The Film That Fell To Earth

Do you know Tommy Wiseau? If you don't, you probably will soon enough.

Here's a brief history, borrowed from various sources: Tommy Wiseau, a man of indeterminate European origin with a tenuous grasp of the English language wrote, directed, and produced a movie, "The Room." Surprisingly, the film was made for about $6 million, a fair cut of it wasted on an overstaffed crew (a few hundred worked on it) and promoting it (renting a billboard in Los Angeles). A large amount of money was also wasted because he shot it on film and HD, mainly because he's film illiterate.

Just how film illiterate? Bad framing, out-of-focus shots, trudging pans, shitty ADR and looping, etc. Pretty much every single way you can fuck up a film from a technical standpoint. But it wasn't just the physical production that sucked. The acting could make Steven Seagal seem redeemable, the writing is a string of dramatic cliches that unintentionally operate as comic non-sequiturs. The film is so terrible, it's unfathomable. Let its trailer serve as a guide.

So the movie premiered in 2003, and over the years developed a cult audience that adopted it ironically. Wiseau then started singing a different tune, tagging it as a "black comedy," but people have unanimously called his bluff. Eventually, "The Room" coursed its way through the celebrity circuit, and Wiseau hopped along for the ride, sticking with his denial about the film's genre.

And that's when I learned about "The Room." Wiseau played himself in a recent episode of "Tim & Eric." They show clips from the film, and the line between hilarious character and oblivious public-access-television-type becomes blurred; Tommy Wiseau is about as real as Dr. Steve Brule. It's not new territory for the comedy duo, but it's the first time I've questioned the legitimacy of a real person on their show.

Apparently the episode has introduced Wiseau to a lot of people besides me. Tomorrow at midnight on Adult Swim, "The Room" will make its television premiere (not to mention it will be followed by the 'Wiseau Episode' of "Tim & Eric"). An even larger audience will be introduced to this phenomenon.

The research started when my buddy, Thom, showed me the "Tim & Eric" episode. We began with Wikipedia and worked our way out. Perhaps the most comprehensive site about the film/Wiseau personality comes courtesy of the AV Club, if you wish to learn more. But here are the two things that make this an important film:

1) Wiseau's mysterious biography; nobody knows where he's from and no one knows how he raised the money for the film (though he hints at a clothing import business and a series of contributions as the source). His life story feeds into our(/my) perception of the film. In the back of the viewer's mind is the question, "How the fuck was this movie made?" It's sort of akin to knowing the story of how "Manos: Hands of Fate" was made, except that film was a response to a bet and not a form of artistic expression. Which brings me to:

2) Wiseau's sincerity and our derisive reaction. The film works because even though its shittiness is cosmically aligned, it's real. It's not Hollywood bad, the calculated product that's test-screened before it's packaged for us. There's no conduit for "The Room" because it's straight from Wiseau's heart, and it exists because he NEEDED to make it. And because of this inherent narcissism, we've indicted him. My mind has been grappling with this issue since I saw it a couple weeks back, because even though the movie is unequivocally bad, his lack of artifice is disarming. Thom wondered whether this film could signify the death of irony, and I believe it is.

Are we, the savvy hipsters that enjoy "The Room," assholes? Yes, but like I alluded to earlier, we're calling Wiseau out. He's made something terrible, a film devoid of everything that makes art meaningful and wonderful, and he's passing it off as if it's Tennessee Williams caliber (try not to laugh at his MySpace page). Our ironic enjoyment of this film proves we're in search of good film. And even if we've reached irony's saturation point, maybe now is our chance to replace the thing that has served as the basis of contemporary American humor.