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By Joshua Jabcuga

February 5, 2004

“All the Movies Will Be About Volcanoes this Year” or The Cult of Personality: wherein Josh Jabcuga reviews POSTCARDS FROM THE FUTURE: THE CHUCK PALAHNIUK DOCUMENTARY, which examines the author’s work, the evolution and ultimate death of transgressive fiction, and the need for a meta-narrative story in the world today.

“Guess what? Your whole life is going to be about waiting for that next thing.”

You’re probably familiar with author Chuck Palahniuk. The writer of such generation-defining and –deconstructing novels like FIGHT CLUB and CHOKE has amassed an impressive body of work (six fiction, one non fiction release) since his debut not even a decade ago. According to various interviews on the just-released documentary, POSTCARDS FROM THE FUTURE (for sale at www.chuckpalahniuk.net), everything heretofore was just batting practice (sparring practice?). With what is anticipated to be Palahniuk’s most commercially successfully release in the form of a collection of horror short stories, tentatively titled GUTS, the author is on the verge of transforming his cult-like messiah status to that of a household name along the lines of a Stephen King or Tom Clancy. POSTCARDS FROM THE FUTURE, directed and edited by Dennis Widmyer, Kevin Kolsch, and Josh Chaplinsky, finds its subject at a very unique period. Having already “made it” in the publishing world, POSTCARDS captures Palahniuk not on the cusp of waiting to be that next thing, but of being that next bigger thing. POSTCARDS is an important work, serving as a time capsule of an artist that is neither here nor there, but clearly on his way.

Few entertainers command the sort of rabid enthusiasm and support like Chuck Palahniuk. How many documentaries do you know feature a major contemporary writer as its subject? (Probably, and sadly, not even a handful. Historically, writers always seem to get the shaft, don’t they?) For that matter, how many current entertainers could lend their lives to a documentary and not make it seem like A.) a fluff piece and B.) a glorified press kit? Or maybe the more critical question is, how many entertainers would allow for such a documentary? I’m not talking about MTV’s DIARY (“You think you know? You have no idea.”) or something like VH1’s BEHIND THE MUSIC, or any number of riffs on the formula meant to hike-up album sales or weekend box office tallies. I’m talking about significant subjects, like Chuck Palahniuk, with meaningful messages and important stories to tell, ones worth preserving for future generations. Lastly, how many authors could fill a 90-minute documentary and make it interesting? Essentially, don’t they just sit there on their laptop and…write? Consider it then not only a testament to Chuck Palahniuk’s personality but to the directors of POSTCARDS that the end result of the documentary turns out to be such an engaging picture, one that examines not only Palahniuk and the many facets orbiting in his work’s gravitational pull (like many of his fanatical readers, for instance), but of the hype surrounding the author himself, who is apparently about to burst like a rocket into the next stratosphere.

While the documentary uses a conference held at Edinboro University over the course of a weekend in April in 2003 as its grounding anchor and central angle by which to examine the author, the conference is in essence merely a launching point. Indeed, the structure of the film is a little on the loose side, but to the defense of the filmmakers, how do you film a weekend conference and make it exciting for those that didn’t originally participate? That would be the equivalent of watching the home video of a wedding you weren’t invited to, whose participants you barely know. Dennis Widmyer, one of the film’s directors, is very familiar with Palahniuk as he runs the author’s official Web site (www.ChuckPalahniuk.net; www.ChuckPalahniuk.com is apparently operated by someone looking simply to cash in on the author’s name.) Widmyer, along with Kolsch and Chaplinsky, treat the author, but more importantly, the fans, who have become known rather infamously as “the cult,” very warmly and critical, but without passing judgment. The film opens on a goofy, colorful, rather extroverted fan (read: annoying) named Dr. Tropical, who serves no real purpose in life, it seems, other than to pester the author with inane questions. Palahniuk handles the fan with much patience and a polite grin. Later in the film Dr. Tropical is contrasted by a young man named Dallas Bowyer, who sold dope to earn enough money to buy a bus ticket from Portland, Oregon, to Edinboro, Pennsylvania, so he could attend the conference. We learn later in the film that Bowyer was at one time a self-mutilator (cutter) who began his road to recovery after reading a copy of FIGHT CLUB given to him by his mother while he was staying in a hospital. Bowyer was relieved to learn that someone else out there understood and that he wasn’t alone in not being able to make sense of the world.

Palahniuk took a shining to Dallas Bowyer and you will too. With his sadly blank, or maybe numb eyes, Bowyer comes across as an old soul who, as Palahniuk believes, simply has a Zen-like understanding of the world, who doesn’t crave the attention like someone who refers to himself as “Dr. Tropical.” Palahniuk explains in an interview that Dr. Tropical and Dallas Bowyer are on the same plane, just on opposite ends of the spectrum. He says neither is above the other, but that it’s just two different ways of being. In essence, that attitude is very telling of Palahniuk’s books. Often his main characters aren’t the most likeable of people, and even Palahniuk admits to not necessarily liking his own characters (although you can’t help but feel a strange affinity for many of them, almost like you’re living through them vicariously).

The Q & A with the author provided in the film is admittedly mostly for die-hards and fans of the author’s work, although Palahniuk at one point answers a question regarding the death of transgressive fiction, which is the equivalent of Robert Rodriquez discussing the accessibility of DIY/independent filmmaking. What you’re getting is insight straight from the horse’s mouth, since Palahniuk (and most notably FIGHT CLUB) is one of the key participants in the evolution of the transgressive fiction scene, along with other books like THE MONKEYWRENCH GANG, TRAINSPOTTING, and AMERICAN PSYCHO.

During the remainder of the all-too-brief Q & A with the author, Palahniuk comes across as such a likeable guy, and fittingly, natural storyteller, that you can’t help but root for him and become engrossed in his comments. Ironically, POSTCARDS is very much like a lower-budgeted version of the film AN EVENING WITH KEVIN SMITH in that, while it helps to be a fan of Kevin Smith’s films and writing, you can’t help but at least be amused by his wit and sense of humor, especially regarding his fans, who, if you swap the CLERKS t-shirts for FIGHT CLUB t-shirts, are very interchangeable in their zeal. By watching Palahniuk speak and interact with his fans, you get the impression that the man was meant to be a star and is comfortable with the status, but at the same time, is humble and very much in disbelief of the attention he receives. It’s very weird to me, but at the same time promising to all of us as a society, to watch an author for once being treated with the reception usually reserved for a rockstar or Superbowl-winning franchise.

“No, no, no, I’m not wasting another 200 pages of my life.”

The documentary’s highpoint arrives when it showcases the portion of the weekend conference when Palahniuk made his own presentation to a classroom of students and writers, titled “The Death of Protest: The Rebirth of Charm—Self-Expression as a Way to Entertain People and Change Their Reality.” The directors of the documentary provide enough of the presentation so that viewers can get a real feel for what Palahniuk was trying to get across. Palahniuk believes our society and culture are in a crucial period, where certain elements, among them dissatisfaction and resignation, are providing a major launching point for people (hopefully, the youth), to take charge, to shape the world and subsequently their own destinies. Palahniuk reached his own conclusion, he says, when he grew disenchanted after reading the first few paragraphs of about the one hundredth new release he came across at the library. It was just another novel that didn’t tell the stories he wanted to hear, or perhaps the stories he thought needed to be told.

Palahniuk rose to the challenge after getting some constructive-criticism from his writing mentor, author Tom Spanbauer. Spanbauer told Palahniuk that he couldn’t write, but that Palahniuk was a hell of a storyteller, and that he should concentrate on his strengths and write like he speaks. Spanbauer would tell his student that there are people out there who dictate the climate of the culture, that “There are people out there who say, ‘This year all the shirts will be red….All the movies will be about volcanoes this year.’” “I never thought I could be one of those people,” Palahniuk confesses on the documentary. The thing is, he’s not “one of those people.” Spanbauer not only empowered Palahniuk to be a trendsetter through his writing, but in my opinion, to transcend that label by making his readers reevaluate the things the world manufactures on its monkey-driven, global sweatshop assembly line and sells to them as being critical to one’s existence (and at twice the cost). Clearly the plots in Palahniuk’s novels are mere devices by which he channels his social commentary, but to give credit where it’s due, Palahniuk’s plots are often quite the page-turners.

Palahniuk makes the argument that the world doesn’t currently have its big story. He says there are no meta-narrative stories, no major stories, coming from people, such as “Communism will save us all!” or big in the scale that Christianity was a big story, with someone like Christ walking around, essentially modeling a philosophy first-hand. Instead, the author says the media is singing the praises of and spinning a lot of little software stories like “Brittany Spears is really hot!” or “Vin Diesel is the next big thing!” Palahniuk says it’s up to us to come up with that new story. “That story doesn’t have to be in conflict or in reaction to the current story….Because I would say right now you don’t effectively change anything by protesting. You give people a more effective way of living their lives…they won’t give a shit about foreign oil. You give them the right story and you make their cars obsolete….You can do that within the culture without reacting to the government or culture because you’d be wasting energy and making it stronger by giving it this token little resistance. Your job is to come up with a story that makes everything we’re worrying about right now completely beside the point and negligible because your story will be so incredible.”

And speaking of software stories and the media, Palahniuk is open to nearly any interviewer’s request, and during one of the documentary’s more entertaining segments, we see clips of some of Palahniuk’s more…interesting media appearances. Palahniuk looks in disbelief as he is being interviewed by a puppet named “Special Ed,” and the face he makes is priceless. We can read his mind and it’s almost as if he is saying, “Being a nice guy is one thing, but Hemingway never had to answer to any sock puppets.” During another clip, we see Palahniuk on one of those lame local talk shows that probably have a viewership of about three, who are usually just bored housewives tuning in early before Dr.Phil starts. The host comes right out of the gate and asks Palahniuk about the history of personal tragedies in his family, most recently, the murder of his father, and whether or not it affects his mental state. Perhaps a valid question if handled with tact, but this slimy host possessed no such subtlety. Trying his best not to lose his cool, Palahniuk responds by saying he didn’t realize he was on Oprah. Still, in a world where the media is taught that artists are merely merchants of cool, and that art is simply a by-product of ratings and award shows, Palahniuk and his readers seem to understand that maybe it’s the rest of the world that doesn’t get it, and maybe they never will. Maybe that’s why the first rule of FIGHT CLUB is “You don’t talk about FIGHT CLUB.”

To read an interview that Josh Jabcuga conducted with one of the film’s directors, Dennis Widmyer, click here.

“With a gun stuck in your mouth and the barrel of the gun between your teeth, you can only talk in vowels.” Josh Jabcuga, writer of Squib Central, which is published every Thursday exclusively at www.moviepoopshoot.com, is reminded of this every week by his friendly editor as he nears his deadline.

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