ジョン・クラシンスキー監督の最初のパンケーキ映画「Brief Interviews With Hideous Men」を再訪

『クワイエット・プレイス』がジョン・クラシンスキーの監督デビュー作だというのはよくある誤解だ。批評家から絶賛されたこの終末論的なスリラーは、実は彼の3作目の監督作品（ 『ザ・オフィス』の数エピソードを除く）であり、それ以前にはインディーズ界で2作、アンサンブル・ファミリー・ドラマ『ザ・ホラーズ』と、実際のデビュー作であるデイヴィッド・フォスター・ウォレスの短編集『醜い男たちとの短いインタビュー』を映画化した作品があった。もしあなたがそれを見たことがない、あるいは聞いたことがないとしても、それは驚きではない。クラシンスキー自身も、おそらくそれを忘れたいと思っているだろう。しかし、彼の5作目の監督作品となるファミリーファンタジー『IF』が劇場で公開されるのを前に、この野心的だが根本的に欠陥のある情熱的なプロジェクトについて語るには絶好の機会だ。

他の人なら、ブリーフ・インタビューズのように気取った、実験的で、理解不能な映画は、キャリアを終わらせることになったかもしれない。しかし、好感の持てる人物として有名なクラシンスキーにとっては、それは彼の最初のパンケーキに過ぎなかった。計画通りにはならなかった、真摯な初期の努力だった。一部のうっとうしいほど才能のあるアーティストは 、最初の試みでほぼすべてをうまくやり遂げるが、それは普通ではない。残りの私たちは、リズムに乗って本当に料理を始めるまでに、いくつかのまずいパンケーキが必要になるかもしれない。このやや難解な比喩のポイントは、才能が現れるには時間がかかり、成長の鍵は間違いから学ぶことだということだ。あるいは、ヨーダの賢明な言葉で言えば、「失敗こそが最高の教師である」。

There’s something to be said for trying something once, failing spectacularly, and then getting right back up and trying again. Well, maybe not right back. Brief Interviews With Hideous Men premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009, played in limited release for a few weeks, and then became a footnote in cinematic history (probably for the best). It would be seven years before Krasinski directed another feature. The Hollars was a star-studded yet mostly forgettable dramedy with a script by James C. Strouse (Grace Is Gone, Love Again). Krasinski initially came on board the film as an actor and connected so much to the material, and to Strouse (who based it on his real-life family), that he wound up directing as well. As a sophomore effort it was serviceable enough to make Hollywood forget about the fiasco that was Brief Interviews, making space for him to eventually co-write and direct A Quiet Place, then its sequel, and now, IF.

In interviews before and after the Sundance opening of Brief Interviews, Krasinski talked at length about discovering David Foster Wallace’s work through a stage reading of the collection in college. Undeterred by the conventional wisdom that Wallace is one of those writers whose books simply can’t be faithfully translated to the screen, Krasinski said to himself: “Challenge accepted.” As soon as he had enough clout in Hollywood, thanks to four seasons as Jim Halpert on The Office and a series of mid-budget films opposite A-listers, he acquired the rights to Brief Interviews With Hideous Men and set out to adapt the unadaptable. “This is, bar none, one of the greatest authors that has ever lived. Period,” Krasinski told an audience at a screening of the film in 2009. “[This movie] will never be more than a fraction of the imagination inspired by his writing. That is a given. I’m telling you that right now. But at the same time, I hope I did him a little bit of justice.”

There’s no question Krasinski had high ambitions and noble intentions when he took on the project, but he bit off more than he could chew. Wallace writes in dense prose, full of cerebral language, footnotes, and asides. Brief Interviews With Hideous Men is exactly what you’d expect from the title. The only thing that really connects the stories is an exploration of male depravity, and how it manifests in their views on women and sex. That, in itself, is not much to hang a film on.

To fill in the gaps and provide some connective tissue, Krasinski invented the character of Sara Quinn (played by Julianne Nicholson). Her last name is undoubtedly a reference to the “Q” that stands in for the unprinted questions posed by the unidentified interviewer in the book. The mystique of those missing questions is diminished slightly by introducing us to the interviewer, but it’s not like Sara gets much characterization anyway. She’s more of a narrative device than a complete person. She’s working on a research project about men, but also trying to work through a recent break-up after discovering her boyfriend cheated on her. She gets more screen time than any other character, yet by the end of the film we know less about her than any of her subjects.

Krasinski cuts back and forth in nonlinear fashion between the interviews and Sara’s academic life of campus events and advisor meetings. It’s all very gimmicky, and not as clever as he thinks it is. Some characters break the fourth wall, others wander in and out of memories, theirs and others, to deliver metatextual commentary on a scene. Characters who aren’t even in scenes together talk over one another. Time loses all meaning as we experience sudden flashbacks, then forward into the future, before snapping back to the present, and then to who knows when. Krasinski pulls out every trick in the indie auteur book, but it feels like he’s trying so hard to be artsy he forgot the most basic rule of filmmaking—don’t lose your audience. If you manage to stick around past the first 15 minutes or so, you find yourself spending a good chunk of the film’s mercifully short 80-minute running time waiting to see if all these blurry portraits resolve into a single, coherent whole by the end. (Spoiler alert: they do not.)

Speaking of waste, the bench of talented actors in this thing is ridiculous. In Hollywood, star power attracts star power, and Krasinski used his to put together an impressive cast, including (in alphabetical order, as they’re listed in the credits) Will Arnett, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Cerveris, Josh Charles, Dominic Cooper, Frankie Faison, Will Forte, Ben Gibbard, Timothy Hutton, Christopher Meloni, Chris Messina, Max Minghella, Corey Stoll, and more. Charles has a good bit in which he delivers a single breakup speech intercut between a handful of different women. Cooper gets a few choice words as an annoyingly persistent grad student who believes his messed up ideas about trauma and victimhood are uniquely profound. Frankie Faison describes his father’s life of humiliation as a men’s washroom attendant in painful and colorful detail. But the stories aren’t tonally consistent, and the characters seem like they belong to different films. The structure doesn’t allow them much screen time beyond their own little vignettes.

当然ながら、クラシンスキーは最も興味深い役を自分自身のために取っておいた。サラの元ボーイフレンドとして、彼は映画の最後の一撃を放つことになる。これは原作で最も印象的で物議を醸した部分の一つだ（詳しい人は「インタビュー#20」を参照）。10分間のモノローグで、彼は浮気の状況を、一緒に寝た女性が経験したトラウマ的な出来事を間接的に語ることで説明する。そして、これはウォレスをドラマ化する上での難しさのもう一つの例だ。彼は、実際の人の口から自然に出てくるようには決して意図されていない、重層的な説明の長い様式化された文章を書く。クラシンスキーはウォレスの散文に夢中になりすぎて、声に出して話したときに流れが良くなるように変更することができないことが判明した。そこで彼は、「政治的な弾丸を飲み込んで、彼女を厳密に一夜限りの目的と分類したことを告白する」のようなぎこちないセリフをテキストから丸ごと取り出し、その言葉を並べ替えてその力強さをなくす。ウォレスとリアリズムを両立させようとすると、どちらのレベルでも機能しない曖昧な中間地点に行き着くことになります。

たとえ見当違いだったとしても、クラシンスキーは『醜い男たちとの短いインタビュー』の構想を持っていた。ただ、計画通りにはいかなかった。彼は、自分の好きな作家の精神に倣ったポストモダン映画監督だと考えていたが、今回の経験でその考えは改めたようだ。近年は、より自分に合う、よりポピュリスト的なスタイルに落ち着いたようだ。パンケーキを5枚目まで食べている今、彼がついにそのテクニックを科学的に習得したかどうかを見るのは興味深いだろう。