James Ponsoldt's The End of the Tour chronicles the relationship that unfolded between Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky and acclaimed novelist David Foster Wallace during a five-day interview. Taking place across the final days of Wallace's book tour for his groundbreaking novel, Infinite Jest, The End of the Tour is very much a tale of two Davids, two men who share the same profession, but are at different places in their lives, with different perceptions of exactly what their ambitions are as artists. Having never read Infinite Jest, and having no understanding of who David Foster Wallace was as a person going in, I can't be the one to comment on the film's ability to capture this man, but what James Ponsoldt has created with The End of the Tour is an insightful and humorous exploration of the psyche of an artist, most notably a writer, as these two David's mentally spar with one and other over a series of days. The film captures strange dynamic that could almost be described as a power struggle that exists in any interview/interviewee relationship, with these two men playing an intricate mental game with one and other, as they slowly let their respective guards down and reveal their moments of weakness related to personal satisfaction, as it pertains to both artistic and financial success. The film's exploration of the writer's mindset is particularly fascinating to me, with The end of the Tour capturing the various mental constructs writers can create as they struggle to express themselves. Through these two characters the film captures the need for some form of validation that all individuals need, most notably writers, and how the world we live in can be strenuous for a depressive character like David Foster Wallace, with the sensationalist media romanticizing his addiction and suffering of an artist. The End of the Tour could be described as a love letter to the writers and importance of the craft, but it also doesn't shy away from touching on some of the darker aspects of the profession, such as the elitist mindset it can breed, this feeling of superior intelligence due to their ability to voice themselves through writing. Through David Foster Wallace, The End of the Tour argues against this idea of intellectualism, the perceived notion that writers having simply more intelligence than their audience being a complete sham, arguing instead that writers simply posses a unique and important skillset to express themselves through paper and pen, showing how showing how automatically assuming potential viewers aren't intellectual enough is more a construct of the writers own insecurities. The film is full of fascinating insights into the psyche of a writer, but I think one of the most profound is simply that the most skilled writers are truthfully like most people, simply having the gift of expression and the ability to put their perspective on paper for the world to digest. Many of these observations and insights about the life of a writer are very fascinating, but the true strength of The End of The Tour is its nuanced examination of loneliness and depression, The End of the Tour argues that as an artist you must create for yourself and no one else, and in that honesty is where David Foster Wallaces discovers his true audience, and more importantly the fact that his feelings and emotions about life aren't simply his, but are shared by many. Featuring an impressive lead performance by Jason Segal, James Pondsoldt's The End of the Tour is an insightful and heartfelt examination of two writers at different points of their careers, each of which is still trying to make sense of their lives and art.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
|