In
a no doubt apocryphal scene purportedly from the protagonist Harvey Pekar’s
life, American Splendor opens with
the young Harvey out Halloween trick-or-treating with some other boys. His
friends are all dressed as superheroes — Batman, Superman, etc. — but
Harvey steadfastly rejects costumes and maintains his own identity. The moment
sums up most of the action and meaning of this unusual film, based on an
unusual series of comic books (known to the cognoscenti these days as graphic novels).
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย The youthful version of the
protagonist fiercely resists the phoniness he sees everywhere, and refuses the
role, to paraphrase David Copperfield, of superhero of his own life. The
account of an ordinary man’s excruciatingly commonplace daily life constitutes
a far more engaging narrative than all those big budget spectaculars based on
comics, from Superman to The Hulk, starring creatures with
superhuman powers who accomplish incredible deeds.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Drawn by several different artists,
Harvey’s ongoing autobiography has, strangely, enchanted legions of readers,
entertained millions of television viewers of The Late Show With David Letterman, inspired a play, and now
provides the material for what must be the most original motion picture of the
year. The movie may depend for its success as much on its process as its
product, as much on the methods the directors choose to tell the story as the
story itself.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Paul Giamatti stars as Harvey Pekar,
while Pekar himself and some of the people in his life also appear in the
movie, underlining its paradoxically intricate narrative. At times Harvey
speaks directly to the camera or recounts the drab drama of his daily existence
in a voice-over. At other times Giamatti’s voice blends into Pekar’s, just as
the actors themselves often merge with their real counterparts. At other times,
various cartoonists’ representations of Harvey show up. In addition, the movie
also includes archival footage of some of Harvey’s television appearances: American Splendor constantly alternates
media, time periods, and even dimensions with a deft and amusing complexity.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Following some of the events in the
comics, which simply recount the everyday activities of the protagonist, the
movie amounts to something like a biopic. It shows Harvey at his job as a file
clerk in a VA hospital, his squalid apartment in a marginal neighborhood in the
unlovely city of Cleveland, Ohio — nobody would dare invent the pervasive
drabness of this life — mingling those scenes with Harvey’s history as a
comic book character. A meeting and a subsequent friendship with the underground
comic artist Robert Crumb leads to the first representation of Harvey’s life in
pictures. A series of artists later illustrate Harvey’s prose, so that he looks
rather different at various times, but retains always the gloom, the
irascibility, the general misanthropy of the self he writes about, the man he
is.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย An autodidact in the great American
tradition, Harvey reads widely, collects records, writes jazz reviews, and
observes the world around him with a grim expectation of disappointment, failure,
or even disaster, and the world seldom disappoints him. While he describes and
comments on the general emptiness and tedium of the everyday, the comic panels
illustrate and emphasize his words, often displaying a further meaning as a
still panel comes to life and the actor steps out of the flat, mostly
monochrome comic and into the scarcely more colorful or textured world he
inhabits. The picture shows Pekar’s gradual success as a writer and character,
his co-workers’ delight at finding themselves in the comic, his rise to wider
fame (thanks to David Letterman), his marriage, his bout with cancer, ending
with the current state of his life.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Paul Giamatti convincingly
impersonates Pekar, and though the portrayal tends to remain on one note, the
several other representations — cartoon character, television talk show
guest, the man himself — flesh out some of the full personality of the writer.
Giamatti’s pot-bellied slump, with his posture forming a sort of parenthesis
enclosing the marginal life of his character, his scratchy voice, and his
tendency to snarl at everyone and everything may now and then even exaggerate
the crankiness of the man while underplaying his undeniable integrity.
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย The best parts of the movie,
however, remain those many moments that mingle actual characters, the comic
books, and the actors, as people keep changing into themselves, in a clever
display of genuine metamorphosis. One terrific scene shows Giamatti and a
co-star resting in the background of the set, while in the foreground the
people they portray, apparently oblivious of their counterparts, carry on their
own conversation. In another, Pekar and his wife, Joyce Brabner, attend a play
based on his life, which repeats a scene from the film, and they again turn
into the actors playing them. Those scenes and sequences nicely summarize the
imagination and intelligence of this rare and entertaining film, as original
and unconventional as the man himself.
American
Splendor,
starring Paul Giamatti, Hope Davis, Judah Friedlander, James Urbaniak, Danny
Hoch, Daniel Tay, Robert Pulcini, Maggie Moore, Donal Logue, Molly Shannon,
James McCaffrey, Harvey Pekar, Toby Radloff, Joyce Brabner, Danielle Baton,
Madlyn Sweeten, David Letterman; written and directed by Shari Springer Berman
and Robert Pulcini. Little Theatres; Pittsford Plaza Cinema.
You can hear
George and his movie reviews on WXXI-FM 91.5 Fridays at 7:20 a.m., rerun on
Saturdays at 8:50 a.m.
This article appears in Sep 17-23, 2003.
