The new documentary, “Guest of Cindy Sherman,” is more interesting than a month’s worth of standard Hollywood narrative filmmaking.
The movie is a collaboration between Paul Hasegawa-Overacker (who calls himself “Paul H-O”) and Tom Donahue and it goes off in so many different directions that it is impossible to boil it down to a brief synopsis.
The title is derived from the sections of the documentary that deal with Paul H-O’s unexpected relationship with the photographer Cindy Sherman (above), who has become legendary over the past 30 years for a seemingly endless series of pictures of herself in various guises.
Paul met the photographer in his role as the host and producer of a New York cable access TV show, “Gallery Beat,” that developed a large cult following as it charted the changes in the city’s art scene over two decades.
Paul interviewed the reclusive Sherman — who believes her work should speak for itself — and surprised her friends and associates when she agreed to follow-up segments and then began a romantic relationship with the undeground TV host.
After the first flush of romantic excitement passed, Paul started to feel the frustration of almost anyone who becomes the significant other of a famous person. His situation seemed to come to a head at a big party where he was seated at a separate table from his girlfriend, with the placecard simply reading “Guest of Cindy Sherman.”
The documentary has a free-flowing ease that is very compelling. We never get the impression that Paul H-O and Donahue are telling us how we should feel about the material we’re watching.
The movie allows us room to question Paul’s common sense in getting closer to such a powerful person and then complaining about the loss of his own identity. We also wonder what role the constant filming of their life together might have played in the eventual split between Sherman and H-O (of course, the famous photographer has made a name for herself exploring the whole idea of exposure and identity and was a willing subject for Paul’s TV and film projects).
The movie is packed with other goodies, too, including large samples of the segments Paul did for “Gallery Beat” where his goofy, slightly intrusive style both seduced and angered artists (we see Julian Schnabel blasting Paul and his partner for a segment that the famous artist believed trivialized his work).
Stimulating, funny and challenging, “Guest of Cindy Sherman” should inspire some of the best post-movie discussions/arguments of the spring.
(The film opens next Friday at Cinema Village in Manhattan and will be shown on The Sundance Channel later this year.)
