Jesse Eisenberg, Mike O'Connell, The Living Wake
Directed by Sol Tryon, and co-written by Mike O'Connell and Peter Kline, The Living Wake is the sort of movie that defies both labels and expectations. It's comedy; it's drama; it's a musical; it's a character piece; it's bizarre; it's its own genre. Even though you can't pigeonhole it — or perhaps for that very reason — The Living Wake has received some positive notices. (Check out Film Threat and The Reeler.)
Starring O'Connell and Jesse Eisenberg (he of Zombieland and Kristen Stewart's pal in Adventureland), The Living Wake chronicles the final day in the weird life of a self-proclaimed genius, the exuberant K. Roth Binew (O'Connell). With the assistance of his more subdued friend and biographer Mills Joquin (Eisenberg), Binew comes up with the idea of a "living wake" as his farewell-to-life party.
Winner of the Audience Award at the Woodstock Film Festival and the Comedic Vision Narrative Feature Award at the Austin Film Festival, The Living Wake is currently playing at Laemmle's Sunset 5 in West Hollywood.
Director Sol Tryon has kindly agreed to answer a few questions (via e-mail) about The Living Wake for Alt Film Guide. See below.
Photo: Mangusta Productions
First of all, what attracted you to The Living Wake?
The first thing that jumped out at me was the shockingly intelligent comedy of Mike O'Connell. When I read the script my imagination was going wild with visualizing a world where this character would exist. I felt like there were no constraints, the dialogue was so original that it didn't have to be taking place in an environment that was like everyday reality. It called for something a little different, something slightly askew from any particular time or place, yet still strangely familiar.
Is the eccentric K. Roth Binew based on — or at least inspired by — a real-life individual? What's the origin of that tale?
The character was created by Mike as part of his stand-up comedy. He likes to say that he was thinking a lot about failure and death at the time. Since that material doesn't really work so well in his stand-up, he wrote it down as a 20-page one man show.
The character was so enormous and fascinating that it begged for a larger stage. The decision was made to make it into a movie and Mike, along with co-writer Peter Kline, began to work on a draft of the script.
From there the three of us developed the project into a feature film centered around this guy who saw himself as one of the great geniuses of his time, but had yet to be discovered and was now facing the finality of his own mortality.