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American Splendor

Country: USA, Language: English, 101 mins

  • Director: Shari Springer Berman; Robert Pulcini
  • Writer: Harvey Pekar; Joyce Brabner
  • Producer: Declan Baldwin; Ted Hope

CGiii Comment

The script received an Oscar nomination!

Only for those who can tolerate the insufferable Jazz, a nondescript character with the most aggravating voice ever recorded, a mish-mash of story-telling techniques...all for a man who wrote a comic book.

So...if you liked the comic 'American Splendor' and have an appreciation for Jazz - then, this is the film for you...otherwise, stay well clear.


Trailer...

The(ir) Blurb...

Harvey Pekar is file clerk at the local VA hospital. His interactions with his co-workers offer some relief from the monotony, and their discussions encompass everything from music to the decline of American culture to new flavors of jellybeans and life itself. At home, Harvey fills his days with reading, writing and listening to jazz. His apartment is filled with thousands of books and LPs, and he regularly scours Cleveland's thrift stores and garage sales for more, savoring the rare joy of a 25-cent find. It is at one of these junk sales that Harvey meets Robert Crumb, a greeting card artist and music enthusiast. When, years later, Crumb finds international success for his underground comics, the idea that comic books can be a valid art form for adults inspires Harvey to write his own brand of comic book. An admirer of naturalist writers like Theodore Dreiser, Harvey makes his American Splendor a truthful, unsentimental record of his working-class life, a warts-and-all self portrait. First published in 1976, the comic earns Harvey cult fame throughout the 1980s and eventually leads him to the sardonic Joyce Barber, a partner in a Delaware comic book store who end ups being Harvey's true soul mate as they experience the bizarre byproducts of Harvey's cult celebrity stature.

Cast & Characters

Paul Giamatti as Harvey Pekar;
Harvey Pekar as Real Harvey;
Shari Springer Berman as Interviewer;
Larry John Meyers as Throat Doctor;
Vivienne Benesch as Lana;
Barbara Brown as Nurse;
Earl Billings as Mr. Boats;
Danny Hoch as Marty;
James Urbaniak as Robert Crumb