On the Road Again

The End of the Tour, directed by James Ponsoldt.

The subject of the artist presents some special appeal in film, in part because of the inherent fascination of an art that in effect studies and transforms another art.  Among the many actual artists studied in numerous biopics, unfortunately, writers constitute the least promising material for that study and transformation.  The visual and musical arts naturally work well--painters making their masterpieces, composers creating music provide obvious subjects, which talented directors can turn into exciting images.  If the person in question, like most great artists, led a troubled or colorful life, the the filmmaker can plunder the biography for all sorts of interesting details--unhappy childhoods, love affairs, even crimes, the whole spectrum of behaviors that often please both producers and audiences.  More important than biography, however, the very creation of a work of art makes for appealing cinema.  Although probably not limited to American film, Hollywood handles the fascination of sheer process with special distinction--the barn raising in Witness, for example, Robert Redford crafting Wonderboy in The Natural, John Travolta assembling the accident sequence in Blow Out--so that the painting of a picture, the composition of a symphony, and even the staging of a show in all those backstage musicals make perfect subjects in numerous movies.

Writers and writing, however, cannot compete with those arts and those artists.  Few writers, for example, if they are not Ernest Hemingway, lead interesting or eventful lives, a fact that haunted a number of American novelists, including James Jones, Robert Roark, and above all, Norman Mailer.  More important, the act of writing, unlike the act of painting, sculpting, or making music possesses very little visual interest.  Whether with a chisel on a clay tablet, a quill pen, a typewriter, or a word processor, writing looks boring (which it often is)--someone staring at a blank sheet of sheepskin, paper, or the gray gloaming of a computer screen hardly qualifies as a compelling image.  The process, after all, takes place somewhere inside the head, the heart, or even the genitals, which the dancer Pearl Lang called "that lonely place between the legs."  Those internal processes seldom translate successfully to the screen, unless a director with more than the usual quantity of imagination finds some way of showing creative composition turning into action, a rare feat George Roy Hill accomplished in The World According to Garp, in a sequence that showed the title character writing as a series of images coalesce into a charming short story.

After all that pedantry, which I hope whatever readers are out there will forgive, the latest movie about a writer, The End of the Tour, avoids anything like the actual process of writing in order to concentrate on a writer's thoughts about his art, his ambitions, fame, life, and other heavy stuff.  Based on a memoir by David Lipsky, a writer for Rolling Stone, the film shows the five days that Lipsky, played in the movie by Jesse Eisenberg, spent with David Foster Wallace (Jason Segel), interviewing the author about his work and his life.  At that point, Wallace, who committed suicide in 2008, enjoys an enormous success with the publication, sales, and critical reception of thousand-page novel, Infinite Jest.  That novel created a kind of cult around the author and, sadly and inevitably, his suicide cemented his cultish appeal.  (The film never raises one obvious question: how many people actually read that enormous book?)

Wallace and Lipsky it it off well from the opening moments of their connection and, despite a couple of incidents that create some anger between two neurotic individuals, generally appreciate each other's company.  Lipsky watches Wallace teaching a creative writing class at a local Illinois college, then accompanies him on a book tour to Minneapolis, where he reads from his novel, autographs copies, appears on an NPR interview, and meets up with on old graduate school friend.  Throughout they discuss life, writing, fame, relationships, and other related matters; in fact, the film mostly consists of conversations between the two, with Wallace delivering philosophical insights in a dreary monotone and Lipsky writing them down.  Unlike most movies about writers, The End of the Tour never shows the novelist scratching his head and staring out the window, the usual visible signs of writing in progress.  That choice, however, fails to turn the writer and his writing into anything cinematically appealing.

A dried-out alcoholic, Wallace appears to subsist on the whole panoply of junk food that American companies sell to poison the populace.  He gorges on doughnuts and soft drinks, eats Pop Tarts for breakfast, and treats Lipsky to what he considers an upscale meal at McDonald's.  His culinary tastes emphasizes some elements of his troubled, perhaps addictive personality.  Occasionally he refers to his time in the famous psychiatric institution, McLean Hospital, the preferred recovery place for affluent literary types; the depression he suffered from for most of his life apparently led him, despite all his success, to hang himself.  The news of that death begins the movie, which flashes back to Lipsky's experience with him and all those conversations that follow and essentially provide the substance of the movie.  Despite the sad subtext and back story, the film remains a dull effort, neither making its subject interesting or his work accessible; it may, however, inspire people to read his magnum opus and will surely magnify his reputation and the cult it created.