Grant Morrison on the Big Screen

The best part about watching documentaries in a movie theater is who you get to see them with. Docs, especially about esoteric subjects, bring together the greatest and weirdest people - people who should know each other, anyway. I mean, remember the people you met at that Theremin documentary? Or at anything about Tesla? My guess is that the following move theater screenings of the new Grant Morrison documentary DVD, Talking with Gods, will be nights to remember. Morrison is considerably weirder than the vast majority of his comics readers probably know - and yes, even weirder than most of the minority know. And filmmaker Patrick Meaney (who interviewed me for the film, too) has just the temperament to engage with a multi-dimensional entity like Morrison.

TALKING WITH GODS examines Morrison's 30-year career and the real-life events that inspired his stories. Featuring extensive interviews with Morrison himself, the film delves into his early days growing up in Scotland, the start of his career in comics, the crazy years of the '90s as his life and his comics became enmeshed, and his recent attempts to turn social darkness and personal troubles into compelling comics. The film also gives insight into his creative process, including a look into his vaunted idea notebooks. Complementing Morrison's own words are interviews with many of his collaborators and colleagues, including Frank Quitely, Warren Ellis, Geoff Johns, Phil Jimenez, Mark Waid, Cameron Stewart, Douglas Rushkoff, Frazer Irving, Jill Thompson, Dan DiDio, and more.

Morrison is a storyteller, chaos magician, and kung fu practitioner - but most of all he is a True Believer. As a true unbeliever, I don't get along with most true believers. But Grant is an exception, and when the things a true believer is believing in involve machine elves and Superman, I find it easier to accept the possibility of their existence. If anyone is having conversations with the gods, I'd think Morrison is one of the few who could emerge from the encounter still able to say what happened. Or to speak at all. Oh - the screenings: San Francisco - October 8th through October 13th at the Roxie NYC - October 9th at Cinema Village (scroll down) with Director / Producer Q&A Philadelphia - October 15th at the Johnsville Centrifuge with Director / Producer Q&A Boston - October 17th at the Magic Room with Director / Producer Q&A LA - October 21st at Meltdown Comics with Director / Producer / Special Guest Q&A

• [EricT]

  I think the works of GM are shallow or deep in accordance with the amount of effort you’re willing to put into them. Yes, the Invisibles falls apart at the end, but there are moments of radiant pathos and obscene transcendence in The Filth and Doom Patrol that most of us, in our Postmodern torpor, normally don’t get an opportunity to experience. I really think there is something to GM’s proposition that he’s trying to cure us with our own intellectual disease. He’s a magician in the best sense of the term, a person who’s trying to hack reality, reprogram consciousness to make it run better. I don’t mean to portray him as a messianic figure. I suppose the best that can be said of him is that he’s making an attempt to surf the wave that’s drowning everything else.

• [Anonymous]

  Thanks for posting this- never would have heard about it otherwise. Saw it at the Roxie last night and found it very entertaining and, in my opinion, not terribly biased.

• [valis]

  I’ve noticed a strange pattern in the people that make the art I love the most.

  Philip K. Dick had the VALIS experience. Robert Anton Wilson maybe had communication with something/one from Sirius. Morrison had his strange hash induced rooftop experience in Nepal (well, somewhere near Nepal I think). Then Dick is talked about in Wilson’s work a lot. RAW is mentioned in VALIS. They are both heavily referenced in the Invisibles. Etc, etc.

  Somehow I need to work Alan Moore seeing John Constantine in a bar into my theory here…..

• [salsaman]

  I had no idea!
  btw was the middle paragraph copied from Amazon, or did you write the product description for Amazon?

• [arikol]

  I’ve seen him speaking and chilled at a café afterwards and he is weird beyond belief. Truly and properly mad (or visionary), but in such a wonderfully interesting way that, as Rushkoff says above, it’s easy to get along with him even though he is a (strange) true believer.

  OTOH i was never sure when he was joking and when he was being serious.

  I LOVE Morrison’s work. That is pure and mad genius, just like the creator.

• [diamantiferous]

  Oh my GOODNESS. I cannot miss this. Thank you BB for always being on point.

  (Full disclosure: I considered studying abroad in Edinburgh just to stalk GM aka King Mob if King Mob were real. Sigh.)

• [Tetsuoooooooooo]

  Machine elves? Sounds like he’s a DMT user.

  • [Anonymous]

    Everyone is a DMT user. It’s produced by the pineal gland naturally.

    • [Ambiguity]

      Everyone is a DMT user. It’s produced by the pineal gland naturally.

      ’tis not. Or perhaps I should say: could be, but no one knows. The DMT/Pineal thing is just speculation. (I even heard Rick Strassman — who was one of the ones who really kicked the speculation off — say as much a few weeks ago at a movie screening.)

• [Gendun]

  Thanks for the head’s up, Douglas – “The Invisibles” is hands down the best comic book series I’ve ever read.

  @Tetsuoooooooooooo: Check out the aforementioned “The Invisibles” — DMT and ayahuasca play a vital role.

• [Anonymous]

  Thanks for posting this! Going to the Boston one tonight as a result.

• [Anonymous]

  Morrison has been coasting on his reputation since JLA. His stuff used to be fascinatingly complex, now it’s just incomprehensible for no reason, weird for the sake of weird.