I read in a review of this film that parts of it were a "diss" towards Sam Mendes's American Beauty, which according to this review, Sam had pubicly spoken out about his contempt for Solondz's Happiness. Does anyone have any information about this, or know what parts of Storytelling this may occur in? It's been a while since I've seen either and I don't really like American Beauty enough to want to see it again.
shareCertainly some of the scenes in Oxman's documentary describing how beautiful life can seemingly be are paraodied from American Beauty.
shareI'm pretty sure that Oxman's documentary is a critique of "American Movie," not "American Beauty." Both "Movie" and "Scooby" are documentaries, both insult their subjects and take advantage of their willing nature.
shareThat may be true. But it doesn't explain the Sam Mendes part. I agree it's possible to confuse "American Beauty" with "American Movie", but, I didn't pull Sam Mendes's name out of nowhere. It was specifically mentioned. Maybe the reviewer fucl<ed up or something? Who knows... I thought maybe someone had an article actually stating Mendes's criticisms of the film. But oh well. I don't really care anymore.
shareYeah its definatly about American Movie, otherwise there would be no reason to thank Mike Borchart(the focus of American Movie)at the end of Storytelling. Must be a diss
shareThere's a blatant parody of American Beauty midway through the "Nonfiction" portion of the film, complete with Spacey-like narration and Thomas Newman-esque background music. As the camera pans over images of a suburban street, Paul Giamatti intones:
"When the sky is clear and the sun is warm, you're reminded of how beautiful things can be....a lamppost...a sign...a straw wrapper, blowing in the wind. But when that dark cloud appears, you realize how fragile that balance of life is..."
It's pretty hilarious.
There's a scene in Storytelling during part of the documentary where there is a voice over about "Life" and on screen we see a plastic bag blowing around in the wind, obviously poking fun at American Beauty.
shareIt was a straw wrapper, but yes it was a direct parody of American Beauty.
Obviously American Beauty and American Movie were both referenced in the movie, but I think Beauty was just straight-up made fun of and Movie was explored.
When making American Scooby, the Paul Giamatti character struggled with how to present his documentary. His selfish loathing of suburbia and college led him to point and laugh at the family, but I get the idea that he did care about the subjects.
SPOILER
I think the last scene illustrates this - As they are wheeling the dead family members out of the house he doesn't attempt to narrate and capture Scooby on film. He comes in front of the camera to offer his condolences. I realize he just arrived and got out of the car, but a true exploiter would set-up the camera/narration first before approaching Scooby.