Living in Oblivion is an independent 1990s movie about why making independent 1990s movies is hell on film.
Yes, it’s a meta piece. But don’t let that scare you off: the movie’s feet are on the ground, and it’s just here to make you laugh.
The whole thing started as a buzzed rant.
Filmmaker Tom DiCillo, as he tells it in John Gaspard’s book Fast, Cheap, and Written That Way, went to a wedding. Despite never having a martini, he soon found himself three martinis deep.
Soon, a guest DiCillo recognized from an acting class saw DiCillo. He congratulated DiCillo on finishing his first film. The guest felt DiCillo was so lucky to have actually made a movie – a true badge of awesome to complete one.
DiCillo, in a perhaps tipsy state of annoyance, had to set this misguided mofo straight.
Fun? Glamorous? Hell no.
You see, DiCillo was coming off the four frustrating years he spent making his first film, Johnny Suede. And he was now bogged down in a sticky patch trying to get his next picture, Box of Moonlight, off the ground.
So Dicillo told the guest to shut the fuck up. He ranted about how making a movie was infuriating, and not just the part where you’re trying to get the money. He rattled off the numerous problems with actors and things going wrong on set.
But this passionate rant was more fruitful than setting the record straight: DiCillo realized he could make a fifteen-minute film in which he confronted actors with endless disruptions.
And that’s where things were born.
DiCillo went home and wrote the script, which is word-for-word and frame-by-frame, the actual beginning of the finished film.
And soon DiCillo’s actor friends Katherine Keener and Dermot Mulroney were involved. As more people came on board, they were able to shoot the first part of the film.
And eventually, through family and friends, he had secured the money to independently fully finance the project, finishing the rest of the movie.
Made for just $500,000, Living in Oblivion more than paid for itself, with quotes of a $1 million box office take and additional revenue from rentals and sales since then.
And the film has gone on to achieve legendary status, standing as a cautionary tale for the industry.
But is it a film laypeople can appreciate, or just for film industry insiders? And after ~30 years, is it still worth your time today?
Let’s find out.
So is Living in Oblivion a good movie?
The Plot of Living in Oblivion:
Nick Reve (Steve Buscemi) is an independent filmmaker with a vision.
But he’ll have to steer a clown car of a production to make it happen.
Will Nick go crazy fighting all the setbacks on his dumpster fire of a set, or will he prove all the people who didn’t believe in him wrong?
The Rest of the Main Cast Includes:
- Catherine Keener as Nicole
- Dermot Mulroney as Wolf
- Danielle von Zerneck as Wanda
- James LeGros as Chad Palomino
- Peter Dinklage as Tito
- Kevin Corrigan as Assistant Camera
- Hillary Gilford as Script manager
- Robert Wightman as Gaffer
- Tom Jarmusch as Driver/Intern
- Michael Griffiths as Sound Mixer
- Matthew Grace as Boom Operator
- Ryan Bowker as Food Service/Clapper
- Francesca DiMauro as Production Assistant
- Norman Fields as Hair/Make-up Artist
- Lori Tan Chinn as Costume Designer
- Vincenzo Amelia as Cook
- Laurel Thornby as Nicole’s Mother
- Cora Reve (Rica Martens)
- Nurse (Michele Carlo)
What’s Working Well Here:
Laughs All Over, +8 Points
Even if a movie is funny, if it relies on only one type of joke, the humor becomes stale. And I don’t mean past-its-prime bread with a bit of mold on it stale. I mean a pretzel bag that hasn’t been nicely sealed kind of stale – you can eat it, but it’s no longer crisp.
For example, imagine all your jokes are part of a dialogue. After a while, you get tired of listening, and it begins to feel like everyone in your film talks the same way or is overreaching for laughs.
And since this movie is a meta piece, I worried that there would only be situational humor – oh, look at this silly situation, frim fram, haha — nonsense.
Nah. The jokes are all over the comedy map.
There are hilarious lines, like when Nicole laments to Nick that she “feels like an asshole,” to which he replies, “You’re just saying that because you have Preparation H on your face.”
And there are awkward moments, clashes of fragile egos, equipment breaking, food poisoning, and fun with an eye patch, just to start.
Every problem on set is both realistic and hilarious. You come away from watching the movie understanding that, yes, it must be this friggin’ bad to make a film.
And you’re in on the joke. After a few minutes of the opening scenes, where something unforeseen keeps wrecking the moment, you just know something is going to go wrong for poor Nick again. And that anticipation you feel, as you wait for the next ridiculous interruption, is also hilarious.
And That’s It, +2 Points
The film is divided into three parts. Coming in just around 90 minutes, it doesn’t overstay its welcome, and none of the segments last any bit longer than they should.
It’s not the rapid fire of, say, comedy classic Airplane, but before any of the comic fruit goes bad, it’s at your door with another joke basket of sorts.
And each segment has a tight focus. DiCillo highlighted the on-set technical problems in part one and the emotional disruptions between the cast and crew in part two. For the third section, he went with a directorial existential crisis. It shows Nick breaking down, questioning whether he even has the skills to pull off the movie, and considering giving up.
Accessible, +1 Point
I was concerned that this movie would be built around inside jokes. After all, it’s a movie made by a writer/director and actors, and it’s about how bad filmmaking and acting can be. For most of us, that seems like a closed circle of knowledge.
But I understood the jokes perfectly. And while I write, my only filmmaking experience is a crap short home movie I made in my 20s and being an extra in a student film for a summer.
So you don’t have to be in the industry to understand the absurdity.
Characters and Performances, +6 Points
We come to revere filmmakers for their talent and craft. We often see them as these stylish figures with moving words, much like the actors at their command.
But this film reveals that they are more likely to be haggard and hanging on by a shred of a thread.
With his bulging eyes, you can see Steve Buscemi’s Nick is going to explode like Thunder from Big Trouble in Little China any second.
Presiding over his circus-like production has Nick up at 4:30 in the morning, dreaming of the constant obstacles he faced the night before.
And in the middle of it all, he’s still developing a crush on Nicole that he can’t find the gumption to act on.
Nicole is afraid she wasn’t that good in that shower scene in a Richard Gere movie and definitely feels she’s not doing well in this film either. She dreams of her future life where she’s a waitress.
Keener pulls off an impressive feat in her performance. She has to act as if she’s someone else – sometimes succeeding, other times put off by thoughts in her head. So performing as a person who is flagging or flying in their performance is a nifty trick, but she walks that line with ease.
Dermot Mulroney’s Wolf is a leather-clad, beret-wearing cinematographer with a secret, fragile ego. He likes to dolly in the camera for close-ups and not take shit from pompous actors who can’t hit their marks.
But thanks to Mulroney’s performance, we can see he’s a baby, not a tough guy.
James Le Gros was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male as Chad Palomino – a hotshot actor. Palomino’s shitty blocking ideas, which are just schemes to make himself look better, are wrecking Wolf’s shots and ruining the focus of Nick’s scenes.
And Tito, a little person played by Peter Dinklage, doesn’t appreciate being stereotyped.
The film has that little gift of opening the mental door a crack – giving us glimpses into the character’s fears, weaknesses, or desires that provide the complete characterization.
Go Watch Living in Oblivion:
Total Score: 17 Points
Living in Oblivion is like a hilarious cautionary tale. It dispels all the supposed glamour of filmmaking, peeling back the brown curtain so you can see the true shitshow behind it.
But while its mockery is sharp, it stands on its own as an actual brilliant piece of filmmaking. The script moves quickly, the characters are well-acted and lively, and it is mindful of its humor about the film industry, making it accessible to all audiences.
This is a must-watch for anyone who loves movies to see what’s hateable about making them.
The Legacy of Living in Oblivion:
So what is the legacy of Living in Oblivion?
The movie has received numerous positive reviews since its release and earned the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. It also has Independent Spirit nominations.
I’d probably need a crazy-ass wall chart a la Charlie from Always Sunny in Philadelphia where he’s trying to explain how there’s no Carol in HR to make these connections for you. But I’m going to argue that you can chase a line from Living in Oblivion to future meta films like Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation.
I’m not going to say it’s the only movie about the absurdity or difficulties of making a movie, though. Federico Fellini’s 8 ½ had come out as early as 1963, for example. That’s more of an existential, avant-garde thing, of course. But you get the idea.
It is said that asshole actor Chad Palomino was based on director Tom DiCillo’s experiences working with Brad Pitt on Johnny Seude, but apparently Tom DiCillo’s DVD commentary track says this is not the case.
Tom DiCillo’s career is wide and varied. He’s directed eight films so far, including 2006’s Delirious, where he teamed up with Steve Buscemi again.
Johnny Seude was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. And he has also received a Grand Jury Prize nomination for his documentary about The Doors, titled When You’re Strange. It was then nominated for an Emmy Award and a Grammy Award.
He’s also well-known for his cinematography, frequently working with Jim Jarmusch. He’s been behind the camera for movies like Stranger Than Paradise and Coffee and Cigarettes.
DiCillo’s website describes him as one of the founding members of the American Independent Film movement that began in New York City in the late 1970s.
I’m not going to cover how successful Steve Buscemi’s career has gone on to be because, come on, you probably know that. But I think it’s cool that throughout his career he’s been in total mainstream movies, like Con Air or Armageddon, and independent stuff like this movie or, say, Ghost World.
Catherine Keener, who played Nicole, has a considerable reputation for these independent movie things. She’s, of course, been in Being John Malkovich, which was one of her two Academy Award nominations. She had her other nomination for playing Harper Lee in Capote.
She has also received nominations for Primetime Emmy Awards, a BAFTA Award, and two Golden Globes.
Keener is someone directors tend to latch onto. She was in DiCillo’s first four films, three Spike Jonze films, and five Nicole Holofcener movies.
I’ll never forget that Catherine Keener is great in Death to Smoochy. This movie also starred Edward Norton, Robin Williams, and Danny DeVito. It mocked Barney the Dinosaur while revealing the darker side of entertaining children.
This was the film debut for Peter Dinklage, who, of course, went on to be best known for his work on Game of Thrones. He won the Primetime Emmy Award four times in his role as Tyrion Lannister. He also has a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award for the same role.
And the guy has been in plenty of movies, such as X-Men: Days of Future Past or Wicked.
Dermot Mulroney, who played Wolf, and Catherine Keener were actually married from 1990 to 2007. He’s had a long career that’s still going strong, with appearances in movies such as Young Guns, Point of No Return, and About Schmidt.
What I never knew about Mulroney is that he’s also a cellist. He’s played on the scores for movies like Jurassic World, Zootopia, and Rogue One. That’s pretty nuts. That’s like having an entire side career in music that most people in music don’t achieve.
And James Le Gros has accomplished a great deal as well. His successful career includes movies such as Point Break and Drugstore Cowboy, and he has appeared on TV shows like Ally McBeal, Law & Order, and Friends.
Apologies to any actors I didn’t highlight.
This film is, of course, considered a cult favorite. It was nominated for the American Film Institute’s 100 Years…100 Laughs list.
And it’s rumored to be screened in film schools as a warning of things to come. Filmmaking has undoubtedly changed since this movie came out, but I bet it’s just a case of new tech, new frustrations.
Many people believe this movie was improvised. But according to DiCillo, everything was scripted except the scene in part one where Nick Reve erupts in anger.
Another fun fact: when little person Tito flies into a rant about the stereotyping of little people, the crew that was doing the film didn’t know this was part of the script. They all burst into laughter when they realized Tito’s protest about his part was actually part of the film.
Lastly, I think it’s worth noting that DiCillo doesn’t completely hate filmmaking, just the aspects of it, like in this film, that drive you bonkers.
He says he loves writing because it’s the one time everything works – the actors go where you want, the locations are available, etc. I find that funny because many writers will tell you how much they hate writing.
Well, that’s all I got. Thanks for reading.
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Disclaimer:
This review’s factual information was gathered through online sources, like Wikipedia, IMDB, or interviews. Misrepresentations and errors are possible but unintentional.
Making art is hard. This is a fan’s blog. Any criticisms are meant to be constructive.
