- Actors: Noah Fleiss, Paul Giamatti, John Goodman, Julie Hagerty, Lupe Ontiveros
- Directors: Todd Solondz
- Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC, Import
- Language: English
- Region: (US and Canada This DVD will probably NOT be viewable in other countries. Read more about DVD formats.)
- Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
- Number of discs: 1
- MPAA Rating:
- Studio: New Line Home Video
- Release Date: July 16 2002
- Run Time: 87 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B00005JKJG
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Product Description
From Amazon.com
Todd Solondz, director of the acclaimed Welcome to the Dollhouse and the controversial Happiness, continues pushing the envelope of social decorum with the merciless and casually cruel Storytelling, his most ruthless satire of suburban complacency. Broken into two unrelated chapters, "Fiction" follows college girl Selma Blair through a degrading encounter with her resentful writing teacher (Robert Wisdom), while the more sprawling and scattershot "Non-Fiction" circles around the mutual exploitation of a fumbling documentary filmmaker (Paul Giamatti doing a near-parody of director Solondz) and his clueless subject, a suburban high school slacker named Scooby (Mark Webber). The squirmy laughs are laced with humiliation and the satire is acidic and cynical; in the world of Solondz, victims and victimizers alike are petty, selfish, vindictive, and thoughtless, and empathy is strictly rationed. Though sharply written and well directed, this misanthropic vision is strictly for daring filmgoers and Solondz fans. --Sean Axmaker
Product Description
Storytelling is a comedy that shines a light on the dark side of human behavior, from the director of Happiness and Welcome To The Dollhouse. Take a journey from innocence to experience, kindness to cruelty, and love to hate with an emotionally needy college student (Selma Blair) and a dysfunctional family man (John Goodman) as they learn some of life's most difficult lessons. Masterfully balancing both fact and fiction, acclaimed writer-director Todd Solondz uses razor sharp wit and an observing eye to cut open his characters and skewer the American dream.
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Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
Everyone always has a story to tell
Feb 7 2008
Format:DVD
Todd Solondz's `Welcome to the Dollhouse' showed comic/absurd promise; his masturbation scene in `Happiness' overstepped the boundary of film taste but got everyone's attention. While I didn't enjoy "Storytelling" as much as I did the Director's two previous films, "Happiness" and "Welcome to The Dollhouse," Solondz continues to amaze with his depictions of just how awkward true life really is. As always, he masterfully shows the oft times tactless, cynical, transparent motivations of everyday suburban life and combines them with outrageous situations, giving a humorous view into the myriad of interesting quirky characters he creates. As with Happiness, Storytelling has no background characters. Each character gets fully explored in a way that no matter how familiar or foreign a specific character's behavior might be to you, you can't help but understand their motivations. Solondz can develop over 10 characters in 88 minutes while most conventional Hollywood films fail to portray just one in any given 3 hour "epic".
Selma Blair and Leo Fitzpatrick give incredible performances in the first segment of this film titled "Fiction". John Goodman is at his best here in the film's second segment "Non-fiction", not to mention it was a good to see Julie Haggerty in it.
One of the film's most honest moments (and there are MANY) comes in the beginning of the Non-Fiction segment, during a phone call Paul Giamatti gives to a female classmate he hadn't spoken to since high school. While hilarious, I couldn't help but feel bad for his character, which gets fleshed out in the almost confessional tone of the conversation (which of course, he blunders).
I don't want to dig far into the plot because the elements of shock and surprise that are Solondz bread and butter should only be revealed by others, suffice it to say I recommend this movie very highly. I look forward to anything this director does.
Selma Blair and Leo Fitzpatrick give incredible performances in the first segment of this film titled "Fiction". John Goodman is at his best here in the film's second segment "Non-fiction", not to mention it was a good to see Julie Haggerty in it.
One of the film's most honest moments (and there are MANY) comes in the beginning of the Non-Fiction segment, during a phone call Paul Giamatti gives to a female classmate he hadn't spoken to since high school. While hilarious, I couldn't help but feel bad for his character, which gets fleshed out in the almost confessional tone of the conversation (which of course, he blunders).
I don't want to dig far into the plot because the elements of shock and surprise that are Solondz bread and butter should only be revealed by others, suffice it to say I recommend this movie very highly. I look forward to anything this director does.
Brilliant vision of how to tell a story
July 16 2004
Format:DVD
The mode of portraying a tale is in focus in Storytelling through two different stories that are disconnected, yet associated to one another, as one deals with the fictional and the other the non-fictional. In the first part, Fiction, Vi (Selma Blair) is in a relationship with Marcus (Leo Fitzpatrick) who suffers from cerebral palsy and both are attending the same university. Vi and Marcus are currently enrolled in the same creative writing class where the students scrutinize each other's writing. Fiction exposes how personal experiences are turned into writing, which is callously slaughtered by judgmental readers as they their own set of values to the cerebral playing field of literature.
The second part of Storytelling, Non-fiction, illiterates the reality of the world as Scooby Livingston (Mark Webber) perceives it. Scooby lives in a upper-class bubble protected by his ruling father, Marty (John Goodman), where Scooby is constantly asked, "what are you going to do with your life?" This endless questioning of Scooby's future seems to have been stressful for him as he has sunk into a zombie-like state. Scooby escapes reality through smoking pot or chewing down a couple of mushrooms where he flees into dreams of working as a co-host with David Letterman. The day when a shoe salesman, who aspires to make film, visits Scooby's high school in order to make a documentary about the process of entering college Scooby believes that this is his chance to make connections in the world of media. However, when the documentary comes along it begins to depict the dream-like world in which Scooby lives in.
Storytelling is a clever film that displays the symbiosis between the audience and the storyteller, which is meticulously directed by Solondz. Solondz depicts the power of the audience to choose what to believe and what to disregard if it is not portrayed in an manner that the audience can accept. In addition, Solondz offers a notion of how the power of storytelling can sway an audience's convictions in a chosen direction if carefully planned. In a sense Storytelling is a philosophical film in regards to film and film making, which can be derived from the economics, politics, and the arts. Yet, the philosophical debate of Storytelling is deep beneath the surface as the audience must use a dialectic approach in order to reach it. Nonetheless, Storytelling offers a terrific cinematic experience as it offers the audience to choose whether to sink into thought or merely enjoy the ride.
Look Again
Jun 24 2004
Format:DVD
If you strongly dislike this movie, I suggest reading Crowley's scathing early reviews of Faulkner; then read Crowley's later praise of the same works. Initially, Crowley was appalled by what he projected as Faulkner's baseness. Eventually he came to apprehend Faulkner's genius to see, describe, and even love 'man.' For me, the film is upsetting because the gaze is unbroken and the subjects are living/struggling in the world. Like Faulkner, Solondz is looking at his time. His view point is not ridiculing (that view is delt with in young pill to the right of the prof).
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Most recent customer reviews
Interesting work.
Storytelling is an interesting movie that portrays the contemporary North American society.
It emphasizes the pitiful importance of the individual as the stem of a civilization;... Read more
Published on Jun 13 2004 by The OpiumDen
Light in April
Thanks for refreshing drama. The first half (all that I have watched so far) seems a portrayal of a young women's (Vi's) daring and traumatic moves into life, a snap shot of... Read more
Published on May 27 2004 by Guipi Boy
worst movie ever
This is honestly the worst movie I've ever seen. I can't imagine how anyone could possibly have enjoyed it. I hated everything about it.
Published on May 10 2004 by "nflees"
Selma Blair = Reason To Watch This Movie
Selma Blair is hot as hell. This movie really utilizes that aspect of her acting repitoire.
Published on April 27 2004 by Chad Kultgen
Stories Worth Telling!
"Storytelling" is not one film, but two. They are both different, but very related. The first story is called "Fiction" and it stars Selma Blair, Leo Fitzpatrick, and Robert... Read more
Published on Feb 15 2004 by Ed Mich
Reality Bites
After the acclaimed and controversial "Happiness", Todd Solondz produced another acid and depressing vision of today`s America. Read more
Published on Jan 30 2004 by gonn1000
What was the point
My mate brought this back because of its glowing reputation, and we both sat in stunned silence as we watched this. Read more
Published on Jan 27 2004 by John Doh
Very experimental with some good moments, but not great
Storytelling is a bit of a disappointment except for some great moments that really stand out, but sadly overall is not really this director on form. Read more
Published on Jan 10 2004 by OverTheMoon
Solondz has done better
I previously have been a fan Todd Solondz's work in the pastm but I really didn't like Storytelling. Solondz has a real talent to make the tragic and brutal seem humorous. Read more
Published on Jan 10 2004 by "oezekoye"
Yes, I said 1 star!
I was deeply disappointed by this film. I bought DVD copies of Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness. I loved those films and I was a big fan of the director up to this point. Read more
Published on Jan 2 2004
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