Wild Sound

After my previous post about one of the men in the documentary Cinemania,
I got the film from Neflix, and I loved it. It’s really a well-made
documentary–I’ve watched it three times over the past couple of days.
I am fascinated by these obsessives who are pefectly happy with their
deviant lifestyle. “Film is a substitute for life. Film is a form of
living,” one of them says, happily. Another says film is better than
sex, better than love. He has been arrested for shoving a woman to the
ground when she came in late to a movie and was obstructing his view.
He also says you have the right to do anything, including murder, to
stop someone from disturbing your film experience. “Killing someone
isn’t a practical solution though,” he says, “because after the movie,
or even before the movie’s over, you’ll get arrested.” The only woman
profiled in the film has been banned from MoMA for lunging at the
throat of a ticket-taker. They all see 2-5 films every single day. It’s
all they do. They all live in hovels that are spilling over with books
and trash and movie posters. No wonder they spend so much time at the
theater, I wouldn’t want to stay in those apartments very long either.
They all also clearly have some sort of obsessive-compulsive disorder
and a strong aversion to reality. But there is something endearing
about all of them. For some reason I find it comforting to watch the
stories of people who own their antisocial personalities.

Aside from the interesting characters, the film itself is very
well-made. New York City, and particularly its subway system, becomes a
character in itself, and you begin to think that this is the only place
where people like this could exist. I know a couple of them in Boston,
though. And I much prefer being able to get inside their world from the
distance of a movie screen rather than in real life.

Also–great credit sequence and original theme song.

Filed by cynthia rockwell at 8:32 pm under Just Movies
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