The cinema in general, and the North American in particular, has that tendency (sometimes indispensable) to tell stories under a certain structure, always having key breaking points, where the plot is knotted and undone, until reaching a final state of resolution. , with changes regarding the complications, or with restorations of the initial state. Now, biographical films have always implied a challenge for screenwriters who need to structure stories under a central conflict. And one ends up, most of the time, running into plots that, without moving away from the character being talked about, do fictionalize an aspect of his life story, so that the sum of events perfectly closes the structure required for a script.
It happens that I did not find this in the film seen. "American Splendor”Is a film that tells the story of Harvey Pekar, a cartoonist who became famous, in fact, for drawing. Achieving it after having gone through very serious money problems. What is interesting is the fact that it is not idealized, but rather portrayed in a way that is faithful to what it really is. The man began working in the same place where he will end, since, despite making money from his comics, it is not quite enough for him to leave his job, so he prefers to wait until he retires. In turn, being a failure with women, he ends up falling in love and marrying a comic book fanatic, with whom he is still married today. But in his return to the cameras, he says that he loves her, but that "lately they have been arguing a lot."
Humanizing the character, and not placing it as the ideal of a Hollywood movie, seems to me the most successful proposal of the scriptwriters. And at the same time, the use of audiovisual resources to give the film more dynamism deserves a standing applause. Throughout the film, the three levels of reality, the comic strip, the fictional character who plays the cartoonist, and Harvey Pekar in his purest reality, interact without invading each other, or making one of the levels pass over the other. The dialogue between one and the other infinitely enriches the film, and gives it a rhythm that, at times, generates exquisite confusion about what is being seen.
A film that I really recommend, both for the use of audiovisual resources, as well as for the dramaturgical handling of the story. They will simply find the story of a man who, drawing for money, remains the same as at the beginning of the film. He is simply an ordinary man.
"american splendor ”(“American splendor")
Director: Shari Springer Berman, and Robert Pulcini
Screenwriter: Harvey Peckar and Joyce Bravner
Year: 2003
Country: United States
Duration: 101 minutes