Taglines: Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff.
American Splendor movie storyline. Harvey Pekar is file clerk at the local VA hospital. His interactions with his co-workers offer some relief from the monotony, and their discussions encompass everything from music to the decline of American culture to new flavors of jellybeans and life itself. At home, Harvey fills his days with reading, writing and listening to jazz. His apartment is filled with thousands of books and LPs, and he regularly scours Cleveland’s thrift stores and garage sales for more, savoring the rare joy of a 25-cent find. It is at one of these junk sales that Harvey meets Robert Crumb, a greeting card artist and music enthusiast.
When, years later, Crumb finds international success for his underground comics, the idea that comic books can be a valid art form for adults inspires Harvey to write his own brand of comic book. An admirer of naturalist writers like Theodore Dreiser, Harvey makes his American Splendor a truthful, unsentimental record of his working-class life, a warts-and-all self portrait. First published in 1976, the comic earns Harvey cult fame throughout the 1980s and eventually leads him to the sardonic Joyce Barber, a partner in a Delaware comic book store who end ups being Harvey’s true soul mate as they experience the bizarre byproducts of Harvey’s cult celebrity stature.
American Splendor is a 2003 American biographical comedy-drama film about Harvey Pekar, the author of the American Splendor comic book series. The film is also in part an adaptation of the comics, which dramatize Pekar’s life. The film was written and directed by documentarians Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini.
The film stars Paul Giamatti as Pekar and Hope Davis as Joyce Brabner. It also features appearances from Pekar and Brabner themselves (along with Toby Radloff), who discuss their lives, the comic books, and how it feels to be depicted onscreen by actors. It was filmed entirely on location in Cleveland and Lakewood in Ohio.
American Splendor (2003)
Directed by: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini
Starring: Paul Giamatti, Shari Springer Berman, Harvey Pekar, Josh Hutcherson, Daniel Tay, Cameron Carter, Mary Faktor, Shari Springer Berman, Larry John Meyers
Screenplay by: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini
Production Design by: Thérèse DePrez
Cinematography by: Terry Stacey
Film Editing by: Robert Pulcini
Costume Design by: Michael Wilkinson
Set Decoration by: Robert DeSue
Music by: Mark Suozzo
MPAA Rating: R for language.
Distributed by: Fine Line Features
Release Date: August 15, 2003
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