Animator's Empathy

That's strange because I can't recall much of anything that seemed funny to me about the film and I just finished watching it five minutes ago. There were many parts that made me smile but I wasn't laughing or finding humor in any of it. Fascination was mostly what I felt. Fascination with a great artist, with the effects of a brutal world, with a view of life that I could easily identify with. I was and still am a sensitive person, but nothing like the degree of acuteness that Bruce Bickford suffers. Monster Road is a film that really makes you appreciate the bittersweetness of life if you know where to look for it. Anyway, it must've been pretty cool to meet and talk with such a great artist. I have a feeling that this film and Bruce Bickford's work will accumulate a massive cult following in the not-too-distant future.

That's an interesting insight you posted, especially about "feeling disrespectful," and you experienced something the rest of us couldn't: audience reaction with the subject of the movie present. When I first saw Monster Road, I didn't really find much of it funny at all. It was very sad. I empathized with Bruce because I'm an artist myself, and I could understand the pain that is life and that need to withdraw. It seems someone private like that wouldn't even have allowed himself to be the subject of a documentary in the first place. A movie like that basically strips the subject bare in front of the eyes of thousands...it's no wonder he ran off before the end of the movie. I couldn't have stayed either, if it was a documentary about me. I don't think the movie was meant in any way to be malicious, at least I didn't get that feeling from watching it.