For those who don't know, „The Room“ is a movie I watched some 10 years ago on a „Trash-movie night“ my friends use to organize. It runs at 99 minutes but it probably took us 4+ hours to watch it. It's that… memorable. Several viewings and a video-game later, movie reached cult status up to a point where James Franco picked it up and made a movie about make a movie. Only recently I found out „Disaster Artist“ was based on a memoir written by The Room's own Mark – Greg Sestero.
The book itself is divided into 2 parts: Greg Sestero's private life, from his childhood to meeting Tommy and Tommy's role in his life. Second one is the shooting of „The Room“, from first day until last take. These two part go parallel side by side, chapter by chapter and I would be a liar if I said I didn't prefer second one more. After all, it was a movie what everybody wanted to read about and its making, like these behind-the-scenes moment:
While writing the scene, Tommy forgot, at some point, that Lisa was on the phone, so he ends the scene with Lisa walking her mother to the door and saying good-bye.
Or this movie trivia:
[Tommy Wiseau after watching „The Talented Mr. Ripley“] „I know the name of your character now“ Tommy said, looking at me „You will be called Mark – like this guy Mark Damon“.
I could continue listing examples and quotes here but they would be long as the chapters about making of „The Room“. So, I suggest you buy or borrow it and read at least those chapters if you can't remember when was the last time that a book made you laugh. I guarantee you'll find at least one details that'll make you chuckle later in the day.
But it was the other part of the book that it got me thinking. Greg Sestero (and some reviewers) looked at the whole story from different perspectives and most common one was about friendship. And up to a point, they're right. Greg Sestero did stick with Tommy Wiseau through sive and griddle and cared about his well-being at some points. Tommy Wiseau did help Greg Sestero in pursuit of his dreams without asking anything in return (at least in the beginning).
Greg Sestero finishes the book with the conclusion it is all about a dreams and pursuing them. True, a lot of people dream of being a movie star, few make it and if Tommy Wiseau's story of upbringing is remotely true, it makes it another Cinderella story. From gutter to stars (I guess this wasn't how Tommy imagined he would became a star, nevertheless, he still is one.)
Somebody can dig deeper and probably found some different points of view, but one of the them stuck with me (and I must confess it even surprised me because I rarely look at things in that light.) That factor is money. Even author Greg Sestero admits is at one point, that it was the money that made him participate in movie making and portraying the role of Mark. Money is, as well, one of the main reasons why the movie „made it“ in the first place. Words from an author:
Money is what allowed Tommy to not only produce and release The Room, but also to extensively advertise it and keep it alive in the dark time between its disastrous initial release and eventual success.
Take Tommy's money out of the equation, we wouldn't have the movie, the book, the movie about movie and so on. Which got me thinking: if this whole story went „traditional way“ it would probably tank and all of them would be an experience wiser. But it was the money that kept the train rolling and what we got is virgin first-try which usually (in artistic world) authors look back with nostalgia and a bit shame. Give any writer, actor, singer etc. their very first (mostly unpublished) work, majority of them would start laughing and probably blush a little. Now imagine throwing 6 million (!) dollars at that work to make it succeed. That is what happened to Tommy and the Room.
Some time ago I searched for something through my mail and found one of the mails I sent to some professor at 1st year of college and started laughing. I remember how it took me at least dozen of minutes to write 2-3 sentence long mail and how much I thrived for it to sound professionally. When I read it now, I realize how juvenile and unprofessional I sounded. Nowadays, I whip the mail with the same message in a matter of seconds and it sounds way better than it would then. It was that whole path of trial and error through which I obtained some sort of quality and it took mails and mails, years and years.
Tommy Wiseau and most of his cast and crew were debarred from that whole experience by money. So, however enjoyable and funny I found the book, it also made me realize something else. Each day we get discouraged by our fails, forgetting how each fail can be a lesson to make us a bit better.
If we all made it on our first try, would we all be disaster artists?
