God is in the details

April 7, 2008 8:37 AM

Audience of One. Documenting one man's God-given mission to create the ultimate sci-fi religious epic, Gravity: The Shadow Of Joseph.
posted by veedubya (16 comments total)

This is sad. Based on the Wired piece, I'm having trouble understanding what the appeal of the documentary about the movie would be -- poking fun at crazies who throw away their lives for dubious goals is unseemly, and there doesn't seem to be any artistic interest in the movie itself.

This reminds me of the Times story about that minister who gave everything away to Nigerian scammers.
posted by grobstein at 9:24 AM on April 7, 2008

The documentary sounds a lot like "Lost in La Mancha", about Terry Gilliam's failed efforts to film "Man of La Mancha". Except "Audience of One" contains much more crazy.
posted by FatherDagon at 9:36 AM on April 7, 2008

I was thinking a combination of "Lost in La Mancha" for the Murphy-running-roughshod factor, plus "American Movie" for the dedicated eccentric factor. A lot depends on documentary tone, of course--American Movie never really poked fun and just let the likeable crazy tell their story by showing.
posted by Drastic at 9:40 AM on April 7, 2008

I thought American Movie had real affection for its participants. This seems a bit too much 'laugh at the loony'. And I doubt it'll have the epic nature of Lost in La Mancha.
Or have a really hateable but still fascinating subject like Troy Duffy in Overnight.
Still next time I'm flagging at a task I will try running backwards and forwards shouting 'second wind!'
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:47 AM on April 7, 2008

i SO want to see gravity: the shadow of joseph!


hubris translates nicely to cinema
posted by [son] QUAALUDE at 10:23 AM on April 7, 2008

I see our Evangelical brothers and sisters have solved the whole global poverty thing. Good on them - I couldn't even begin to imagine a better use for $100,000,000.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 10:44 AM on April 7, 2008

How tragic, really. Not at this scale, but I've seen a lot of wannabe film makers out here in Hollywood who are full of dreams and can talk people into supporting them, but they have no talent nor experience.

Film making is hard, and thinking that God is going to solve your problems for you, as opposed to a lot of honest hard work and problem solving, isn't much of a way to make movies.

This sounds like an interesting documentary.
posted by MythMaker at 10:44 AM on April 7, 2008

Way back in 2002 I was an overnight at Kinko's. We had this young guy who'd come in regularly to print out his manuscripts, nothing exciting it happened all the time. So we start talking and it comes out that I'm going to seminary in a couple of weeks. He got that gleam in his eye. (Anyone who's ever accidentally tripped an off-kilter reigious person knows that gleam) He starts going on and on about his book series and how its going to be used to spread the Word of God and on and on. Pretty standard religious paranoia stuff. I
remember he wanted my feedback, but I don't think I ever got around to reading.

I miss being an overnight as Kinko's.
posted by khaibit at 10:59 AM on April 7, 2008 [1 favorite]

This story reminds me of another story about an outsider that everyone called crazy. He wore a beard and had a bunch of followers from different walks of life, and ideas that the mainstream said would never work.

His name was George Lucas.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:33 AM on April 7, 2008 [2 favorites]

I heard an interview on NPR with the director of "Audience of One." He said that he did genuinely become very good friends with Gazowski during the filming of the doc. He said that Gazowski and company are very well aware that they're funny people, and that the documentary is very much lauighing-with-them. He definitely seemed pretty genuine to me.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I'd imagine people will see a lot of what they bring to it, much like American Movie and Jesus Camp.
posted by roll truck roll at 11:53 AM on April 7, 2008

God really seems to be a sick prankster. He spends his days speaking to different people from different groups and giving them wildly conflicting information, which they take to be absolute truth. Oh, what an awesome and mysterious god.

That, or there is no god and these people are just imagining it and doing what they wanted to do anyway, just like the followers of every other deity in the history of the human race.
posted by mullingitover at 12:32 PM on April 7, 2008

He spends his days speaking to different people from different groups and giving them wildly conflicting information

Jesus Christ: what an asshole.
posted by grubi at 12:53 PM on April 7, 2008 [2 favorites]

God really seems to be a sick prankster. He spends his days speaking to different people from different groups and giving them wildly conflicting information, which they take to be absolute truth. Oh, what an awesome and mysterious god.

That, or there is no god and these people are just imagining it and doing what they wanted to do anyway, just like the followers of every other deity in the history of the human race.

Hey, that's not a false dichotomy or anything.
posted by SpacemanStix at 2:54 PM on April 7, 2008

Or is it a false digodtomy?

Oooooooooh, sorry. Couldn't resist.
posted by Samizdata at 6:00 PM on April 7, 2008

He's not giving everyone conflicting information. Just everyone but me.
posted by ArkhanJG at 1:50 AM on April 8, 2008

Film website.
posted by ericb at 12:40 PM on April 15, 2008