All That You Dream: Living in Oblivion

Anyone that has ever stayed for the credits of a film knows that it takes a village to make a movie. Each individual, whether it is the director or the actors or even the person who holds the boom mic, has an important role to play in a movie’s finished product. While some roles may carry more responsibility, and thus receive more attention, an ensemble that functions well together often determines a production’s success. Tom DiCillo’s Living in Oblivion (1995) is a dark satire of independent filmmaking that reveals within the nightmare of production lies the dream of creativity.

Living in Oblivion is Tom DiCillo’s emotive response to the film industry. In the early 1990s, he was in utter despair over his career, and to understand the remorse that inspired DiCillo to write such a vicious comedy, consider his feature film debut, Johnny Suede (1991).

Johnny Suede is an amusing portrait of an aspiring musician (with a prominent pompadour) who dreams of becoming a rock n’ roll star. Its aesthetic is very similar to the works of Jim Jarmusch, which is not surprising, as the two directors were fellow graduates at New York University. DiCillo also served as cinematographer on several of Jarmusch’s early works including Permanent Vacation (1980) and Stranger Than Paradise (1984). According to DiCillo, roughly four years of his life went into the making of Johnny Suede, from script-to-financing-to-casting-to-production-to-post-to-distribution. For a feature film debut, Johnny Suede is a solid comedy that features an original soundtrack by famed guitarist Link Wray and stars Brad Pitt in its leading role. At the time, nobody knew who Pitt was, as his star-making role in Ridley Scott’s Thelma & Louise (1991) had yet to be released that same year. The film’s distribution rights were purchased by Miramax, and Johnny Suede was screened for audiences in New York for one week only. To repeat, four years of Tom DiCillo’s creative life yielded only one week of audience screening. Thus, DiCillo’s despair is understandable. And 34 years later (at the moment of this publication), Johnny Suede is not currently available for viewing on any streaming platform. 

A true creative, DiCillo put all thoughts of despair and anger at the film industry into Living in Oblivion’s script. By this time, “independent” filmmaking was all the rage, not only for creating cinematic masterpieces on limited budgets, but also for ushering in a new generation of bold filmmakers including Jarmusch, Steven Soderbergh, the Coen Brothers, John Sayles, Richard Linklater, Quentin Tarantino, and more. The word “independent” became the trendy expression to describe the aesthetic of these directors’ daring filmographies. Though Tom DiCillo does not have the name recognition that these other filmmakers do, Living in Oblivion establishes him as a peer with that famed generation of directors who also wrote their own original screenplays. 

Upon showing his first initial draft of the script to actress Catherine Keener (who also starred in Johnny Suede), DiCillo realized he had a script worthy of production. The film comically dramatizes a film crew working on an independent feature. Its characters include determined director Nick Reve (Steve Buscemi), insecure actress Nicole Springer (Keener), conceited cinematographer Wolf (Dermot Mulroney), and others who play the minor-but-ever-necessary roles of the boom mic operator, sound mixer, script reader, assistant director, driver, craft services, gaffer, and more. Living in Oblivion is a true independent feature; several of the actors actually financially invested in the production shoot just to take part in it, an ironic moment of artistic commitment to a movie that savagely makes fun of filmmaking. Nevertheless, DiCillo’s inclusion and attention to these minor characters is exactly what makes this script so special, as it reveals a veteran filmmaker who appreciates the numerous people required to make a movie production function.

And yet, Living in Oblivion’s characters hardly function with any success, giving the movie its satirical wit. Each sequence of the film’s three-part structure is a nightmare of production, with multiple takes due to issues of missed lines, faulty equipment, and raging egos. Megalomaniacal star Chad Palomino (James Le Gros, long-rumored to satirize Brad Pitt’s on-set behavior, which is actually not true, as Pitt was offered the role first) and irritable Tito (Peter Dinklage, in his film debut) certainly do not make the production shoot any easier by failing to accept simple direction. Making a movie is the dream for each of the characters, but actually doing so is a horror of conflicting anxieties. All frustrations are vented by Nick when an infuriating beeping sound prevents the filming of a pivotal scene (in its eighth take, no less). Having completely lost his nerve, Nick yells at his crew, “Could someone help me, please? Do I have to do everything myself here?” before emitting a maddening scream. There’s no (exasperating) business like show business. 

When DiCillo began shooting Living in Oblivion he had only written the first portion of the film. Realizing that for it to be released (and hopefully for longer than just one week) he needed to make it into a full-length feature film, he was required  to write the second and third sections of the movie. Amazingly, these last two portions were filmed eight months later with all of the professional actors still available (and Steve Buscemi’s hair still shoulder-length long). 

The characters’ nightmares/dreams give Living in Oblivion its structure and provide the film with its humorous tone. The movie reveals the hopeful wishes of both artistry and careers for all who take part in the film industry, no matter what role. Nick the Director dreams of winning an award for the “Best Movie Ever Made by a Human Being”; meanwhile, Bob the Gaffer (Robert Wightman) just imagines eating a really good cheeseburger. Both characters’ desires are humorously valid, no matter how wildly different, and such is the hopeful nature of filmmakers, including Living in Oblivion’s actual creator. The failure of Johnny Suede did not deter Tom DiCillo; it inspired him to create a scathing comedy that is his career’s greatest legacy. As Little Feat once played, “All that you dream/comes to shine in silver lining.” 

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