The first time I saw “Clerks” was at a
double-feature, back-to-back screening at San Diego’s Museum
of Photographic Arts. The other film screened that night was
“Office Space,” and the night had a label that had
something to do with disgruntled employees.
Needless to say, it was a memorable experience, but not really
because of either of the films. I had seen “Office
Space” many times before, and honestly I wasn’t overly
impressed with “Clerks.”
Instead, what I remember were the people there, the die-hard
Kevin Smith fans that drove from all over San Diego’s
sprawling city for this one screening. Yelling at the screen and
hooting at Randal’s (Jeff Anderson) every nuance, the
audience created a setting only rivaled by a midnight cast of
“The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” only less weird. Or
perhaps more.
Regardless, it’s rare for a filmmaker to have that kind of
fan base, the kind of fan base that will literally follow anywhere,
even to theaters to see “Jersey Girl.” But that’s
Kevin Smith.
Although I quite like “Dogma,” I wouldn’t call
myself a Smith fan, and yet I, along with so many other people, can
specifically remember watching one of his movies for the first
time. Ask me when I first saw “The Godfather” or
“Casablanca” and I’m as silent as Bob, but ask me
about “Clerks” and my mouth goes off like Jay.
And I can even remember what theaters I first saw
“Dogma” and “Jay and Silent Bob Strike
Back” in, as well as with whom I saw them.
I don’t know what any of this means, but it has to be
worth mentioning, right? There’s just something about Smith
and his work, his attitude and his films that is memorable,
regardless of preference or taste.
Maybe it’s the now-cliche story of how he made
“Clerks” maxing out credit cards to pay for the camera
equipment. He’s an indie-filmmaking icon for sticking it to
the studios’ man. (We’ll ignore, for the time being,
all the money Miramax put into cleaning up his footage.)
Maybe it’s the obsession with popular culture, both nerdy
and cool at the same time. People love him for his theories on
“Star Wars” and his devotion to the comic-book culture
he grew up with.
Or maybe it’s just his writing, that although skimpy on
plot, story, theme and everything else Robert McKee would like to
teach you, creates memorable, amusing characters that say amusing,
memorable things.
There’s no doubt that Smith is a better writer than he is
a filmmaker, and because his films are so openly honest about their
own limitations, they’re all the more appealing. But the
thing is ““ they’re still not very good movies. A clever
monologue does not win an Oscar.
This just makes the Kevin Smith conundrum all the more
complicated and difficult to understand. How can a filmmaker with
no discernible filmmaking talent be so wildly popular? And, on the
other hand, why isn’t a writer with so much talent even more
wildly popular?
Ultimately though, it doesn’t really matter either way.
His popularity makes him important no matter what you think of his
films, and his new presence in a college community, where
he’s surrounded by those who already hail him, will only make
him more popular.
But maybe that’s OK. Maybe being around his fans will go
to his head, but then again, maybe their love of what already
exists will convince him to abandon “Clerks 2: The Passion of
the Clerks.”
Like Smith, Tracer thinks the platypus is a very strange
animal. E-mail him at jtracer@media.ucla.edu.