1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 37: Trees Lounge
Again I must defer to Roger Ebert, who says that this movie “is the most accurate portrait of the daily saloon drinker” that he has seen. (For Ebert’s description of his own alcoholism, see his book Life Itself, which is built from his blog entries; here is one of them.)
Steve Buscemi – who also used to drink too much – is the director and star of Trees Lounge. This is a quintessential Buscemi performance. His role in Ghost World, Ebert says, is
This doesn’t make him any less sad. His drinking is inseparable from his compulsive manipulating of bartenders, friends, and women. In an especially touching scene, an ex-girlfriend watches a home video of what appears to be a Christmas gathering. Tommy is the life of the party: he exudes tenderness and fun: other revelers brim with affection for him. This is poignant because the viewer knows that Tommy has alienated most of these friends.
Despite this, the movie is a pleasure to watch because it is very funny. Tommy clowns his way through life, and a lot of the clowning is instinctively brilliant. You used to be funny, the teenaged girl (Chloë Sevigny) teases him. He’s still funny: he even knows how to ham it up when the girl’s father chases him with a baseball bat. (Come to think of it, Buscemi gets beaten up at the end of Ghost World, too.)
As one might expect, there are many closely observed supporting characters who drink in Trees Lounge. Ebert singles out Bill, an old man “whose world has grown smaller and smaller, until finally it has defined itself as the task of drinking”; he stares “blankly into space before rousing himself to use sign language to order another double shot.” Another drinker looks like a scuzzy loser but turns out to be relatively successful (he owns a delivery company). A theme is that even those who are crippled by alcoholism need not be totally dysfunctional. On the other hand, a measure of blindness seems to go with the disease. The bartender who scolds Tommy for drinking too much himself turns into a barfly when he’s not working a shift.
It’s also surprising how many women pass through the bar looking for one-night stands. The regulars who are steadiest on their feet are happy to oblige; even so, precious little consummation results from the wobbly mating dances performed in Trees Lounge. And then, afterward, the regulars are racked with guilt because they have girlfriends or wives from whom they’re only partly estranged. They idealize those girlfriends and wives, but not enough to quit drinking. The movie isn’t very interested in asking how hard it is for addicts to quit, whether it’s possible for a given person to quit (though it suggests that the prevailing attitude among the drinkers is that they could quit if they wanted to – if they had good enough reason to). The movie’s goal is simpler. It shows the costs of this sort of life – and some of the perks.
Steve Buscemi – who also used to drink too much – is the director and star of Trees Lounge. This is a quintessential Buscemi performance. His role in Ghost World, Ebert says, is
like the flip side of his alcoholic barfly in Trees Lounge, who also becomes entangled with a younger girl, not so fortunately.In Ghost World, the Buscemi character is indrawn and timid; only the girl gets close to him. Tommy, his counterpart in Trees Lounge, is obnoxious, assertive, and gregarious. Everyone knows and sort of likes him.
This doesn’t make him any less sad. His drinking is inseparable from his compulsive manipulating of bartenders, friends, and women. In an especially touching scene, an ex-girlfriend watches a home video of what appears to be a Christmas gathering. Tommy is the life of the party: he exudes tenderness and fun: other revelers brim with affection for him. This is poignant because the viewer knows that Tommy has alienated most of these friends.
Despite this, the movie is a pleasure to watch because it is very funny. Tommy clowns his way through life, and a lot of the clowning is instinctively brilliant. You used to be funny, the teenaged girl (Chloë Sevigny) teases him. He’s still funny: he even knows how to ham it up when the girl’s father chases him with a baseball bat. (Come to think of it, Buscemi gets beaten up at the end of Ghost World, too.)
As one might expect, there are many closely observed supporting characters who drink in Trees Lounge. Ebert singles out Bill, an old man “whose world has grown smaller and smaller, until finally it has defined itself as the task of drinking”; he stares “blankly into space before rousing himself to use sign language to order another double shot.” Another drinker looks like a scuzzy loser but turns out to be relatively successful (he owns a delivery company). A theme is that even those who are crippled by alcoholism need not be totally dysfunctional. On the other hand, a measure of blindness seems to go with the disease. The bartender who scolds Tommy for drinking too much himself turns into a barfly when he’s not working a shift.
It’s also surprising how many women pass through the bar looking for one-night stands. The regulars who are steadiest on their feet are happy to oblige; even so, precious little consummation results from the wobbly mating dances performed in Trees Lounge. And then, afterward, the regulars are racked with guilt because they have girlfriends or wives from whom they’re only partly estranged. They idealize those girlfriends and wives, but not enough to quit drinking. The movie isn’t very interested in asking how hard it is for addicts to quit, whether it’s possible for a given person to quit (though it suggests that the prevailing attitude among the drinkers is that they could quit if they wanted to – if they had good enough reason to). The movie’s goal is simpler. It shows the costs of this sort of life – and some of the perks.