(France/Germany/Belgium, 93 min.)
Written and directed by Pierre Bismuth
Featuring: Pierre Bismuth, D.V. DeVincentis, Anthony
Peckham, Mike Scott, Robert Knepper
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| Photo courtesy of Mongrel International |
Filmmaker Pierre Bismuth finds himself between a rock and a
hard place in the ingenious hybrid film Where
is Rocky II? Bismuth, who won on Oscar for his work on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, shows off some meta-movie
skills as he follows the peculiar story of American artist Fred Ruscha and a
piece of art that allegedly belongs to his body of work, but leaves no trace in
the catalogues, museums, or collections of art lovers around the world. Ruscha’s
work is a giant fake rock said to be made out of resin, papier-mâché, or other
materials (it depends who one asks) that he reportedly used in a photo shoot
and documentary. The rock, named Rocky II
after the unfortunate Sylvester Stallone movie, sends Bismuth and a cast of
characters on an eccentric quest for truth.
Rocky II is a distant cousin from the Maltese falcon in The Maltese Falcon or the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. The thing at the heart of the action is almost completely irrelevant to the movie since Bismuth and company want to talk about the fake rock, but they really want to tackle something else. The topic here is construction, myth-making, and the overall Hollywoodization of life.
Where is Rocky II?
offers three parallel narratives that explore the origin and hiding place of
the titular rock as private investigator Mike Scott leads a supposedly
authentic inquiry into as he follows the clues to the rock. Scott tracks down
art world figures, filmmakers and producers involved with the film in which the
rock appears, and at least one guy who had a hand in the actual shoot. There
are some glaring questions and red herrings here, since two of the producers
whom Scott interviews evade his questions and distance themselves from the
film, while Ruscha himself never seems to be on the sleuth’s list of essential
subjects. If the rock is supposedly out there, it seems logical to start with
its creator.
Finding the rock doesn’t seem to be on Bismuth’s agenda,
though, since the “How?” is more important than the “What?” is here as the process
of inquiry forms the heart of the film’s investigation. Bismuth enlists the
help of fellow screenwriters D.V. DeVincentis (Lay the Favourite) and Anthony Peckham (Sherlock Holmes) and they bandy about some ideas for a potential
drama on the topic. As the screenwriters brainstorm, ask a series of “What if?”
scenarios, and extrapolate from the shards of evidence in their possession,
their speculation essentially brings them along the same path that Scott
travels.
Here’s where the film gets really interesting. Detective
work and documentary filmmaking are two prongs of the same fork as Bismuth
shows by crosscutting footage of Scott in action and the screenwriters in their
flurry of creativity. Both require an aptitude for storytelling—Scott
understands motivation and character just as much as the writers do, while the
scribes know how to interpret evidence like a gumshoe with a fine nose.
The downside to the doc is that Bismuth lays everything out
in the opening title cards with a quote from Ruscha that positions Hollywood as
both a noun and a verb. Where is Rocky
II? offers its thesis and proves its argument rather well, but for a film
with so many ideas and so much formal dexterity, Bismuth’s effort to
Hollywoodize documentary and perceived reality would be even better if one
approached it with a blank slate. With each layer, though, Where is Rocky II? enacts a convincing performance.
The film also adds a film within a film as snippets of a
Hollywood action movie Monument One,
which is the story that DeVincentis and Peckham create, appear fleetingly
throughout the doc. The most candid non-fiction elements of Where is Rocky II? might ultimately be
the footage of the filmmakers in the creative process. One hilarious scene with
fellow writer Mike White (The Good Girl),
which ends with everyone popping Adderall, draws out the cinematic sleuthing
that parallels the detective’s quest, but with a rare vantage point of a fly on
the wall as Hollywood’s shady underside enters the frame. As the writers riff, Where is Rocky II? signals that the
fabrication of a good story underlies any creative endeavour whether it
positions itself as fiction or non-fiction.
As the filmmakers discuss the narrative process, the
supposed documentary elements become increasingly unreliable. Scott, for one,
has an inherent dramatic flair that plays very well to the camera, while the
range of coverage of his investigation looks too refined and seamless for
footage shot on the fly. The variety of shot/reverse shot conversations mean
that either Bismuth had a large team of shooters on the investigator’s trail, who
managed to avoid getting in every shot, or he had Scott and his witnesses do
multiple takes of their conversations. The latter trick is more likely, but the
film’s continuity positions documentary as another arm of drama. Where is Rocky II? perceptively
undermines the authenticity audiences believe to be at the heart of documentary
filmmaking by drawing attention to the acts of storytelling, embellishment, and
creative license.
Where is Rocky II? screened at the Locarno International Film
Festival.
