Drawn to Cinema Season: American Splendor (Dir Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini, 1h 41m, 2003)

American Splendor Theatrical Release poster

We live in an era where comic book movies are still arguably the dominant trend in mainstream cinema; rumours of their death are exaggerated, but frankly, who would argue with legions of fans when I can weiter about their cooler, darker, more violent, more interesting, more experimental and often, more cinematic cooler older brother, the graphic novel?

Over the next few weeks, I will focus on cinematic adaptions of graphic novels featuring Depression era gangsters and a father and son's bond, the futuristic Mega City One, and the cinematic apotheosis of one of British comics' greatest heroes, and arguably the greatest graphic novel of all time finally brought to the screen. We begin, though, in Cleveland, with the unique, and highly autobiographical work of Harvey Pekar (Paul Giamatti/himself), in the film adaption of American Splendor.

From Pekar's early years, trying to find his voice as the antithesis to superhero comics, offering real life and reportage and a record of his bitter divorce from his second wife, this with the assistance of the cult underground 'comix' artist, Robert Crumb, so the film depicts his slow rise to fame. As American Splendor hits shelves, so the film matches the thoughts of the real Pekar, including on the cinematic adaptation he's now subject and participant in, the reactions of his work colleagues at (featuring in) his highly autobiographic work and his relationship with his third wife, and eventual creative partner, Joyce Brabner (Hope Davis/herself), who he promptly marries.

The poet laureate of Cleveland; Harvey Pekar (Paul Giamatti)

The film continues with his rise to fame; his appearances on The David Letterman Show, his brush with mortality, via cancer diagnosis, treatment and his collaborative subsequent graphic novel Our Cancer Year with Joyce, and ruminations on his work. All of this, as American Splendor itself often did, switches mediums, styles, and even back and forth between the often mundane dramaticised events of Pekar's life, his reportage recreations of the mundane and the life changing via stacks of comic book art from Crumb et al, and the real Pekar, Brabner, and other figures from the writer's life. Befitting a work that has always stuck close to reality, we begin with the young Pekar deriding a comics industry behold to superheroics, before, in a series of match cuts that immediately display the film's mixed media approach, we are introduced to the figure of the adult Pekar.

Giamatti may be only have a passing vocal and physical resemblance to Pekar-the latter narrates his fictional representative's journey with his husky Cleveland growl-but it's a perfect bit of casting, with Giamatti's scruffy appearance, his balding hair, and hangdog expression a perfect rendering of Pekar the character, walking through his hometown to work, as a medical records clerk, as the credits roll via comic book panels. Pekar the character, as portrayed by Giamatti is everyman: a voice from the streets, filled with neuroticism and fears, and often bordering on the pathetic with an early scene showing him unable to speak as his wife leaves him. The film perfectly juxtaposes him with the real Pekar moments later, this eccentric but highly articulate figure, whose life is on full display in this film at points dominating the frame. Against this, so we're introduced to wonderfully portrayed figures like Joyce, who become figures both in Pekar's life, and his comics.

Pekar and Joyce Brabner (Hope Davis)

This sensibility dominates the film. There's a restless energy to its back and forth between reality, cinematic narrative and the comics that link them, held together by its central figure, both acted and interviewed and his animated doppelgänger as they traverse life. But there is also undeniably, despite his glum nature, his obsessive collection of records and comics, and his often misanthropic persona, a charm to Pekar as a man and a character. After all, this is a man who, despite being unable to draw more than stick figures, and being dubbed by his retreating ex-wife as a plebeian, manages to work with key figures from the comics underground, charm, via his writing and kindness, a woman to fall almost immediately in love with him, despite their arguments and differing views on creativity, and via his often rambunctous appearances on Letterman, including an infamous and blazing row between the two of them, becomes a minor celebrity.

 For a life that Pekar often considered unhappy-and there is an undeniable sense that Pekar's life, fictionalised and otherwise has never been easy, from his cancer diagnosis and slow recovery that makes up the final third or so of the film to his often threadbare clothing to his often mundane existenence. There is a joy to seeing Harvey Pekar triumph over adversity, over his own creative shortcomings, to make something that has become an undeniable part of alternative American comics culture. There may be a few moments where, like Pekar's work itself, the fictionalisation of the events of his life are adjusted to tell a slightly better story, most notably the figure of R Crumb, who seems to be shuffled off to the side after helping Pekar get his start, but this is, after all, Pekar's story, not Crumb's.

Giamatti and the real Harvey Pekar, (right), who narrates and features throughout the film

At the end of the film we are left, as the film brings itself and Pekar's story up to date, including the production of the comic covering the film's production-a further layer of autobiographical cinema, with a sense of Pekar as a masterful, and unique creative figure. American Splendor, like the comics that share its name, and the man who created them, is an off-the-wall film, but through its deeply personal portrait of the self-styled 'Poet Laureate of Cleveland', manages to match his story with a sensibility out of his very own work.

Rating: Highly Recommended

American Splendor is available to stream via SkyGo, and on DVD and BluRay from Optimum on import from France. It is also currently available to stream via HBOMax in the USA and on DVD and BluRay from HBO Studios

Next week, we continue in our adventures in graphic novels, as we travel back to the era of Prohibition and gangsters, through the eyes of a father and son, in Road to Perdition

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