outsider art (in my understanding) has both a productive dimension, and an aesthetic dimension. in terms of production, outsider art is usually produced and published outside of the artworld. The Room was independently produced and independently distributed by the film’s author in rented theatres. independence from the artworld may be a necessary condition for “outsider art,” but it is not sufficient given that independent cinema has been around forever (the arthouse is just another part of the filmworld). the key is that most independent productions, inept as they may be, are designed according to the standards of the institution they are not a part of. most b-movies try to replicate popular film structures; often, a filmmaker will make a movie “outside” the filmworld as a means to enter into it, as in the case of Evil Dead (and countless other examples). however, these films do not provoke the same sensations as canonical example of outsider cinema like The Room, The Evil Within, and the films of neil breen. it is not just that daniel johnston independently produced and distributed his recordings: the music itself is unlike anything that anyone who is immersed in the music industry would have been capable of producing without design.
The Love Witch has stuck in my mind from when i saw it years ago. i included it in my list of outsider cinema, but wanted to re-watch to see if my initial impression of it held.
Biller, who has an MFA from CalArts, wrote, directed, produced, edited, and did all the music, costumes, and sets for The Love Witch. pre-production was a years-long process during which she individually hand-sewed the film’s many ornate and varied costumes. that level of independent auteurship is not conventional in industrial filmmaking, and is already a sign that this movie fits the first criteria of being a film made outside the structure of the filmworld. typically financing comes from a studio or some other backer normally given a credit. in this case, i haven’t found a record of where specifically the money came from (to shoot on 35mm! to hire an expert reproduction cinematographer!). all of this indicates that the film was produced “outside” of the film industry,
but financing and assemblage are only half of the production of a film. the other half is distribution. The Room is “true” outsider art in that it was independently distributed as well as produced, using the live performance element of the theatre to build a cult. this film was submitted to festivals, purchased by a distributor, given a limited theatrical release, nominated for awards, and has a lively critical and audience reception. it was served to the filmworld, and the filmworld ate it up. but The Love Witch has a very deliberate style that creates an aesthetic parallel with The Room’s uncanniness.
The Room is very funny in its ineptitude, but it’s also kind of creepy. it resembles a conventional melodrama, but every beat is slightly askew. that close synchronicity of resemblance and difference has a disturbing effect. it’s in the performances and dialogue, but The Room’s genius is integrating a subtly-perceptible incomprehensibility into the visual elements of cinema. the famous rooftop sequence, shot on a rooftop with green screens. The Love Witch tries to replicate the same kind of arbitrariness as The Room: one scene in particular took me out of it: when the cop character is having a conversation with his partner, but then goes on to order a sandwich in extensive detail. it becomes obvious that the film is being “intentionally bad.” Wiseau’s dialogue is 100% un-self-conscious. like daniel johnston, it is a truly “naive” expression, whereas The Love Witch is “cynical” in the sense of being deliberate.
that is a lot of work to say something probably obvious to most people on watching the film. and yet, i have found that in The Love Witch, something more complicated arises than its parts might suggest. something that i haven’t seen discussed in any of the critical discourse. for the bulk of the film, i found its “badness” to be quite convincing. Biller is very good at reproducing the throwback style of the visually-opulent technicolour melodramas of the 50s and 60s. the performance style, resting on the singular Samantha Robinson, but very well supported by the rest of the cast, is key to the film. the unity of narrative theme and multi-layered, historically-informed film style could only have been developed by someone trained in an MFA—but with the liberty of a completely independently-authored production.
we can think of the performance style and the corny dialogue as part of the throwback aesthetic. working backwards from The Love Witch, the hypothesis would be that the films Biller is referencing had similar cinematic malapropisms, and that’s why she chose to include dumb shit in the film. it’s a testament to the scriptwriting that i found it on the whole to be very convincing. but what i have not seen discussed is the significance of the generic–formal parallel between the melodrama, a genre of “women’s cinema” and therefore an undercurrent of the cinematic canon. a place for outsiders. The Room is also a melodrama, but it is unlikely that Wiseau knew enough about film history to know to include fake-sounding dialogue and nonsensical eddies in his dramaturgy (plus, we would be able to detect such design).
i don’t know enough about the genre Biller is referencing, so i can’t say whether those films would be called “outsider art,” but i suspect not. we can’t call The Love Witch outsider art, because it is fully part of the filmworld. part of that is because every aspect of it is intentionally designed: there’s nothing naive about it. at the same time, it is trying to recreate something that resembles the familiar, but which is authentically inept, or informed by an incomprehensible vision. “true” naive films like The Room, The Evil Within, and the films of neil breen are successful in building an aesthetic that is at once familiar, but also completely unfamiliar. there’s nothing like any of those films.
should we just call The Love Witch “fake outsider art?” i have other examples in mind of films that simulate naivety in their pursuit of a specific project, and which circulate within the filmworld. we need something we can use to refer to the aesthetic core of outsider art. films like The Matrix Resurrections, Floating Clouds, and On the Beach at Night Alone all have something in common with The Room. the term i propose for this is THE NAIVE UNCANNY!