The End Of The Tour Trailer Is Here
The best author of all time is an abundantly simple call for me. It is without a doubt, David Foster Wallace. I’ve spoken at length about Mr. Wallace numerous times here… whether reviewing his absolutely brilliant Infinite Jest, or his fantastic vocabulary, the fantastic erasure poetry of Infinite Jest, or what have you. Well here comes a movie, not about David Foster Wallace’s books, or his characters, but about the man himself. Which is fairly understandable seeing as though the man has become a living legend since his suicide.
But the movie has caused its on controversies and conflicts with Wallace’s estate and PR chaos for the production company. But regardless of the time and chaos taken, here comes “The End of the Tour” whether we are ready for it or not. I’ve come and gone on the movie multiple times. I adored the book it was based on, David Lipsky‘s 2010 book Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself. It is heart wrenchingly beautiful. Its just a long running conversation, captured on audio recordings and then typed up sans edits. It is the epitome of purist novel writing. It was compelling. Very compelling. And it is ready made for a movie. The book is the closest thing a book can be to a movie script without being a movie script. So obviously, it makes sense, that we would have a movie on our hands sooner than later. The only glitch? Wallace’ estate is dead set against it.
The Guardian got a chance to see the film at Sundance this year, and here is a small slice of what they thought of it and why David was so incredibly compelling:
The bulk of the picture is Lipsky and Wallace just talking – about writing, about television, about technology, relationships, fame and, most importantly, being genuine. Wallace is something of a gentle giant, and as Lipsky digs deeper we learn more about his battles with depression. But Wallace’s narrative refuses to fit into a simple box. He used to drink but wasn’t “a drunk.” His time on suicide watch wasn’t due to a chemical imbalance. What The End of the Tour tries to sell, and sells well, is that Wallace’s big heart was just not made for these times. He’s unable to engage with Lipsky without worrying about three chess moves down the road – about how things will be perceived, and how his reaction to that perception will be perceived. He wears the bandana because he used to live in Tuscon and would sweat. But if he takes it off now he fears people will think he’s doing it because he knows some consider it an affectation. He’s damned either way and is smart enough to recognise he is powerless in the face of image making.
Regardless… I dig Wallace. And I even think I may just dig this movie about him even though it will be very difficult to communicate accurately or wholly. Here is the trailer for your review if you are interested.
So yeah, its that thinking about thinking about thinking that I adored about Wallace and his writing. He similarly believed that it was impossible to communicate one’s thoughts adequately enough. There are so many millions and millions of thoughts that it becomes a raw bandwidth problem. A mouth piece and vocal chords are very poor tools for sending that much data to one’s nearby neighbor. Right? I just had a thought, and it reminded me of a thought, and that caused an emotion, which wasn’t an experience, just a feeling, and that feeling made me realize that I wanted to tell you something, but what exactly I don’t know. Right? Or worse, I worry that it’ll be misunderstood for something other than the thing that it is. But the trouble there, is understanding one’s own intentions.