Hacker Cinema
The End of the Tour
2015 · Film · 106 min
Directed by James Ponsoldt
The story of the five-day interview between Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky and acclaimed novelist David Foster Wallace, which took place right after the 1996 publication of Wallace's groundbreaking epic novel, 'Infinite Jest.'
4 positive4 neutralfrom 8 commenters
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9 comments on Hacker News
One whose author saw the direction of society towards numbing entertainment very clearly.
There’s a book written by David Lipsky where he followed and interviewed David Foster Wallace (author of Infinite Jest) upon the release of Infinite Jest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Although_of_Course_You_End_Up_Becoming_Yourself
There is also a movie which is faithful to the book.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_the_Tour
The last part reminds me of this Quote from the movie The End of The Tour about DFW.
“We're going to have to develop some real machinery inside of our guts to turn off pure, unadulterated pleasure, or I don't know about you, I'm going to have to leave the planet.”
“Why?”
“Because the technology is just going to get better and better, and it's going to get easier and more and more convenient to sit alone with images on a screen, given to us by people that do not love us but want money. And that's fine in low doses. But if it's the basic main staple of your diet, you're going to die.”
— Jason Segel as David Foster Wallace
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCfpOugmd9E
I loved the movie "The end of the tour" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3416744/
Would like to read but I dont know math.
I am also too addicted. I have had a book on my shelf for 2 years unread.
I listen to 1h of audio book and I love it and then I stop and loose the plot.
oh well.
Lipsky : You dance?
David Foster Wallace : Uh huh. I’ve just discovered in the last few years that I really like it. Although I’m still not very good.
Lipsky : Where do you go, a club?
David : This Baptist church.
Lipsky: Why there?
David : Because Baptists can dance.
-- from the film The End of the Tour
I only know that a friend of Wallace, Glenn Kenny, complained about the movie, mentioning that Jason Segel’s performance was not really accurate.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/29/why-the-end-of-the-tour-isnt-really-about-my-friend-david-foster-wallace
I don’t know… I just enjoyed it as fiction. The problem with movies based on real events or on real people is that at, the end of the day, they are just fiction, and I guess they are inevitably going to disappoint some of those who know more about the real-life events or people they are based on. On the other hand, I can also see the value of getting the facts right and characters that respect the spirit of the real people they are based on. I don’t have a strong opinion on the matter as you can see.
I liked Infinite Jest and Consider The Lobster And Other Essays. Not easy reads in my opinion, especially Infinite Jest obviously, but interesting and original books.
The movie The End of the Tour (2015), although most probably inaccurate in his portrait of the man (from what I’ve read), is an enjoyable fiction that just happens to use Wallace as one of the characters. I recommend it.
The film "The End Of The Tour" - there's a transcript with that quote here: https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/end-tour-david-foster-wallace
This is sort of tangential, but I was wondering if anyone here who is a fan of David Foster Wallace has seen the movie on Netflix about him? I wasn't sure if it's good. Edit: it's called "The End of the Tour".
The world might be chaotic and exhibit 'sensitive dependence on initial conditions' (One year ago, how many people could have predicted the snowball of Donald Trump's campaign?), but it would be disingenuous to claim that biographies are complete noise. Even the genre of Fiction, despite its nomenclature, elicits truths about the world, possibly even the most profound truths that non-fiction cannot otherwise capture.
Right before coming here, I had just watched 'The End of the Tour', a drama about a Rolling Stones journalist writing a biography about writer David Foster Wallace (and now I'm writing about it, how meta is that?). In my opinion, David Foster Wallace's work is a paragon of fiction eliciting those profound truths. Ironically enough, one of the themes explored in the film was about being in-tune versus out-of-touch with reality specifically in the context of success / fame. I leave you with an excerpt from the film (Spoiler Alert):
All your protesting "I'm just regular guy". You don't crack open a thousand page book because the author is a regular guy. You do it because he is brilliant. Because you want him to be brilliant.