Spalding Gray: Monologues on Film
Spalding Gray was a towering figure in 1980s avant-garde theater, a performer whose relationship with his own stage persona was so unique it spawned a new genre of playwriting. Somewhere between open-mic night and the confession booth, his personal monologues were full of diverse characters and themes, current events and political commentary, a perfect encapsulation of the hipster Boomer malaise. Was he self-centered? Grating? Narcissistic? Yes, sometimes, and definitely. But he was also hyper-aware of his persona, and he didn’t let you forget it. These qualities, far from making his work dull or pompous, are part of why you couldn’t take your eyes off him.
In 1987, still high off the house-burning of Stop Making Sense, Jonathan Demme brought his newfound confidence in filming performances to Gray’s most accomplished stage monologue, Swimming to Cambodia. In it, we see only Spalding Gray, but the film feels like a conversation between two idiosyncratic men at the top of their game and the height of their careers. It is a classic.
While Gray would go on to play bit parts in several major films, he continued writing and performing his stage monologues regularly, and two more films were made from his monologues. The final one, Gray’s Anatomy, was directed by Steven Soderbergh, who, with great care and (mostly) positive results, took to the task of artfully visualizing the world Spalding Gray creates with his words. It’s uneven, clearly without the crisp, effortless understanding for its subject that Demme exhibited a decade earlier, but more than either of the other monologue movies, Anatomy betrays its director’s love for Spalding Gray’s work, and for Spalding Gray the man. It is appropriate then that four years after his suicide, Soderbergh has directed a documentary about Gray that is set to premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.
With the spotlight about to be back on him, it is a perfect time to revisit the three films that we have as records of his performances. They still stand out today as unrivaled in movie history. At the very least, they are the only films I can think of composed almost entirely of one man sitting at a table talking about himself. And somehow, three isn’t nearly enough.
Films
Swimming to Cambodia / 06 April
Behind the scenes, though, Gray was soaking in everything around him: the generous catering at the hotel, the marijuana, the curiosities of Thai sex workers, and, most of all, the gorgeous beaches. He would eventually render his experience in Southeast Asia shooting The Killing Fields into Swimming to Cambodia, a monologue that would make him famous, and would be translated into one of the most epic, spastic, and erratically self-centered performances put to film.
Monster in a Box / 06 April
Gray stops the action early in Monster in a Box to shamelessly plug Swimming to Cambodia. “If you haven’t seen it,” he says, “you should.” He goes on to qualify that statement with some obligatory jokey self-deprecation, but one can’t escape the feeling that not only does he mean it, he is also right. Before you can enjoy this movie, you really should see that one. Monster in a Box is a work that could not exist without its predecessor: as a film, it is hugely indebted to it, and as a monologue, it is mostly about how Gray’s life changed when he became famous as a result of Cambodia’s acclaim.
Gray’s Anatomy / 06 April
Seven years after the release of this film, and three years after being injured severely in a car crash, Gray would go on to suffer his mother’s fate. Knowing this now sheds a somber light on this film, which was the last of his monologues to be made into a movie. He hasn’t lost any of his humor or energy, but Gray’s Anatomy looms heavy with the knowledge that this peculiar medical tale is the last time we’ll get to see him tell a story on the big screen.