American Splendor is a 2003 American biographicalcomedy drama film written and directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini. The film, which chronicles the life of comic book writer Harvey Pekar, is a hybrid production featuring live actors, documentary, and animation. It is based on the 1976–2008 comic book series of the same name written by Pekar and the 1994 graphic novel Our Cancer Year written by Pekar and Joyce Brabner.[3] The film stars Paul Giamatti as Pekar and Hope Davis as Brabner.[3] It also features appearances from Pekar and Brabner themselves (along with Pekar's long-time co-worker Toby Radloff),[3] who discuss their lives, the comic books, and how it feels to be depicted onscreen by actors.
During Halloween in 1950, Harvey Pekar refuses to dress up as a superhero while trick-or-treating. A few years later, we see Harvey walking the Cleveland streets. Then real Harvey Pekar appears in a documentary-style setup. In 1975, a scratchy-voiced Harvey visits a throat doctor and exhibits hypochondria. Harvey's wife decides their "plebeian" lifestyle just isn't working for her anymore; without being able to speak, Harvey is powerless to convince her not to leave him. A few months later, Harvey is at his file clerk job for the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) at a VA hospital. Mr. Boats comes by to offer advice: the words of an Elinor Wylie poem.
In a documentary scene, the real Harvey Pekar talks about his years as a part-time used-record collector/salesman. The narrative flashes back to 1962. While searching for old records at a yard sale, Harvey meets shy greeting card illustrator Robert Crumb. A friendship is formed over a shared love of jazz and comic books. Returning to 1975, a now popular Crumb is back in Cleveland for a visit. His marriage over, Harvey is lonely and frustrated; he wants to leave a mark on the world. Afterward, a sobering moment in the VA hospital's "deceased" files section leads Harvey to try drawing his own stories, but his lack of drawing talent stops him. An incident at the supermarket revives him, as his animated subconscious goads him: "Are you going to stand there in silence, or are you going to make a mark?" Inspired, Harvey stays up all night writing. At a diner with Crumb, Harvey makes a pitch for a new kind of comics. He shows Bob the scripts he's been working on, and Crumb offers to illustrate them for him.
A montage of classic Pekar quotidian moments culminates with Harvey proudly showing off American Splendor #1 to his VA co-workers. Harvey has published eight issues of American Splendor to critical acclaim but little financial gain; he's still a "flunky file clerk." Harvey runs into Alice Quinn, a woman he briefly knew in college. They catch up on each other's lives and talk about Theodore Dreiser's novel Jennie Gerhardt. Harvey leaves their encounter feeling more alone than ever before.
Meanwhile, in Delaware, Joyce is frustrated with her partner in the comic book store, who has sold her copy of American Splendor #8 out from under her. She writes to Harvey, he responds, and they discover they are kindred spirits. Joyce travels to Cleveland to meet Harvey in person. The date begins with a handshake and dinner at a local family restaurant. Back at Harvey's apartment, Joyce is overcome with a bout of nausea and vomiting. A concerned Harvey offers her chamomile tea. Charmed, Joyce suggests they "skip the whole courtship thing" and get married. It's one week later, and Harvey sees his VA colleague Toby Radloff sitting in his car eating White Castlesliders. Toby is on his way to Toledo to see the new movie Revenge of the Nerds. Meanwhile, Harvey is on his way to Delaware to marry Joyce and help her move out to Cleveland. Sitting alongside the real Harvey, the real Joyce Brabner talks about what it was like to become a character in Harvey's stories.
Now married, Harvey and Joyce go to a screening of Revenge of the Nerds with Toby. Joyce and Toby found the film inspiring, and Harvey found it insipid. Back at their apartment, Joyce struggles with feeling at home amidst all of Harvey's stuff. Their spat is interrupted by a message from a theater producer who wants to make American Splendor into a play. Harvey and Joyce travel to Los Angeles to see American Splendor: The Play. Things are finally breaking Harvey's way. But his ascendancy is complicated by Joyce's emotional struggles. She wants a family. Her desires are put aside again because a producer calls to offer Harvey a chance to be a guest on Late Night with David Letterman.
Harvey is a hit on the show and comes back for multiple appearances. Meanwhile, Toby becomes an MTV star. Back in Cleveland, someone recognizes Harvey from the Letterman show, but not for the "right" reasons. Harvey is angry and unfulfilled. Meanwhile, Joyce is looking for fulfillment of her own, as a creator and as an activist. Against Harvey's wishes, she goes away to a peace conference, leaving him at loose ends. One lonely night, Harvey discovers a lump on his groin.
Joyce is still away on her mission, and Harvey makes another appearance on the Letterman show. He dons an "On Strike Against NBC" shirt and the show goes downhill from there, winding up in chaos. Joyce finally returns, but she discovers Harvey's lump. Harvey is diagnosed with lymphoma. Joyce suggests he make a comic book of the whole thing, but Harvey just wants to die. Undeterred, Joyce enlists Fred, an artist, to illustrate the experience. Fred brings along his daughter Danielle on their first brainstorming session, and Joyce is smitten with the girl. Harvey reluctantly agrees to participate in the comic, and he asks Fred to keep bringing along Danielle.
Harvey's treatment is difficult. One night, an addled Harvey wonders if he's real or if he is just a character in a comic book, and whether the story will end or continue if he dies. In one continuous take, Harvey wanders through a dreamscape, musing about other people he finds in the Cleveland telephone book that are also named Harvey Pekar. One year later, Harvey and Joyce sign the completed Our Cancer Year. Harvey is declared cancer-free. They adopt Danielle, and Harvey adjusts to being a parent. The real Harvey retires from the VA hospital; the hospital staff hold a retirement party, during which Joyce, Danielle and Harvey embrace.
Gary Dumm (a long-time illustrator for American Splendor) as The Extra (in a suede jacket), who asks Pekar for his autograph in the Our Cancer Year book-signing scene
The film was originally intended to be screened on HBO. The script was written before the September 11 attacks, was cast right afterward, and shot in about a month in the fall of 2001.[6]
Though Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini had directed documentaries before, American Splendor was their first narrative feature. Of the film's alternating of fictional portrayals with real-life appearances by Pekar and his friends and family, co-writer/co-director Pulcini recalled,
"It really was the only way that made sense to tell that story because we were handed this stack of comic strips where the main character never really looks the same because he's drawn by so many different artists. We wondered how to stay true to the material, and that's the concept we came up with. The structure came out of that very naturally. It wasn't something that we labored over."[7]
Berman added that upon meeting Pekar they felt compelled to include him in the film:
"We also got to know Harvey even before we wrote the screenplay. We actually went to Cleveland and spent time with Harvey and Joyce, and spoke to them on the phone a lot. Once we spent some time with both of them, we were like, 'Oh my God, we have to put them in the movie!' That was a case where we were still using our documentary instincts and had to figure out a way to include him in it that was a natural fit for the material."[7]
At one point, Pekar meta-references the structure of the film by doing a voice-over for a one-shot of Paul Giamatti playing him by saying "There's our guy. Well, it's me. Or the guy playing me. Though he don't look nothing like me, but whatever." (Pekar and Brabner had been approached previously by actors interested in playing Pekar on film, including Rob Schneider.)[10]
David Letterman refused to appear in the film, and his old network of NBC did not allow the filmmakers to use footage of Pekar's disastrous fourth and sixth appearances on Late Night (aired July 31, 1987 and August 31, 1988, respectively), though they had no problems with the other Pekar appearances that are shown in the film.[11] The supposed "final appearance" was done using oblique camera angles and a voiced-over audio of the incident.[12] (In actuality, Pekar returned for two more appearances on the Letterman show in 1993 & 1994.)[11]
The film's original production budget was $1.5 million, and as the film was coming together, HBO gave the filmmakers more money for post-production, animation, and music.[6][2]
Music
Mark Suozzo wrote the film's score.
Music played in the film mostly reflects Pekar's affection for avant-garde jazz and American music from the 1920s and 1930s. A couple of songs by American Splendor illustrator Robert Crumb and his band are also featured.
The American Splendor (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) was released by New Line Records in 2003, and featured the following songs:[13]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 94% rating based on reviews from 186 critics, with an average rating of 8.3/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Exhilarating both stylistically and for its entertaining, moving portrayal of an everyman, American Splendor is a portrait of a true underground original."[14] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 90 out of 100, based on 42 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[15]
Roger Ebert awarded the film four stars out of four in his review, calling it a "magnificently audacious movie, in which fact and fiction sometimes coexist in the same frame." He remarked "the casting of Giamatti and Davis is perfect", writing that they "mastered not only the looks but the feels and even the souls of these two people", as well as praising Friedlander's performance. He also found the film "delightful in the way it finds its own way to tell its own story", describing its presentation as "mesmerizing in the way it lures us into the daily hopes and fears of this Cleveland family."[16]
Columnist Jaime Wolf wrote a laudatory review of the film in Slate, also drawing attention to formal parallels with Woody Allen's Annie Hall and his other films.[19]
Harvey Pekar wrote about the effects of the film in various stories published in American Splendor: Our Movie Year (2004).[20]
A nerd is a person seen as overly intellectual, obsessive, introverted, or lacking social skills. Such a person may spend inordinate amounts of time on unpopular, little known, or non-mainstream activities, which are generally either highly technical, abstract, or relating to niche topics such as science fiction or fantasy, to the exclusion of more mainstream activities. Additionally, many so-called nerds are described as being shy, quirky, pedantic, and unattractive.
Robert Dennis Crumb is an American cartoonist who often signs his work R. Crumb. His work displays a nostalgia for American folk culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and satire of contemporary American culture.
American Splendor is a series of autobiographical comic books written by Harvey Pekar and drawn by a variety of artists. The first issue was published in 1976 and the last one in September 2008, with publication occurring at irregular intervals. Publishers were, at various times, Harvey Pekar himself, Dark Horse Comics, and DC Comics.
Harvey Lawrence Pekar was an American underground comic book writer, music critic, and media personality, best known for his autobiographical American Splendor comic series. In 2003, the series inspired a well-received film adaptation of the same name.
Crumb is a 1994 American documentary film about the noted underground cartoonist R. Crumb and his family and his outlook on life. Directed by Terry Zwigoff and produced by Lynn O'Donnell, it won widespread acclaim. It was released on the film festival circuit in September 1994 before being released in the USA on April 28, 1995, having been screened at film festivals that year. Jeffery M. Anderson placed the film on his list of the ten greatest films of all time, labeling it "the greatest documentary ever made." The Criterion Collection released the film on DVD and Blu-ray on August 10, 2010.
Hope Davis is an American actress. She is known for her performances on stage and screen earning various awards and nominations including a Tony Award nomination, three Primetime Emmy Award nominations, and two Golden Globe Award nominations.
Gary G. Dumm is an American comic book artist known particularly for his work illustrating the comics of Harvey Pekar.
Frank Huntington Stack is an American underground cartoonist and fine artist. Working under the name Foolbert Sturgeon to avoid persecution for his work while living in the Bible Belt, Stack published what is considered by many to be the first underground comic, The Adventures of Jesus, in 1964.
Toby Radloff is a former file clerk and actor who became a minor celebrity owing to his appearances in Cleveland writer Harvey Pekar's autobiographical comic book series American Splendor. Radloff has a distinctive manner of speech and quirky mannerisms. He is a self-proclaimed "Genuine Nerd".
Our Cancer Year is a nonfiction graphic novel written by Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner and illustrated by Frank Stack.
Dean Edmund Haspiel is an American comic book artist, writer, and playwright. He is known for creating Billy Dogma, The Red Hook, and for his collaborations with writer Harvey Pekar on his American Splendor series as well as the graphic novel The Quitter, and for his collaborations with Jonathan Ames on The Alcoholic and HBO's Bored to Death. He has been nominated for numerous Eisner Awards, and won a 2010 Emmy Award for TV design work.
Josh Neufeld is an alternative cartoonist known for his comics journalism work on subjects like graphic medicine, equity, and technology; as well as his collaborations with writers like Harvey Pekar and Brooke Gladstone. He is the writer/artist of A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, and the illustrator of The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media.
Joyce Brabner is an American writer of political comics and the widow of Harvey Pekar.
Brian Bram, raised in Deerfield, Illinois, played a minor role in the underground comix movement with his contributions to American Splendor, the comic book series written and published by Harvey Pekar and, more recently, with his work with author Jonathan Baylis on his autobiographical comic series, So...Buttons.
Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini are an American team of filmmakers.
Real Time Opera (RTO) is a performing arts organization dedicated to the production of new opera. Founded in 2002, it is based in Contoocook, New Hampshire and Oberlin, Ohio and produces opera across the United States, engaging professional singers and a range of instrumental ensembles for performances at a wide variety of venues.
Gerald James Shamray was an American comic book artist known for his work on Harvey Pekar's autobiographical comic book series American Splendor and the syndicated comic strip John Darling.
Tara Seibel is an American cartoonist, graphic designer and illustrator from Cleveland. Her work has been published in Chicago Newcity, Funny Times, The Austin Chronicle, Cleveland Scene, Heeb Magazine, SMITH Magazine, Mineshaft Magazine, Juxtapoz, Jewish Review of Books, Cleveland Free Times, USA Today, US Catholic, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and The Paris Review.
Radloff is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
Greg Budgett is a Cleveland, Ohio-based comic book artist known particularly for his work illustrating the comics of Harvey Pekar. Most of Budgett's work on Pekar's American Splendor and other comics has been in partnership with Gary Dumm, who has inked most of Budgett's stories.
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