I was a late arriver to the Spalding Gray party, and only came to know his work a few years before the end of his life. Steven Soderbergh combed through footage of Gray's various performances (for those who don't know him, he was probably best at theatrical monologues, most notably "Swimming to Cambodia") and interviews. Using the footage, he fashioned together an autobiography of the man, in Gray's own words.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100323/review_nm/us_film_fine I find this concept fascinating. It is essentially a one-man "E! True Hollywood Story." But, as with those bio shows of famous people, I wonder if we can ever fully capture a person's life based on what they might say during promotional tour interviews (or, in Gray's case, carefully crafted stories performed on stage). I miss Spalding Gray, and I don't know of anybody who can do what he did. KNBC weatherman Fritz Coleman has done two outstanding monologues, and you can't help but compare them to Gray's work, but Coleman never seemed to catch his big break. Craig Ferguson is a good storyteller, but he lacks Gray's ability to weave a narrative thread through an entire hour (or more). The first DVD set of "An Evening With Kevin Smith" contained a fair amount of monologues, and there was often an attempt at a callback here and there, but the amount of preparation Gray did seems unlikely to be matched by anyone else for a while. -- Kevin M. (RPCV) -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tvornottv+unsubscribegooglegroups.com or reply to this email with the words "REMOVE ME" as the subject.
