebrity, having finally retired from his job.
The most interesting aspect of his life, however, is probably his appearances on Late Night With David Letterman in the 80s, as he was booked to plug the comic in an “exchanging pleasantries” segment, but his no-bullshit attitude somehow turned him into a sensation on the show and kept him coming back (strictly for the money, he assures us in the movie) until turmoil in his life led to him crashing and burning and crossing the line one time too many on live TV. Of course, he wrote a comic book about the experience.
The movie itself is a strange hybrid of comic books and movies, as it’s narrated by the real Pekar, and some scene transitions feature the real people hanging out with the actors in a staged behind-the-scenes segment. At one point, the Pekar character goes to a play based on his comics, so you get one actor playing Pekar watching another actor playing Pekar while the real Pekar narrates. It’s a strange dynamic, but it works because the casting is so great. Giamatti nails the stone-faced Harvey, and Hope Davis transforms herself into his geeky wife Joyce. The result is almost like watching a documentary.
Harvey even presents quite the inspiring story (focused on the negative via his comics, of course), as he develops testicular cancer later in life and pulls through it, then finally finds some semblance of a normal family life when he and Joyce adopt his artist’s daughter, and Harvey is almost happy for once.
The essential weirdness and strangely compelling nature of the movie is best summed up by a dream sequence late in the movie, as Harvey is battling cancer, where he stops to wonder about the continued life of his character in the comics after he dies. Will the Harvey in the comics keep going? Is he defined by his comic book existence, or is it the other way around? Soon after, he goes onto a tangent about the existence of multiple Harvey Pekars in the Cleveland phone book. “Who are these people,” he wonders with the kind of deep thought usually reserved for more meaningful social discussions about famine and war, “and where do they come from?” Hey, it’s important to HIM.
And that’s the truly charming thing about the person and the character — he’s a guy entirely without pretensions, too obsessive-compulsive and steeped in his own misery to understand the kind of interesting character he really is, able to express in comics the everyday questions about life that most of us make but are unable to put into words. He’s not a likely candidate for a sympathetic hero, but there he is, take him or leave him. And this is a truly great movie as a result of him. It’s hard to sum up WHY I was so compelled and engrossed by the almost defiantly-humdrum story of a file clerk who becomes mildly famous, but I was, and this was one of my favorite movies of the year as a result.
The Video
Hard to say what was intended by this transfer, actually. There’s a lot of grain and grit, but that’s pretty much par for the course with this movie. The movie was actually shot with a combination of digital and 35mm stock, so things vary between sharp and soft at times. It seems, overall, to be very faithful to the source material, however, so I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt. It’s presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen.
The Audio
It’s Dolby Digital 5.1, but really only the center channel and occasionally the front speakers for the cool jazzy soundtrack are used. It does the job.
The Extras
Surprisingly, there’s a few special features for such a low-budget, limited release film.
– You get an audio commentary with not only the director and writer, but the cast AND the real life group of crazies the movie is based on, all in one room. As such, there’s rarely a moment of silence and there’s tons of interesting stuff to listen to.
– Next, a 5:00 HBO featurette on the movie’s critical success and how Pekar is dealing with it.
– There’s also the “American Splendor” song featured in the play in the movie. Audio only, no video.
– There’s a short trailer for upcoming HBO movies, plus the movie’s trailer.
– There’s also a quick 1:00 featurette on real-life character Toby, who enjoyed some cult success in the 80s for his “I’m a real nerd” act (which isn’t an act), but it shows how uncanny the performance in the movie was.
– Plus weblinks to Harvey’s blog and webpage, as well as downloadable screen savers and stuff.
Given I was expecting nothing for this release, it’s a pleasant surprise to have a few extras.
The Ratings:
The Movie: *****
The Video: **1/2
The Audio: **1/2
The Extras: ***
