Splendid misery: an interview with Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman.
Cineaste › Vol. 28 Nbr. 4, September 2003
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Splendid misery: an interview with Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman.
In their first venture into fictional film, documentarians Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini have not strayed entirely from their roots. Taking as their topic Harvey Pekar, the author and protagonist of the underground comic book American Splendor, the filmmakers deftly interweave a fictionalized account of Pekar's life and interviews with the real-life figures. By way of homage to Pekar's chosen medium, the film of American Splendor likewise makes stylistic forays into comic-book esthetics, including animated sequences and illustrated frames, in order to create a complex hybrid of a film, one that celebrates the blurred boundaries between comics and film, documentary and fiction. Earlier this year American Splendor won thee Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and was deemed innovative enough to be selected for 'Un Certain Regard,' the prestigious sidebar of the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the International Critics Prize.
The 'hero' of the film, as well as the comics, is Pekar himself, an unlikely breed of hero if there ever was one. A file clerk in a VA Hospital ...See the full content of this document
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