The Disaster Artist

‘Who is he?’ I demanded. ‘Do you know?’

‘He’s just a man named Gatsby.’

‘Where is he from, I mean? And what does he do?’

‘Now YOU’re started on the subject,’ she answered with

a wan smile. ‘Well,—he told me once he was an Oxford

man.’

A dim background started to take shape behind him but

at her next remark it faded away.

‘However, I don’t believe it.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know,’ she insisted, ‘I just don’t think he went

there.’

(The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald)

With the coming of Dean Moriarty began the part of my life you could call my life on the road. Before that I'd often dreamed of going West to see the country, always vaguely planning and never taking off.

(On The Road, Jack Kerouac)

The Disaster Artist is the book behind the movie. Typically, these works are hagiographies, celebrating the painstaking talents of Kubrick, Welles, Coppola et al. They peel off the cinematic gloss and outline the challenges these auteurs faced in turning visions into reality. The Disaster Artist is something like that, and nothing all like that. It is written by Greg Sestero, who appeared in a picture called The Room. A movie that cost $6 million dollars to make that earned $1,800 at the box office, closing after just two weeks. Usually, a film lingers in your multiplex for a while, making a couple of million, before shuffling off its moral coil, only to be revived on DVD later. Every now and then a classic picture will be granted a big screen retrospective, but this is only reserved for the crème de la cream. The Room, on the other hand, is still played in cinemas worldwide today, showing no signs of going away. In Leicester Square’s Prince Charles Cinema it’s on regular rotation with fans bringing props and catchphrases, turning it into an interactive experience, much in the same way as The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The Room, then, has both died and killed at the box office. Pound for pound, dollar for dollar, it is an unbelievable success. In the poker table of movie production, the $6 million gamble somehow paid off, red has turned to black.

The best way of describing The Room is that it’s the movie-making equivalent of the band Spinal Tap. At its centre is someone who has an artistic vision, without any real skill in fulfilling it. Said man is Tommy Wiseau. To this day, the background on the film’s producer, executive producer, writer, director and actor is sketchy. His co-star and friend Sestero has heard many contradictory stories about Wiseau’s origins – all from Wiseau himself. Judging by his east European accent, it appears that at some point Tommy fled the Communist Russia for a better life. The fact that he speaks French points to a life lived there. His love of Marlon Brando and James Dean is what’s really important, suggesting as it does a love for American cinema, in particular the white t-shirt machismo of pouting leading men. For Wiseau, he was always American, it just so happened he was born in the wrong place. By hook or by crook (and there’s a suggestion it may be by crook), Wiseau amassed enough money or backers to fund a $6 million film.

Tommy Wiseau. Pic. Jake Michaels

So what? You might be thinking. Hollywood is made from figures who believe in fairy dust. A town where everyone puts ‘Actor’ on their passport, but no one really is one. Where bar tips and restaurant service charges transmute into acting lessons. A town of reality runaways, exiled in fantasia’s bubble. What makes Tommy Wiseau so different? Well, for a start he embodies La La Land. Pragmatism is the death of actors; you need some naivety, otherwise you would never attempt to breakthrough in a saturated market. However, it doesn’t help to be downright deluded. The problem for Wiseau is he can’t act. His accent has something of the Schwarzenegger about it, only he’s Arnie without the self-awareness. He has the intonation of a child reading for the first time, able to sound out the words without understanding the register they should be said in. He also has the memory of a gold fish. A gold fish with dementia. Unable to learn lines, he just says what he feels. He’s also a dangerous dreamer. Dangerous because he has money. Give a delusionist money; havoc will soon ensue.

Sestero’s tale is a dual narrative: the first gives a play by play account of the making of The Room; the second the events leading up to it. I haven’t actually seen The Room – apart from a montage of the funniest scenes on line – yet the account is fascinating. Rubbernecking would be the best way to describe it. Sestero puts us on that mad set, allowing us to watch the multiple car pile up that ensues. There’s Wiseau purchasing millions of dollars’ worth of camera equipment, even though it’s the done thing to hire it. There’s the problem with verisimilitude: scenes with characters delivering their lines whilst throwing an American football are there apropos of nothing. There’s the issue with staffing: Sestero appears to running administration and lines at the same time. Wiseau has spent everything on the cameras and forgot to finance what happens in front of and behind them. He also goes through more Directors of Photography than Spinal Tap drummers.

The other narrative though tells the On The Road type story of the coming together of two artistic dreamers on the boulevard of aspiring dreams. Instead of Paradise and Cassidy, it’s Sestero and Wiseau. They meet at an acting class in San Francisco where they become scene partners. Soon though Sestero is getting all the best lines, appearing in Days Of Our Lives and getting call backs for Joel Schumacher productions. Even though Sestero is hardly making it in Hollywood, the fact that he is auditioning puts him at a higher rung than Wiseau. With the petty jealousies and artistic rivalries, it's BBC’s Extras, just directed by Hitchcock instead. For all the unhealthiness of the relationship, the two need each other: Wiseau requires an ego fluffer, Sestero a bed and board backer to fund his LA dream. What starts off as a bromance soon descends into The Talented Mr Ripley with Sestero asking: what return am I getting on this investment? Unlike Wiseau’s film, Tommy puts in a lot less than he gets out.

Reading the book has inspired me to seek out the film adaptation, The Disaster Artist, directed by James Franco. And, of course, seek out the source material, the infamous The Room. 

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed reading this blog; if you haven’t – well – then to quote a line from the movie, “Leave your stupid comments in your pocket.”

The Disaster Artist is available from all good bookshops.