If one were to do a concordance of all the reviews of my film that have appeared in print so far, the most frequently used word would undoubtedly be "narcissist."
To quote from just a few:
"Narcissist turns camera on himself," "...his infuriating narcissism...," "...the same narcissistic tune over and over again...," "...a large disquieting dose of narcissism...," and "...the ultimate narcissism of the project..."
But what is narcissism exactly?
I would argue that a narcissist is a) someone who is self-absorbed to the point of not caring about others and b) someone who tries to make themself look better than they are. And it's true that the character I play in the film (which is me twenty years ago) is self-absorbed and insufficiently caring about others. That, in a nutshell, is the definition of an addict. But to say that the film is narcissistic or that I, as a filmmaker, am narcissistic, is to miss the whole point of the endeavor.
Moreover, I certainly don't try to make myself look better than I am. If anything, I make myself look significantly worse. Which is why the film is a critique of narcissism, rather than an instance of it. To think otherwise is to assume that any film about oneself is, by definition, narcissistic.
Last night, I saw "Wide Awake," the brilliant new film by Alan Berliner about his own insomnia. We were talking afterwards, and he told me that he too is routinely accused of narcissism, simply because he makes films about his own life. But I know Alan Berliner, and he is one of the least narcissistic people I have ever met. And his films are about as generous and caring about other people as it is possible for a work of art to be.
Neitzsche, in The Birth of Tragedy, argues that there are two kinds of art: the Apollonian, as exemplified by the epic poetry of Homer, and the Dionysian, as exemplified by the lyrical poetry of Archilochus. Almost all of cinema is Apollonian, its primary qualities being measure and restraint. But almost all of poetry is Dionysian, its primary qualities being lyricism and self-expression.
The accusation that my films are "narcissistic" is an instance of the Apollonian worldview at war with the Dionysian worldview epitomized by Archilochus and his heirs. Is Rimbaud's "A Season in Hell" narcissistic? Is Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" narcissistic? Are the poems of Emily Dickinson narcissistic? And what about the Beatles' "I Wanna Hold Your Hand"?
It is unfortunate that so many film critics have so narrow a view of cinema that only the Apollonian model is considered legitimate, and that any deviation from that classical model is dismissed as narcissistic. But cinema is as vast as life itself, and can easily accomodate a multiplicity of styles and approaches. Aren't we all frankly a little bored by the numbing sameness of almost all of contemporary cinema?
posted by Caveh Zahedi at
3:00 PM
