Kevin Smith may not, strictly speaking, be the worst film maker in the USA, but this is only due to the fact that he is running in a very competitive field. No-one in cinema - with the possible exception of M Night Shyamalan, could be said to have quite so quickly put a great future behind him. It may make many of you feel terribly old, but it is a full 17 years since
Clerks first premiered at the Sundance festival and received almost universal acclaim and beginning a long-term relationship with Miramax. Smith had dropped out of film school after only a year and funded the film, set at his local convenience store, with numerous credit cards and selling his precious comic book collection. At the same festival this week, Smith, rather than replicating the success of his formative years completed a series of increasingly bizarre and paranoid outbursts, in person and online, with a display that was part ill-judged publicity stunt, part mental breakdown. Sadly, since Clerks achieved its renown for witty dialogue, dry surrealism and peculiar satirical pathos of disinterested American youth, Smith had ventured way beyond self-parody to being regarded as something of a nuisance. In spite on initial commercial success- pre-dominantly due to the involvement of celebrity fans Ben Affleck and Matt Damon - the quality of Smiths work has always been on a downward trajectory as he attempted to graft his one concept, and equally limited mannerism of style to pet-interests (comic books, Catholicism, pornography etc) with ever diminishing returns. Inevitably, with weaker and weaker work came greater negative press, much to Smiths chagrin, finally culminating in rants about critics on twitter and threats to withdraw his films from press screenings. This, seemingly, was the straw that broke the camels back, as Smith descended into a spiral of paranoia about critics, producers and distributors - all of whom he claimed we barriers to his work. At Sundance,
as reported by us, this came to a head. Smiths new film, Red State, a typically knowing take on the horror genre, was reputed to satirise the Patriot Act, as well as notorious homophobic activists, Westboro Baptist church. The film invariably drew protests from the church and a storm of publicity, but this was nothing in comparison with Smiths own behaviour. Having drawn distributors to the venue with the assurance they could bid for the rights, Smith then sold the rights to himself for the sum of $20. He then announced he would make one more picture before retiring amidst a scattergun rant at the film-making forces who opposed him which, so it seemed, encompassed everyone except his loyal fringe group of fans and comic-book obsessives. Sundance has endured many a peculiar display in the past, but nothing quite so bizarre as this. Here's a video of the full rant; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90pcHCF2h44 Initial reviews of Red State were predictably negative as it seems Smiths blunderbuss proselytising once again has to bare the weight of the films message. Who knows what will be this once celebrated directors next move- though he has threatened a tour around the theatres of America- but if any generalisations can be made, they are these: 1) Money doesnt always make you happy. 2) Its usually worth finishing film school.