And so I begin a new blog, and while there will most definitely be plenty of funny videos and interesting links, I have a new goal: actually providing my own thoughts on these things, whether its a movie review, or an idea that spawned from an article I read, or just my thoughts on whatever happens to be on my mind. I spent a lot of time trying to think of a clever gimmick for my blog that would make it stand out, but really, it's pretty much all been done. There's people that review a horror movie every day, and people that eat all kinds of weird foods, and there's whatever this is. So, instead of a gimmick, I'm just going to be me, and use this as an outlet for some of the things I think about.
Right around when my previous blog went defunct, I had a post formulating in my brain that was going to be about all the new forms of media that have taken over. YouTube and Wikipedia were my main focuses, because I think they really have either created or have been created from a vast change in the way we process information.
I'm not going to go into a thesis-length essay about this, as I'm sure there have been dozens before me, but instead I just want to mention a movie I just watched called Winnebago Man. You may have seen the viral video that inspired it. I didn't really know what to expect from the documentary; I didn't know how you could get a feature-length film out of a video of a guy getting upset while filming a commercial. It would be like someone doing an hour and half movie about someone's footage from America's Funniest Home Videos. As it turns out, that's pretty much exactly what the movie is, and exactly what makes it so fascinating.
As the movie starts out, Ben Steinbauer, the filmmaker, explains what the video is, and does a brief overview of the whole YouTube viral video phenomenon. He mentions the Star Wars kid, and how the video basically ruined the kid's life because of all the teasing he got when it was seen by millions of people. And he interviews this guy briefly, who also experienced professional and public humiliation when his video leaked online. And then Steinbauer goes on a hunt to unravel the mystery of the origins of the Winnebago Man video.
I thought the majority of the movie would be taken up with him trying to track this guy down, but that's really only the first half hour. It turns out that there was some malicious intent behind this video being made. The crew that worked with this guy had such a rough time that they edited together the outtakes and sent them to the Winnebago company, and as a result, this guy, Jack Rebney, was fired. Rebney proves difficult to locate, however, but Steinbauer finally tracks him down to a cabin on the top of a mountain in California, where the Winnebago Man has made his home.
All of this is just the first half hour of the movie, and so I wondered where the movie could possibly go after this. Rebeny turns out to be an intelligent, well-spoken guy who seems to have all but forgotten about the Winnebago thing, and I didn't really see how there could be anything more to the story.
This is where things get interesting, though. Rebney calls up the film crew, and he and Steinbauer develop a kind of friendship. It becomes clear that Rebney really hasn't forgotten about the commerical, and is actually really upset about his online infamy. The rest of the movie then becomes kind of a character study of this man's life.
There are a couple of things I really like about this. One is that the filmmaker doesn't hesitate to become part of the story himself. You can feel his awkwardness in the moments where he's not sure what kind of movie he's making, or in his just trying to deal with the rascible character of Jack Rebney. It makes the film a lot more personal and touching as a result.
The other thing I like about this approach is that it forces us to look at the man behind this video. The movie could have made him into a joke-- "So, this guy from this funny video? Now he just lives on top of a mountain, all by himself!", but instead you really start to like the guy. The movie climaxes at the Found Footage Film Festival (which is where I myself saw the Winnebago man video), where Rebney actually shows up to meet his fans.
I wasn't sure how this climax would play out. Rebney seemed to have a disdain for anyone that would watch anything on YouTube, and I was worried that he would just shout angrily at the crowd while they laughed at him. Instead, he is actually quite genial and self-deprecating. The crowd loves him, and after the show, we see him shaking hands and signing autographs, something he expressed total disgust for while driving to the show.
This is really fantastic stuff for a documentary to capture- this is a man who actually undergoes a change of heart during the making of this film. It's really touching to watch him realize that he doesn't have to disdain the people who enjoy watching his video; they don't have anything against him, they just enjoy it for what it is: a glimpse into one guy's really bad day.
There's a couple other documentaries I've seen recently that explore similar ideas. Catfish is a movie about an online relationship that takes a number of interesting twists, and, without spoiling too much, they are dealt with in unexpectedly thoughtful ways by the filmmakers. Best Worst Movie is a movie about the people who were in one of my favorite bad movies, Troll 2, and it's made by the guy who was the main character in the film. The cult around this movie is similar to that of the Winnebago Man, and there's similar scenes where the stars of this movie, many of whom were also living devastatingly lonely lives when the filmmakers tracked them down, go to a midnight showing of the movie, and the results are similarly as affecting as the end of Winnebago Man.
There's a truly great coda to Winnebago Man on the DVD special features, which show the NYC premiere of the film. At the end of a Q&A, Jack Rebney turns to Ben Steinbauer and tells him that he thinks he is the future of filmmaking. It's a beautiful moment, and one I totally would not have expected from a movie about one silly viral video. And it's true, too. We need artists who explore these cultural phenomena that are flooding our lives, and we need ones who will do it in a way that is thoughtful and human.
