You're Tearing Me Apart, Lisa

The Room, Tommy Wieseau said, is the place where you make the rules and where everything is what you want it to be. Unfortunately, The Room is also a film by Wieseau, and it exists in the real world, where one is not so omnipotent.

For those not familiar with Wieseau's film, which he directed, starred in, prodcued, and executive produced, The Room is probably the greatest piece of camp cinema in the past decade and is now viewed at late night screenings, joining the prestigious pantheon of midnight movies with The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Pink Flamingos, and Priscilla: Queen of the Desert. Much like RHPS, fans of the film endure repeated viewings, made easier and more fun by yelling out jokes and throwing things at the screen. Unlike RHPS, however, Wiseau's claims that the film is intentional camp, which in most minds would be mutually exclusive), are quite hard to swallow. While RHPS is obviously an homage/pastiche/parody of b-movies and horror cinema, and builds an aesthetic around such a proposition, The Room just seems to be poorly made. However, it is the degree to which it is poorly made that makes it truly a thing of beauty.

The plot is nearly non-existant, featuring a love triangle between Jonny (Wieseau), his "future wife" (for some reason, mostly likely an issue with Wiseau's unattributed and mysterious accent, the word "fiancee" is never used) Lisa (who is beautiful and looks good in a red dress, at least according to every male in the film), and Mark, Jonny's best friend (a fact that Mark mentions ad nauseum, with the highest frequency before his multiple sex scenes with Lisa). Side plots, such as Jonny's young neighbor Denny nearly being killed by a drug dealer and Lisa's mom finding out that she has breast cancer are dropped as quickly and abruptly as they are brought up.

Anyway, as Wiseau would say, I rest my case. I am not merely writing a movie review here. You see, Tommy Wieseau himself was in town on Thursday night to screen his film and to do some question and answer with the audience. Before the film, one of the audience members actually brought up the question of intent that is so often asked in connection with The Room. Had Wiseau actually intended for it to be a black comedy, as he now says, or had he set out to make a dramatic film, as it seems, and merely failed in his honest effort? It is perfectly understandable that Wiseau would take this defensive position when he film became the laughing stock and drunk destination for film buffs in California, and eventually the rest of the world, but his behavior and demeanor make it very hard to believe what he says. Avoiding most questions and answering every other one with non-sequiters (his response to one question about whether he prefers shooting on video or 35MM included "I heard you guys had a flood here before, never mind about that, ok, I rest my case, next one"), and generally acting, as one of the people I have discussed the event with described as, schizophrenic.

I went into the screening holding the firm belief, as many others do, that Wiseau is merely a bad filmmaker trying to be in on the joke, instead of being the butt of it. However, having seen him in person, and having interacted personally with him, I now wonder if maybe the joke isn't on us. There is a nagging suspicion in the back of my mind that we are seeing a character being performed for us, both on the screen and in person. His odd behavior and unwillingness to give simple details about himself (questions about where he and his accent are from are met with an answer of "see, that is a question which one must not ask"), seem less and less like the product of a troubled personality and more, perhaps due to recent works by people like Sacha Baron Cohen, like a put-on.

When asked what the room is referring to, Wiseau always gives the explanation that The Room is where one makes their own rules. I began this writing by saying that Wieseau's film did not exist in the room. He could not make it something that he didn't intend it to be, but if Wiseau is more than he appears, a genius performance artist as opposed to a failed filmmaker, perhaps this really is The Room.