The Room

Several years ago, I was looking at a message board for a website that made fun of student films. It had a post from an angry, bitter recent film school graduate. He said he spent between twenty and thirty thousand dollars making his film. He charged it all on credit cards. I hope he had the good sense to declare bankruptcy.

His movie was about a girl leaving home. I assume it was a girl going away to college. He thought that the weakness in most student films was the acting--they never delivered their lines convincingly--so he avoided the issue and made a silent film.

I don't think he put any sound track at all on it, because when he submitted it to film festivals they'd send it back with a note alerting him to the fact that there was no sound.

As I said, the purpose of the website was to make fun of student films, but the people running it were sympathetic. They told him the movie sounded interesting and that they could understanding his feelings running up a large debt he had little hope of repaying.

I had mixed feelings. I understood what he meant and why he made a silent movie. I think this was the old days, before digital video. He had to choose between 16mm film and Hi8 video and he apparently went with film. Still, I think I would have recognized the lack of commercial potential.

The Room

That's what I thought about when I saw The Room.

I came across The Room on one of the "worst movie" lists. I'd never heard of it, but it has a cult following.

The movie cost $6,000,000 included marketing. It was self-distributed by it's mysterious first-time writer/producer/director/star, Tommy Wiseau. From what I read, he was never clear about how he raised the money, although he did mention importing leather jackets from Korea.

The movie is about a love triangle. Wiseau plays a sinewy, long-haired banker in his 50s whose fiance begins sleeping with his best friend. It was apparently intended as a melodrama, but audiences found it extremely funny. Wiseau ran with it and began to promote it as a "black comedy".
Now it has midnight showings, every two weeks in L.A. and every month in London.

It's unlikely the movie has made any money. I suppose it's possible it could after the release on DVD.

If I had six million bucks, I wouldn't blow it all making a movie. If I did squander it all on a film, it wouldn't be about a nice guy whose fiance sleeps with his best friend.

It reminded me of something in the memoirs of the journalist Claud Cockburn. He mentioned at one point getting himself assigned as a theater critic. He never attended the theater before, so he found the most hackneyed plot to be clever and original---for example, plays about guys whose fiances were sleeping with their best friends. Theater owners loved him. He gave everything a rave review. At first.

Reportedly, Wiseau rented a studio and bought a "beginning director package" which included a new 35mm camera and a high definition digital video camera. Wiseau said he was confused about the difference between the two formats, so the film was shot with both. The two cameras were mounted side by side during the filming.

Ed Wood, Jr, died just before people became interested in his movies. His friends weren't sure what he would have thought about it if he had lived, if he would have liked the attention or been hurt that they were laughing at him. There was the sad interview with his widow in which she insisted that young people didn't laugh at Plan 9, they watched if for its message of peace.

It's good that Tommy Wiseau can enjoy whatever following his movie has.