Critical Analysis "The Disaster Artist"

In the book, The Disaster Artist, the author describes his life with the director of the movie "The Room", Tommy Wiseau. Each chapter contrasts Tommy Wiseau's character as a friend with Tommy's attitude on set during filming. The author talks about how Tommy acts cocky and is very defensive towards his ideas. The author doesn't know that much of his past after being friends with him for two years. The author also talks about how this made production of the movie hell because he was a terrible actor and writer. He wanted to do the movie his way, which had a lot of flaws. He ate alone, was only able to spend money if it helped him directly (i.e. air conditioning, generator), he refused to change the script even with obvious inconsistencies, he was a horrible actor who could barely remember his lines, he used too much lighting, etc. Because of this, the author tries to show us how Tommy isn't just a bad director, but he's a multifaceted person who's personality isn't a inherently good or bad one.

 One way the author tries to convey this is which the structure of the chapters. Every new chapter changes the time. He continually changes from a part of the room production to a part of his life after meeting Tommy. This helps him because we see two sides of him, which greatly increases our understanding of Tommy. If we only had one side of him shown, the author could've easily manipulated our understanding of him. The author primarily uses this tactic to help us understand. Without it, the author would have very little chance of actually convincing us of his multifacetedness. His life with the author makes us pity him and see a man trying to achieve his dream. His life on the set shows us how his personality can drive people crazy and how he is very closed-minded. These balance out and any idea's we have are ours based on seeing both sides of his life.

This book really gave me insight on the creation of my favorite movie, "The Room", and the director/lead actor/producer/executive producer. I really enjoyed this book and the author taught me about how we judge people.