No 12-step program for this: the movie lover as addict

I have an addictive personality.

Most people figure this out the hard way by actually grappling with an actual addiction: to substances, to body image, to sex, to gambling. The list of things one can become addicted to is varied and long. I suppose I come as close to having an addiction to food as anything else, though I am not addicted to anything in particular and have never embraced this concept as a defined and specific addiction. It's most likely that the extent of my food addiction is my occasional desire to exercise my skill with hyperbole: "I am so addicted to these dark chocolate-covered potato chips."

So how do I know I have a temperament predisposed to addiction when I haven't really suffered from one? Easy. I watch a lot of movies, and I've learned a lot about various addictions from the movies I've seen.

There are some excellent films about addiction.  Alcoholism in particular has been covered extensively in movies like "Days of Wine and Roses" and "Leaving Las Vegas" (back when Nicholas Cage was not a punchline and actually ascended the stairs to the stage at an Oscar ceremony for the performance). Drug addiction is a popular topic in movies, often portrayed in ways that you can't un-see once you've seen them ("Requiem For a Dream" and "Trainspotting" come quickly to mind). Even sex addiction has been covered in Steve McQueen's "Shame" (a feeling I felt too strongly to be caught watching the film in the theater, so I waited for the home release). What I've learned from watching these films is that if I ever dipped my toes in some of these behaviors, I would be the kind of person who would become obsessed, fall down the rabbit hole, have difficulty stopping.

What has never occurred to me was the idea that perhaps I was addicted to movies themselves. But now I'm questioning myself about that possibility.

Patton Oswalt and Richard Roeper at NCC, Jan. 13, 2015

 

Actor/comedian Patton Oswalt recently published a book (his second) called "Silver Screen Fiend: Learning About Life From an Addiction to Film." Oswalt describes his book as belonging to the addiction/recovery subset of memoir genres, though admittedly without some of the high stakes associated with other addictions.

Last night, Oswalt stopped in Naperville to talk about movies and his book at a signing event for Anderson's Bookshop hosted by North Central College. The event was moderated by Chicago Sun Times film critic Richard Roeper.

As "Silver Screen Fiend" details, Oswalt went through a four-year period (1995-1999) of obsessively watching movies. At this time in his life, he had just headed to California to pursue a career as a stand-up comedian. He soon took to attending local movie theaters, and in particular, the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles. He kept a log of every movie he saw (excluding those on television or cable at home) and started to understand his hobby was more serious when he began to lack any discrimination in choosing between quality films and bad ones. No genre, language or year of release was off the table.

"We tack ourselves onto something bigger than us to feel like we have more importance in the world," Oswalt said to the audience gathered for his book signing, which included me. "But really, that's just magical thinking."

Exactly how spending hours in darkened theaters watching as many as three films a day and only coming out to walk into different darkened theaters to perform his comedy act qualifies as feeling like a part of something bigger is difficult to pin down, but when I think back on films I've seen, I can definitely recall times when a well-made film has made me feel like I was tapping in to a collective humanity, a more shared experience. It just didn't occur to me that a high could be associated with that.

But Oswalt came to see his habits as a true addiction. "The thing you think is serving you, you become a slave to," Oswalt said.

In a conversation as varied and sometimes spastic as his book, Oswalt and Roeper engaged in quick-tongued banter on films ranging from the glorious to the notorious, Oswalt somehow managing to extol the virtues of "Con Air" as a "man party" in one moment, then dropping a "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" reference in the next. During a question and answer session, he addressed subjects ranging from his own television and film appearances to career in comedy, ultimately hinting that the end result of his film addiction is headed toward a new phase of his career as a director. Someday.

Me with Oswalt. We talked about "Plan 9 From Outer Space."

I'm halfway through "Silver Screen Fiend" as I'm writing this, and it's a well-written and entertaining memoir on a topic I've certainly got in me that I never considered to be source material for a book. But I like the idea of putting our obsessions to good use. That's probably why I write this blog, even if few are reading it. I'm telling myself that I'm a part of something bigger to feel like I have more importance in the world. But, as Oswalt said about the thrill of doing stand-up, it's the terror of failing that makes the work so amazing. We're not just addicted to the rush of succeeding, but the terror that none of it will work.

Clearly, addictions loom large in our lives and are emotionally all-consuming. Or at least that's how they show it in the movies. The movies that I am probably addicted to. "Hello, my name is..."

Oh, and for the record...in case you're as addicted to films as we are, Patton mentioned that his favorite noirs are as follows: "Phantom Lady," "I Wake Up Screaming," "Crime Wave," "The Prowler," and "Caged." Sadly, I've seen none of those films. But I plan to check them out. The fact is, I just can't help myself...