American Splendor

Description

American Splendor
Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini (U.S., 2003)

Clerks it ain’t, but clerk it is. Author Harvey Pekar, Bard of the Rust Belt, has spent his life filing med-reports in Cleveland’s V.A. hospital. His workaday woes, bouts of numbing loneliness, and hypochondriac harangues found themselves splayed out in the bilious pages of his graphical bio, American Splendor. Transposed to moving image, the series’ prismatic autobiography contaminates the cinema screen with a rash of multipersonalities, invasive drawings, and destabilized stagings, with four “Harveys” presented: the drawn, the acted, the real, and the theatrical. Paul Giamatti plays fictional Harvey with a glaring gaze and hurt posture, while Harvey himself is (of course) “real” Harvey, surprisingly free of tony tics, allowing his marvelously whiny voice free reign. When hope arrives (in the form of actress Hope Davis, embodying Harvey’s well-deserved devotee Joyce), American Splendor takes on the aspect of an aching romance––middle-aged curmudgeon couples with backwater space-case. Looking in the mirror, Harvey utters, “Now there’s a reliable disappointment.” But we differ: Pekar’s life among the sour crème de la crème of Cleveland is a splendrous thing to behold.—Steve Seid


DRAWN FROM LIFE: COMIC BOOKS AND GRAPHIC NOVELS ADAPTED

The comic book and its higher-brow accomplice, the graphic novel, thrive on an endless fascination with good and evil, the machinations of modern heroes, and an imitation of life that unfurls drawing by drawing, line by line. The resilient possibilities of plot and picture have given Hollywood the urge to plunder their serial-paneled pages for its own repurposing, with films like X-Men, Blade, or Batman garnering sequels, soaring budgets, and fanatical followings. But how does the two-dimensional comic book adapt when migrating to a medium that thrives on maniacal motion and humans inflating those word balloons? Moving beyond the blockbuster, Drawn from Life presents eight films that plot their own path beyond the original penman’s paper-based vision. Whether it’s the gooey remake of Swamp Thing and its dripping man-vegetable, Tank Girl’s diminutive heroine all punked-out and post-apocalyptic, Robert Altman’s Popeye threatening to topple back to newsprint, or Flash Gordon’s randy reinvention of off-planet cleavage, these fantasy films ever so slightly acknowledge their lined-and-colored comic origins. Taking a different line entirely, Frank Miller’s Sin City faithfully abandons the inky page for the cartoon caress of cinema space, while American Splendor makes the media moot by conjoining the two. Finally, Hellboy revels in its dark graphical source, replicating its impish humor, ornate design, and viscous evil with inflammatory detail. When it comes to graphical adaptability, we call it a draw.—Steve Seid

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http://bampfa.berekley.edu