I like Lord of the Rings. I really do. I think it's extremely visually impressive. However I do not think that it is a better epic than Bertoluci's the Last Emperor, nor do I think it is a better written film than American Splendor.
American Splendor is the story of the life of Harvey Pekar and how he started doing comic books and became part of the comic revolution in the 70's. However, the movie isn't just about that. It's also about Harvey Pekar feels about the story of his own life. The movie is an odd mix between the straight documentary-style of Terry Zwigoff's Crumb and the straight comic adapation of Daniel Clowes' Ghost World. What is born is a strange concoction that is neither drama nor documentary (nor the bastard child of those two genres: docurama).
The film is as inventive in its own genre as Pekar was in the seventies. It's about what Pekar did in his life and even why he did it, but it's about more than that. It tries to give you a peek into who Pekar is, without justification or explination. It's honesty. Except, at no time does it allow you to forget that what you are watching is a movie and that all movies can do is lie.
The very construction of a story is to pick and choose what parts of it you tell. As Joyce, who becomes Harvey Pekar's wife, says in the film, Harvey is a pessimist and so his life always reads as worse than it is. It's not that it's not true, it's just that you are only given a specific amount of context.
American Splendor is the most truthful of lies. It tells us much about Harvey Pekar while revealing so little. It is an amazingly well writtenand well made film. It had to adapt both aspects from Pekar's life as well as from his comics (which are autobiographical, making the task far less daunting but still a challenge). It's worth anybody's time.
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