Film Gives Another Dose of So-Called Reality

An aspiring filmmaker allows a documentary crew to follow him as he pursues his dream to make a movie. Unable to secure financing he becomes increasingly frustrated and morose, before--in a final desperate act that he films himself--taking his own life.

Reality? No, but consider it a sign of the times--from increasingly bizarre “reality” television series to “The Blair Witch Project,” which sucked in many people with its documentary style--that more than a few TV viewers believed it was all true when “They Shoot Movies, Don’t They? . . . The Making of Mirage” was first televised on the Independent Film Channel.

“This movie should never have been shown,” one irate viewer posted on the IFC Web site. “There is a line that should not be crossed . . . [and] you have crossed it.”

Several others duped by the film were less outraged. One labeled it “powerful,” and a would-be filmmaker dubbed the movie “an inspiration.” Some visiting the Web site were suspicious (“Was it real? I can’t tell,” wrote one), while a third group recognized that the movie was not a documentary, though even some of them admitted the epiphany didn’t occur until the end.

“If you believe this movie was a real documentary, then you are a complete dolt,” one viewer posted. “It was really good, however.”

“They Shoot Movies, Don’t They?”--which will be repeated this week on IFC--was written, produced and directed by two actors, Tom Wilson and Frank Gallagher, who have primarily worked in local theater. The two were surprised to discover interest among potential distributors waned when the project, shot on a modest budget, was presented as a work of fiction, until they coyly began describing the film as being “as real as it gets”--their way of skirting whether the production was in fact a documentary until people had seen it.

The two began sending the film out with a bogus obituary, and Wilson didn’t attend meetings so as not to destroy the illusion that the ill-fated filmmaker, Tom Paulson, died in 1996.

“When you drop the bomb, about 50% say ‘You [expletive], and the other 50% say, ‘That’s great,’ ” said Wilson, who plays Paulson.

Wilson said he didn’t necessarily have a statement in mind with the movie, which was produced in the early 1990s--before the current wave of unscripted television hit--rather using filmmaking as a backdrop because it was a subject near his heart.

“You write what you know,” he said.

Still, it’s notable how many people accepted they had watched a documentary that ends with the central character committing suicide, a moment discreetly left off screen. At the end, the documentarian (played by Gallagher) briefly appears, saying he does not feel responsible for what transpired.

Gallagher understands the ambivalent response once the secret was revealed. “As a documentary, I love it,” he said. “As a movie, it’s OK.”

Among those fooled was Harry Clein, the veteran publicist who oversaw the “Blair Witch” marketing campaign. “There were certain things that seemed very real about it,” said Clein, who admits to being angry when informed the movie was fictional. “I guess what interested me was [the idea] that Hollywood had driven someone to suicide.”

Clearly, the lines between fiction and nonfiction have blurred, and several films have explored the depths to which purveyors of entertainment will plunge. A case in point would be “Series 7,” Daniel Minahan’s recent independent film, which was shot in the style of a fictional TV series, “The Contenders,” where the contestants must kill each other.

Yet even though “Blair Witch” cultivated what Clein called “a little bit of this ambience of reality,” he worries about misleading an audience or the media.

“You can’t put it out there as a real thing in any way, shape or form,” he said. “I don’t think anyone should see it believing it was real. . . . It takes away from their artistry.”

IFC has already televised the film twice as part of its “DV Theater,” a showcase for low-budget movies made using digital video. The film has not been identified as a documentary or drama, leaving viewers to speculate about its authenticity.

“That’s really how you have to watch,” Gallagher said. “That impact really comes if it’s a surprise to you.”

Kelly DeVine, IFC’s supervisor of acquisitions, said the channel bowed to the wishes of the filmmakers by not labeling the film and hoped it would provoke the sort of strong response that it did among viewers, many of whom joined the movie in progress.

“It really did cause quite a shudder,” said DeVine, who was also taken in when she saw the movie. “People were quite taken aback.”

IFC paid the producers a modest fee that doesn’t come close to covering the budget for rights to televise the film over a three-year span. Wilson is still hoping to find someone to distribute the project on video or theatrically, and he and Gallagher are developing a dark comedy inspired by their experience with the project, about a documentary filmmaker who fakes the ending of a movie by implying the subject committed suicide.

According to Gallagher, at times the filmmakers’ experience uncomfortably mirrored what transpired in the film. Wilson began exhausting his credit cards to finance production, while Gallagher spent a year editing the film--until family and friends began to worry about him.

“They Shoot Movies” even sat dormant for a time until the two decided to revisit it. “The reality TV and all this other stuff sparked us to finish [the film], because the timing seems to be right,” Gallagher said. “It’s come to a point where my feeling is whatever I watch on TV, I can’t buy it.”

* “They Shoot Movies, Don’t They? . . . The Making of Mirage” will be shown Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. on the Independent Film Channel, repeating that night at 1:30 a.m.