The Room (film)
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| The Room | |
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| Directed by | Tommy Wiseau |
| Produced by | Tommy Wiseau |
| Written by | Tommy Wiseau |
| Starring | Tommy Wiseau Julliette Danielle |
| Distributed by | Wiseau-Films |
| Release date(s) | 2003 |
| Running time | 99 min |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $6,000,000 |
| IMDb profile | |
The Room (2003) is an independent film written, produced, and directed by Tommy Wiseau. It is the melodramatic story of a love triangle between a man, his fiancé, and his best friend. The principle cast includes Wiseau, Juliette Danielle, Greg Sestero, Philip Haldiman, Carolyn Minott, and Robyn Paris. Without any studio support, Wiseau spent over $6 million on production and marketing for the film. After a brief run in Los Angeles, the film went on to develop a cult following in the city, because of its perceived unintentional humor. It continues to have monthly midnight screenings. Wiseau promotes the film as a black comedy and insists that the “unintentional” humor is intentional. Most people who have seen the film doubt this claim.
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[edit] Plot summary
The Room is the story of a love triangle between a kind-hearted man named Johnny (Tommy Wiseau), his fiancé Lisa (Juliette Danielle), and his best friend Mark (Greg Sestero).
At the beginning of the film, Lisa has become dissatisfied with Johnny, confiding to her best friend Michelle (Robyn Paris) and her mother Claudette (Carolyn Minnott) that she finds Johnny boring. Lisa seduces Mark, and they begin an affair that continues throughout the film, despite Mark’s protests to Lisa and guilty feelings around Johnny.
Lisa stays with Johnny, because he is a successful banker who can give her anything she wants, but as the wedding date approaches, and as Johnny’s clout at his bank slips, Lisa gets closer to leaving Johnny for Mark.
The film has several subplots involving secondary characters. A neighboring college student named Denny (Philip Haldiman) – whom Johnny supports and loves like a father – has a mysterious run-in with a drug dealer and struggles with his attraction to Lisa; Claudette, Lisa's mother, deals with real estate problems, failed relationships, and breast cancer (although she nonchalantly announces she has this condition near the beginning of the film, it's never alluded to again by any character); Michelle’s boyfriend Mike (Mike Holmes) is shamed by Lisa and Claudette walking in on him making love to Michelle in Johnny and Lisa’s living room.
When Lisa throws Johnny a surprise birthday party, she is too careless about the way she conducts herself around Mark, and Johnny discovers that Lisa has been unfaithful. Claiming that he doesn’t have a friend in the world, Johnny locks himself in his bathroom until everyone has left. When he comes out, he destroys his apartment, finds his handgun, and commits suicide with a gunshot to the head.
Lisa and Mark discover Johnny’s corpse soon afterwards, and Denny is not far behind. Denny blames Johnny’s death on Lisa and Mark, urging them to leave him alone with the corpse, but as the film closes, Lisa and Mark remain with Denny as police sirens grow louder.
[edit] Production
The Room began as a play and a novel by Tommy Wiseau, which he wanted to turn into a film. He tried to get his idea made within the Hollywood system, but he did not succeed, so he wrote the script himself and spent five years developing and fundraising the project independently until he could shoot it himself.
In pre-production, director Tommy Wiseau had to decide upon the shooting format of the film. He was confused about the differences between 35 mm film and high-definition video, so he decided to shoot the entire film in both formats with two cameras side-by-side on the same mount. This experiment allowed Wiseau to compare the formats on a large scale, and he plans use the information that he gathered for a DVD documentary and a book.
Principal photography lasted eight months. It was mainly shot in Los Angeles, but some second-unit shooting was done in San Francisco where the film is set. The film employed over 400 people, and Wiseau is credited as an actor (in the leading role of Johnny), an executive producer, the writer, the producer, and the director.
The film cost $6 million to produce and market – it is uncertain how these funds were raised.
[edit] Settings
The settings of The Room are important to the film. Most of the action takes place in Johnny and Lisa’s living room – a constructed set, which is notable for its red walls, columns in the corners, framed photos of spoons, a television behind a sofa, a sandpainting, and a spiral staircase that leads up to the bedroom. Characters come and go as they please – even when Johnny and Lisa are not home – often staying for such a short period of time that they don’t bother to close the door.
The roof of Johnny and Lisa’s apartment building is also a common meeting place for the characters, because Mark and Denny live in the same building. The rooftop scenes were shot in front of a bluescreen in Los Angeles, and the 360-degree cityscape of San Francisco – where the film is set – was digitally composited beyond the ledges of the rooftop set.
Some second-unit shooting was done in San Francisco. Much of this footage is used as transitions and cutaways, showing Johnny wandering around the city or entering his home. The cable cars, Golden Gate Park, the Roman rotunda of the Palace of Fine Arts, and the same townhouses shown in the opening credits of the sitcom Full House are prominently featured in many shots throughout the film. Most notable of the San Francisco vistas are several very long panning shots of the Golden Gate Bridge.
In addition to the landmarks, San Francisco’s society does not go unacknowledged in The Room. In one scene, Johnny, Mark, and their friend Peter discuss participating in the annual Bay To Breakers footrace.
[edit] Distribution and marketing
In June 2003, The Room debuted with a two-week run at Laemmle’s Sunset 5 Theater on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Tommy Wiseau’s production company Wiseau-Films has been responsible for distributing and marketing The Room, which has given the film little theatrical exposure outside of L.A.
Since the original run, a growing cult following – surrounding the allegedly unintentional humor of the film – has allowed it to be shown at monthly midnight screenings at the Sunset 5. A billboard for The Room has continued to be a fixture on Highland Avenue in Los Angeles since it first opened.
Originally, the film's marketing materials included phrases like "A film with the passion of Tennessee Williams..." As it gained notoriety as a laughably bad film, the line "Experience this quirky new black comedy, it's a riot!" was added.
The Room has also screened in New York City, Miami, Oakland, and Las Vegas. It won the Audience Award at the 2004 New York International Independent Film and Video Festival.
In December 2005, The Room was released for purchase on DVD, and is primarily available from Amazon.com. It is available for rental only at select video rental shops via direct distribution from Wiseau-Films.
[edit] Cult following
Many people who watch The Room immediately respond to how unintentionally funny it appears to be. According to many Room fans, the quality of the writing, acting, cinematography, set design, and editing all indicate that the film is a vanity piece gone awry – and to the extent of hilarity.
Each month, there is a midnight screening at Laemmle’s Sunset 5 Theater on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, where a cult following of about one hundred loyal fans go to interact with the film in a similar fashion to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Audience members dress up as their favorite characters, throw plastic spoons at the movie screen, toss footballs to each other from short distances, and yell insulting comments and criticisms about the quality of the film.
The film’s director Tommy Wiseau attends many of the midnight screenings, selling t-shirts, DVDs, and film soundtracks to fans. Before the film begins, he engages the audience with a Q&A session. During the film, he encourages audience participation during screenings, and he claims that he does not get upset about the comments that audience members make – he promotes it as a black comedy and insists that what the audience perceives as unintentional humor is, in fact, intentional. In an interview on the DVD for The Room, Wiseau said, “I’m happy, because I prepared all this stuff, and I wanted people to have a good time [...] When you see The Room, you can yell, you can scream, you can express yourself – that’s the idea.”
The Room has not yet found a large audience outside of Los Angeles, although a local National Public Radio piece – linked on the Web by the popular blog Boing Boing – has created an increased national interest. In addition, The Room was screened in the spring of 2006 at Beloit College in southern Wisconsin and at UC Santa Cruz. The film is not yet available theatrically or on DVD in the rest of the world, although Wiseau plans to dub it into French and German.
