Joseph Planta's Commentary - thecommentary.ca

Tuesday, 05 October 2004

The curmudgeons amongst us

By Joseph Planta

VANCOUVER - The film director Alan Zweig could easily have come up with the word 'curmudgeonesque'. His film, I, Curmudgeon, which made its debut at the Vancouver International Film Festival last month, is an ingenious documentary in that it looks at those individuals who revel in the power of negative thinking; you know them as those people who look at the glass as if it were half empty rather than half full. And perhaps with greater panache or zeal than my dopey and lacklustre glass analogy.

Zweig puts himself front and centre in this documentary. He opens the film with an overview of his life, why he's such a malcontent, and punctuates that with delightful photos of his early life and his family. He sees his life in a three-act arc, where his second act was rampant with nay saying, disappointment and the harshness of reality. That's why he's a misanthrope, perhaps.

George Bernard Shaw said, "The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." To say that Zweig is a curmudgeon is an understatement, so as he appears filming himself in various mirrors, he asks pertinent questions in trying to understand his negativity, a negativity that he's come to understand now, in his supposed third act. He elicits the reminiscences of popular curmudgeons, some of whom you'll recognise. There are chats with the Kids in the Hall's, Scott Thompson, artist Harvey Pekar, and the photographer Annie Liebowitz. Andy Rooney's featured, but the questions aren't to his liking and he kicks out Zweig's film crew.

The film is part an enquiry into curmudgeons and what drives them (or what doesn't, as some appear totally listless). It's also, a self-examination of Zweig, and he does so quite vividly, as he appears in the film only through mirrors. He sees himself, just as the viewer sees him, as it were. I, Curmudgeon, is a good documentary in that the characters he interviews are real, and who expose their various neuroses. It's not a prescription for cynics either, which is good, as it doesn't preach. It's often very funny, and when it becomes reflective, it's often dark, whereupon you get a real sense of what's at the essence of these negative people.

We're all negative, I suppose. There are days when all of us see the glass half empty, while some days the glass is half-full. The curmudgeons featured in the film appear as if they see all that's wrong with the world, simply because they haven't seen very much good. And truthfully, how much good is there in the world? Cynics are often bred easier than optimists; look at all the dreadful things in the world. The curmudgeons in the film have a common thread amongst them, and that's the ability to see the human race fail to live up to its full potential.

Now one can conduct his life as if he were enamoured with all that he sees. Such Pollyanna's are around, and frankly though, headstrong, if not delusional, they're maddening. Somehow, curmudgeons and non-curmudgeons alike seem to think they're silly, perhaps insecure. The testimonials of those featured in I, Curmudgeon, and I got this from those more reflective moments in the picture, reveal curmudgeons to be as equally insecure.

Zweig reveals quite a bit about himself in this film, as do the interviewees he encounters. It is often uproariously funny, and biting. It was a little long however, and though I got the idea of Zweig describing his life in three acts, and saw the film develop into three acts, the third act had me losing interest. I began to lose attention, and the film lost a bit of the pace in its third act, and perhaps that is indicative of life's third act - overly reflective, drawn out, and languid in its direction.

I, Curmudgeon is recommended as an insight into those naysayer's that you may know, or those more obsessive parts amongst one's own personal constitution. And in effectively driving that point home, Zweig inserts himself making the story a tad more personal if not egotistical. By the end of the movie, the cynic in me arose, and after listening to all the bleatings and bitchings of those in the film, one could get tired and just say, enough already. We get it. Life isn't fair, and you lucked out getting the short end of the stick. Get over it, and move on. Somehow, with the film, I think Zweig has moved on, and is right in dealing with it so vividly in a pretty good sketch of all our idiosyncrasies.

***

At the film festival screening, I happened to sit in the row behind the director, Zweig. He was laughing away at all the funny parts that had the audience guffawing away. He did leave his seat a few times, but near the end of the film, he didn't return. As I bee lined out of the room as the credits were rolling, the door opened into the lobby, and there sitting in that tiny corridor between the theatre and the main lobby, was Zweig, alone, and sitting on the stair. It was rather fascinating, seeing the artistic process so.

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