Charlie Kaufman has made his reputation on screenplays that blend reality with fiction in ways where you don't know which is which. His first screenplay, Being John Malkovich, brought us into the mind and life of the title actor (or rather, a strange, alternate-reality version of Malkovich). Adaptation showed us the world and netherworld of author Susan Orlean. Now Confessions of a Dangerous Mind depicts songwriter/TV producer/all-around nutjob Chuck Barris as a CIA assassin. Whether it's true or not is left for the viewer to judge, but it really doesn't matter; Confessions still makes for a great story and an entertaining film.
The movie starts with a naked, disheveled and disoriented Barris (Sam Rockwell) just staring at a television set in a hotel room. Former love interest Penny (Drew Barrymore) soon arrives, though he doesn't let her into the room and she soon leaves. He then takes us back to the beginning of his story, first with an early sexual attempt when he's 11, and then more various, exclusively unsuccessful, would-be sexual adventures. These pursuits lead to him writing a successful song, which inspires him to go to New York and crack into TV, however he can. He starts off as a page at NBC and then ends up behind the scenes at American Bandstand. At this point he meets up with Penny, who inspires him to create The Dating Game.
It's at this point that we see that he has attracted the interest of the mysterious Jim Byrd (George Clooney, who also makes his directorial debut), who approaches him about joining the CIA as an "independent contractor." Since ABC eventually passes on The Dating Game, he assents. He goes into training, then quickly on to his first mission in Mexico. The next few years bring us into his ups and downs as his various TV productions are picked up, produced, and become huge hits on TV. They also show us his various missions abroad while chaperoning winning contestants from The Dating Game. His success breeds more outrageous shows, culminating with his own starring role on The Gong Show. Then, just as he is attacked as a purveyor of sleaze on TV and the audience for his shows start to move on, Barris has to contend with a potential mole in the CIA who is out to get him and any of his contacts within the organization.
This movie is a good example of what can happen to a Charlie Kaufman screenplay if Spike Jonze doesn't get his hands on it and takes it into the stratosphere of credibility. Though you never know if anything that happens in the story is true or not, it doesn't matter. Director Clooney plays it straight just as a good tale to be told. He uses some great camera tricks to move the story along and beautiful photography to evoke the various eras, moods, and locales (cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel has some great work on display). Yet the best thing to recommend here is Rockwell's performance as Barris. It would have been easy for Rockwell to have just imitated the mannerisms that many remember from The Gong Show, but it would have been a rather shallow performance. Instead he plays Barris as a three-dimensional person a starting point which Barris' distinctive style comes from. The whole cast is perfect, with Barrymore truly shining as the on-again, off-again girlfriend. When she catches Barris in "our house" with yet another girl, her hurt is very real.
It's a shame that the movie didn't do much at the box office. Hopefully the DVD, which is loaded with a lot of great extra features, will help the film find new life. If you are a fan of audio commentaries, you will like the reminiscences of Clooney and Sigel. They really get into describing how the film was made, including the various tricks used, without dumbing it down for the viewer. The deleted scenes are also worth watching with the audio commentary as they show the meticulous care that went into all that was shot, even for scenes that ultimately wouldn't have worked in the film. There are also some behind-the-scene vignettes, but the best extra by far is a short featurette on the "real" Chuck Barris; he and the people who knew him back when discuss if any of this story is actually true after all. Barris himself certainly plays it off as real and no one really has anything to say to disprove him, but it still is left as an open question. You might agree with Jim Lange, who feels it could just be true, or Jaye P. Morgan, who believes it's just a "bunch of bullshit." What's not in question is that this is a really good film which deserves to seen. I look forward to Clooney's sophomore effort, whatever that may be.
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