August 19, 2009
Spalding Gray, Swimming to Cambodia
The opening sequence:
I haven’t seen the movie in a long time, but it is the movie I have seen the most. Even more than Star Wars. Looking again at this clip, the first direct interaction with the film in over ten years, I am struck by how young he looks. The movie, and he, have aged in my mind. His freshness here is wonderful. What struck me the numerous times I watched the film was his amazing ability to create a film out of nothing more than himself — a man at a table with a notebook and a glass of water. I was transfixed. Over and over and over. If you see the film, or have seen the film, I would love to talk about it.
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I have seen it, Deron, but I should watch it again. My original viewing was colored by the fact that Daryl and I were once taught by (and Daryl fairly well acquainted with) Spalding’s brother, Rockwell. It was hard getting past the private knowledge to judge the film on its own merits.
It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen it. I had the VHS. I must have watched it a dozen times. Transfixed is a good, good word for my experience. I would probably have to see it again to be able to talk very deeply about it after all this time.
wow, Cindy. I see a clusterflock interviews clusterflock in your future.
do you have time for it?
Well, there’s not all that much to tell. Rocky taught Philosophy at UT Dallas in the late 1970s. He was fairly young, probably not long out of graduate school at the University of Chicago. He was a delightful man with the most beautiful speaking voice I’ve ever heard. Daryl and I weren’t acquainted with each other at the time we knew him–I took a couple of (very good) undergraduate courses from him, and Daryl was a graduate student at the time and both took courses from him and hung out with him a bit. We have some amusing stories about him, but I don’t think it appropriate to make them public. If he ever spoke of Spalding, I didn’t hear it–perhaps Daryl did. Spalding was not well known at the time we knew Rocky; I don’t recall how I came to know they were brothers.
I saw Spalding Gray in an off-broadway show in NYC in 1980. I don’t even recall what it was. I remember thinking that it was interesting as an experimental form of theatre but ultimately a self-indulgent piece. At that time, I viewed Spalding’s work more with an eye toward what I knew of Rocky than with an objective interest in what he was trying to create. I saw the Demme film in the late 80s and pretty much had the same reaction I had to the live performance. I should definitely take a second look.