#24: Confessions of a Sociopath (2002) (dir. Joe Gibbons)

My plan today was to make coffee and write about Todd Haynes’ Carol since I had just recently re-watched it for the Chicago Public Library Community Cinema screening I had hosted. It was a successful screening with a decent turnout. I will eventually write about unrealized love again - you know Brief Encounter, In The Mood For Love, the usual. But I took a weird detour and watched something today that I could declare a new favorite but much like the film itself, there’s no way to write about it without inserting my life into it. Granted, this is true for most writing I do anyway.

Joe Gibbons is a performance artist, a filmmaker and a former lecturer at M.I.T.. He was sentenced not too long ago to one year in prison after committing a bank robbery that he claimed to have filmed as an experiment. Not sure how I came across this news story but how can I not be intrigued to explore his work based on that fact alone? Even finding this film required some deep digging.

Part of the reason I love movies that toy with reality and fiction is because in the moment, the feelings I feel are real, well knowing that what I’m seeing on screen is not real. It’s an edited image presented - my temporary perception is accepting it. Documentaries aren’t even real in the traditional sense as F for Fake demonstrated. There’s always a wizard behind the curtain. I do get some kind of perverse joy out of what someone like Andy Kaufman did - playing a role to some degree that meant playing with audience expectation. I sometimes play that role too. Right now, I’m playing a role as a writer. Fiction and non-fiction coming together in an unreal way through constructing words. What directors/editors do with film, is construct their own version of reality that can seem real and that’s partially what this film becomes about.

Gibbons plays a fictionalized version of himself as he discovers a roomful of Super-8 footage from his own life, detailing events he can no longer recall. This footage shows his earlier film experiments, his descent into destructive behavior, and his “bottoming out” on drugs and alcohol. At a certain point, the films are replaced by random photos, police records, and psychiatric hospital records. In the role of the narrator, Gibbons uses psychiatric terminology to describe his past exploits, as a way of poking fun and reflecting at both his own misfortune and at psychiatry’s ability to medicalize non-conformity. P.S Why do we have jobs?!?

So I came across his short film called Confessions of a Sociopath that consists of different forms of storytelling. He directly faces the camera in ways that remind me of what I used to do as a kid - I would treat the camera as my own personal diary, saying what kind of day I had. People do this quite frequently now on YouTube. Influencers everywhere just tell their story and hope someone is listening, not unlike Hard Harry does in Pump up the Volume.

Confessions of a Sociopath is definitely an experiment. A weird, vulnerable, hilarious blend of reality mixed with fiction. Some things are exaggerated, some are from real home video footage he’s captured over the years. We watch him shoot up heroin, dance alone in his room, commit theft and make phone calls that are not unlike the ones that Albert Brooks makes in the film Modern Romance. To call this an uncomfortable viewing experience at times is an understatement.

So I sat there watching this thinking: why can’t movies just be more daring? I know there are great works of escapist blockbuster entertainment that I enjoy but there’s nothing quite like the feeling of something new - it does feel like aliens came down to create a story and tell it in their own way. There’s an uncanny rush I get from experimental film because it doesn’t adopt any sense of narrative. I think it often pisses off storytellers who see film as a storytelling medium first/foremost.

Sociopath does tell a story but it’s an indulgent and self-reflective one that plays more like a video journal scribbled haphazardly with drawings, quotes, stickers - no discernible direction, it just exists as is. Mental hell. Sure, it’s edited, there’s even a recurring theme of sorts featuring a song with a refrain that says, “life is boring.” And it’s clear that Gibbons is telling his own story about how social awkwardness has kept him from experiencing life to its fullest. The true revelation comes towards the end as he decides to leave his day job with some words that I actually would prefer not to spoil because when they’re said, it hit me hard. I don’t want to rob you of what he says into the camera as he’s pushing buttons on his calculator while on the work desk. It becomes about the search of the authentic self in a way that reminds me of great works of existentialism.

I don’t want to reduce the experience to writing a review about this being a “great” film in the way that critics feel confident in declaring. It is special, it’s a new favorite of mine, but it is exactly what I had hoped to make one day when I even thought of piecing together home footage of my own. I kinda sat back and realized though, I needed way more than what was kept to complete it. Perhaps the only comparison I could make to Sociopath is that it’s reminiscent of Samuel Beckett mixed with Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation, another work of art that hit me hard. Both films felt like listening to Daniel Johnston for the first time. Anyone can tell their story and be an artist as long as the emotion is there and it’s honest. Sociopath’s honesty is a bit in question since I am not sure if it’s all true/real or not. I think that’s part of what makes it so strange and fascinating. F for Fake or R for Real? What the hell is real anyway? Aren’t we all walking paradoxes?

This is one of those experiences where I can’t fathom going in to watch a new Marvel movie like The Flash or the latest in the Fast and Furious franchise. I remember years ago, the first time that happened was when I actually fell asleep watching a fast-paced comic book movie to where I’m like, this doesn’t even excite or interest me - not when Deborah Stratman movies exist. I am looking to be challenged, moved or disturbed by a film and that’s what Joe Gibbons has accomplished here.

But let’s face it, I am also inclined to tune out when I get home from work to watch something completely mindless and dumb. Even when Googling the title, I came across something else called Confessions of a Sociopathic Social Climber with Jennifer Love Hewitt and remembering how I watched Party of Five mainly because I liked her smile. Wish I could smile like that! I can be vain and surface-level and seek something forgettable and full of simple pleasures / eye candy. My mom will watch anything with certain actors only because she enjoys looking at them. We can’t escape our parents completely.

Movies and art shouldn’t be safe and spoon-fed (no pun intended with his drug use) and they shouldn’t always be simplified in what they’re attempting to capture. They should keep me up at night, thinking, wondering and laughing remembering them. I’d greatly prefer to be surprised by something thought-provoking, transgressive, shocking, crypto-autobiographical and messy. Sociopath comes across as an on-the-spectrum work-in-progress that does feel fully realized in its own unique lunacy. I see a lot of folks on Letterboxd mainly on the middle with this one (at least among the ones I follow) and it makes me wonder if it’s just a “me” thing. Did I respond to this because I can relate to it in some way? Of course that’s part of it. Art that holds up a mirror… powerful.

As I write this, it ultimately does become a version of a video journal only it’s through typed out words on a keyboard. I am portraying a character of sorts while trying to stay true to myself. I am going inward, reflecting on my feelings about what I’m watching, then processing it through a series of memories, mental notes and unexpected reactions. As I’m writing this, I try to remember what hit me the most, focusing on the emotional response. I wonder about the hardship, the mistakes, the fact that I’ve caused pain but also bring joy into people’s lives. There are times at work when I make a mistake and disappoint someone but there are times at work when patrons are grateful and express it outwardly to me.

It all becomes a series of events formed into some kind of personal narrative. Bits and pieces, cut and paste, strung together in a way that hopefully makes sense. So the film I watched is a reflection of what I’m doing right now in this moment in hopes that you the reader are engaged by it. Not trying to make this a meta experience but as I’m writing this, the song heard in the film I watched is playing in my head. It’s truly hard to be excited about watching something I’ve seen before even if it’s “new.” Confessions of a Sociopath is not something I’ve seen before even if perhaps there are oodles of experimental films just like it. Could be a case of right place, right time. Maybe I was bored, tired and this woke me up.

The summer is hard. I feel seasonal depression right at the start. Winter for me, somehow isn’t so bad because I don’t mind the cold. But when I see lots of people outside having a wonderful time in the heat, that’s when I feel isolated. It makes me wonder about sociopathology and how little versions of it could exist within as an introvert who often prefers alone time to write and create than to intermingle with the world. Joe Gibbons seems to be the epitome of what Lester Bangs says in Almost Famous, “I’m always home, I’m uncool.”

So it was likely that I’d find something to identify with in the lone wolf who wants to tell his story in his own way through various video forms that cut randomly, often feel too revealing to a possible fault (the heroin injection alone). That’s what becomes of my podcast and my writing. I’m telling my perspective, my narrative in a way that I try to make sense of. Though there’s no denying that ADHD, anxiety and depression play a role in what emerges. Sometimes I need guests to steer the ship so I don’t veer too off-course.

It’s a weird comparison to make but recently watching Cabin Boy, I even thought, why can’t comedies or any movie just “go for it?!” Be as weird as you want, who cares what others find funny. This is your time to make the movie you see in your head, not one that a studio system dictates you to make. Writers aren’t getting paid anyway and they should be. Creators should be every bit as embraced as those sitting in a corporate high-rise probably just fumbling around on the Internet anyway. The system is a mess, capitalism has become the Ouroboros of staying alive and we have zero leaders to give us the world we want. This planet should turn on us for what we’ve done and who we’ve become. We are a selfish, weird, off-the-wall species that will eventually die out before or after the sun explodes. Life is boring so why not do what we can to make it un-boring.

We’re all still here right now so let’s make the best of our time together. Tell stories, vent about your job, experience great art - just don’t be an asshole and make Facebook comments that misgender Elliott Page (don’t get me started on what I’ve recently seen). We can’t turn so far inward that maybe our sociopathic tendencies really do consume us to the point where we lose our sense of identity within a community. I think that’s part of the final message within Joe Gibbons’ truly remarkable work of art that others may find alienating and befuddling. It’s actually something I’ll likely never stop thinking about. From what I’ve seen and read, it’s probably the best thing he’s ever made and received acclaim in the past. I’ll be curious to see more but I doubt it’ll reach the highs of this. There’s no need to support the Disney regime churning out content that will never feel like a gut punch when artists like Gibbons out there doing something remarkable. Oh and he also happened to have robbed a bank, filmed it and went to prison for a year. As Vincent Prince says on Letterboxd, Confessions of a Sociopath just happens to be, “Up my alley a little too much, so your mileage may vary.”

An excerpt from Confessions of a Sociopath