Party Monster opens this weekend.
Berlin celebrates the new film Party Monster, with hosts Zazoo and Satori, who appear in the film, Friday, Sept. 5, 954 W. Belmont, (773) 348-4975.
During the late '80s and early '90s, New York City's nightlife scene was bubbling with excitement and energy. Creativity, chaos and a young Indiana-born clubgoer by the name of Michael Alig reigned. Alig's weekly 'Disco 2000' event at the Limelight became the hottest event in Manhattan, teeming with outrageous nouveau clowns, the drug-steeped 'club kids.' Then, in a stroke of irony, the life of the party turned into its death.
In 1996, Alig murdered drug dealer Angel Melendez, chopped him into pieces, and launched his remains into the Hudson River. Alig was eventually apprehended, tried, and sentenced to 20 years in prison for manslaughter. As a result of Alig's horrendous behavior and incarceration, the scene he erected collapsed in a cloud of drug busts, club raids and closures, and sensational headlines. Not to mention an edgy, new tragicomedy film based on the events and Alig: Party Monster.
Party Monster's filmmakers, Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, knew Alig during those club-kid glory days (they first met him in the mid-'80s). They were in fact a part of the scene, as musical act The Fabulous Pop Tarts. The duo initially had endeavored to create a documentary about the club scene during its heyday, but were unable to raise funds. It was only after Alig made headlines as an alleged murderer that they managed to drum up capital for what became the 1998 Party Monster documentary, which partially inspired the new fictionalized film. 'It's a morality tale immorally told,' says Barbato of the new feature, which debuted at the 2003
Sundance Film Festival in January. 'And that's why we wanted to make this. It's not a cookie-cutter movie.'
In the film, Alig (played by Macaulay Culkin) is an enterprising youth who moves to New York with hopes of achieving fame and fortune. He manages to charm an established, albeit reluctant nightlife fixture, James St. James (a brilliant Seth Green), to act as partner, and Limelight club owner Peter Gatien (Dylan McDermott) as surrogate father. After a number of dismal attempts at creating parties, Alig eventually succeeds, gathering a coterie of like-minded souls including Gitsie (Chloë Sevigny), Brooke (Natasha Lyonne), Freez (Justin Hagan) and Melendez (an understated, memorable Wilson Cruz).
His visibility rises thanks to talk show appearances—in which even his mother, Elke (Diana Scarwid), takes part—a magazine named Project X and appearances at clubs around the country. Although Alig's popularity was on the rise, so was his erratic behavior. Urinating into people's drinks, embarrassing close friends, and ingesting copious quantities of drugs became de rigeur. Alig's chemical addiction eventually scares off his boyfriend, DJ Keoki (Wilmer Valderrama of TV's That '70s Show), and leads to a reprehensible act of violence: the murder of Melendez.
'Personally, I'm sad about how [the club scene] ended,' Barbato admits, 'and how it never got the recognition I think it deserved. Before it got dark it was incredibly invigorating and creative, and that's part of what we tried to [show] in the movie. The murder is horrific. More than one person was killed. It's a metaphorical death for Michael and the scene.'
Bailey, who hails from Portsmouth, England, and Barbato, an American from New Jersey, first met in 1982 at NYU. Both openly gay, they've been responsible for many brilliant, very queer cable series and documentaries since 1991, including HBO's Shock Video, VH1's The RuPaul Show, The Eyes of Tammy Faye and 101 Rent Boys. Party Monster, however, marks their foray into dramatic features. 'Fenton and I went to film school; we didn't study documentaries, we studied narrative drama,' Barbato notes. 'So for us it was another gig.'
Besides referencing their Party Monster documentary, Bailey and Barbato also based the new feature on St. James' 1999 book, Disco Bloodbath, about the murder and his relationship with Alig. Bailey and Barbato drafted many versions of the script, whipping up casting ideas in the process. Culkin was always their first choice for Alig, they admit. Sickened by childhood stardom, however, Culkin had retired from acting during his teens. He briefly resurfaced in a 1998 Sonic Youth music video and, a couple of years later, the play Madame Melville in London and on Broadway. Party Monster is Culkin's first official 'adult' film role, and his attachment to the project was a dream come true for the filmmakers.
During preproduction, Bailey and Barbato took Culkin to visit Alig in prison. Prior to their arrival, Alig had been trumpeting intentions to teach Culkin the art of making out (as reported in The New York Post), but actually proved shy and withdrawn upon meeting him face-to-face. 'Michael was awed,' Bailey recalls. 'None of that bravado was present in the meeting itself.'
Culkin proved an uncanny and committed study. On set, while bedecked in costumes and makeup, Culkin and Green would often maintain their characters' speech patterns (which included a unique 'skinkle-skrodle' vocabulary) and mannerisms. 'But,' notes Bailey, 'Mac was always going out of his way to accommodate people and make people feel at home and be nice to them, which you can't always say of Michael Alig in his latter period.'
In playing Alig, Culkin donned many un-Home Alone, tres risque outifts: a surgical mask as makeshift jockstrap, lederhosen, garters, and numerous body stockings with strategically placed holes. Doing so, he was aware such, er, aspects of his performance and wardrobe would be a source of fun (and excitement) for gay viewers. 'Macaulay is a smart guy and he loves the straights and he loves the fags,' Barbato insists. 'We were shooting the condo scene, and he has this little cutout leotard outfit, and I kept saying, 'Mac, we need to see the nips, the nipples.' I feel like we struck the balance of not letting that overshadow the performance, but we got some in there for the boys.'
As with most films based on actual events and people, numerous facts and characters were rearranged, amalgamated and manipulated for dramatic effect and narrative convenience. For example, Christine, a twisted drag queen near-wordlessly portrayed by Marilyn Manson in the film, was in reality a far more horrific, verbal creature (as evidenced in Disco Bloodbath). But the most quizzical omission made by the filmmakers would be the rather obvious lack of on-screen same-sex intimacy.
In Disco Bloodbath, St. James reels off details about Alig's queer sex life, much of which involved teenage and even preteen boys. Daniel, a 16-year-old boyfriend of Alig's seen in the Party Monster documentary, was one of these numerous suburban kids who were drawn to Alig in search of fabulousness, affection and experience. As St. James wrote: 'They smoked crack and jerked off for hours on end ... Michael would emerge periodically, huffing and puffing and red in the face and blue in the penis. Little boys. He ate them alive.'
In the film, the only act of explicit sexual activity Alig partakes of onscreen is a kiss with Gitsie. A romantic moment with Keoki, meanwhile, cuts to black and shots of fireworks exploding before their lips touch. 'Even if you read the original script, it was always designed the way it was [seen] in the movie,' Barbato explains. '[Culkin and Valderrama] do smooch and we filmed them smooching, but the lights were always off.'
'It seemed kind of funny and cheesy and encapsulated Michael's own highly romantic vision,' Bailey adds of the fireworks shots.
'That's what you're supposed to be getting.'
Sex aside, many other elements drawn from life added undeniable authenticity to the onscreen scene. A bevy of costumes were loaned by the actual club kids, many of whom appeared in cameo roles as themselves—like current fashion designer Richie Rich—while others worked behind the scenes. Kabuki, a former club kid, lent his makeup artistry talents.
As for Alig himself, he hasn't seen the film yet—he's in the Southport Correctional Facility in New York and will not be eligible for parole until 2006. But Bailey surmises that 'he's probably concerned about how he's portrayed in it. His mum has never really liked the title 'Party Monster,' and she doesn't want her son portrayed as a party monster.'
The filmmakers, however, feel that Alig is portrayed accurately. Many agree: those who took part in Alig's scene, from its center to sidelines, have enthusiastically attested at film festivals, like Sundance and the Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, how true the film and its representations of Alig are.
Bailey and Barbato also believe the film accomplishes one other important goal: making sure the audience feels implicated in the events that transpire on-screen. Alig, after all, achieved his popularity thanks to masses who cheered on his naughty behavior and later felt betrayed when he went too far.
'The film does implicate the audience,' Bailey notes. 'Without an audience, Michael Alig couldn't have happened. It's all very well to say he's an unsympathetic character not worthy of making a film about, but the fact remains, Michael was a highly successful New York club promoter, the most successful person in New York nightlife ... not an inconsiderable achievement. He only could have done that with everybody else's complicity, and that's what we replicate. Michael's [charm] is his naughtiness.'
Movie Maven
by Gregg Shapiro
Limited runs and special events:
@ Chicago Cultural Center, 77 E Randolph, (312) 744-6630: 'International Dinner & a Movie' – Rushmore – Sept. 12 (cuisine by The Plaza Club); The Third Man – Nov. 18 (cuisine by Kasia's Deli); 39 Steps – Jan. 20 (cuisine by Bob Chinn's Crabhouse); Home Movie – Mar. 23 (cuisine by Polo Café & Catering); Vengo – May 18 (cuisine by Los Dos Laredos)
@ Chicago Filmmakers, 5243 N. Clark, (773) 293-1447 and Columbia College Chicago (Ferguson Theater, 600 S. Michigan Ave.): The 15th Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival – Featuring six programs, spread out over three days, including more than 50 experimental films and videos from eight countries (Germany, Japan, Belgium, Austria, UK, Canada, Korea, and the U.S.). Among the selection are 10 world premieres and six U.S. premieres. – Sept. 12, 13, and 14
In theaters:
Party Monster (Strand Releasing/World of Wonder/Killer Films): Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, who co-directed the original 1998 documentary version of Party Monster, the story of the meteoric rise and messy decline of self-made New York nightlife superstar Michael Alig, have returned for the dramatic feature film presentation of Alig's bizarre, but true, story. Based on the book Disco Bloodbath by James St. James (Seth Green), this more stylized telling of the Alig (McCauley Culkin) story opens with St. James doing an interview to promote his book. The story then goes back in time to the night St. James overdosed on drugs just as Alig was telling him about how he murdered drug dealer Angel (openly gay actor Wilson Cruz). From there we go back even farther in time to naïve, innocent, but incredibly self-assured Alig's arrival in Manhattan and his request of St. James to teach him how to be fabulous, which St. James does in a garishly lit donut shop.
Alig is a quick study and before you can say 'Andy Warhol is dead,' he is throwing parties and making celebrities out of drag queen Christina (Marilyn Manson) and bisexual DJ Keoki (Wilmer Valderrama). According to St. James, in spite of Alig's insistence on making up a 'dopey language' and throwing 'stupid parties,' he was 'growing on me like a fungus.' After teaming up with eye patch-wearing Limelight owner Peter Gatien (Dylan McDermott), the 'hateful little turd became the king of the club kids.'
However, the arrival on the scene of wing-sporting drug dealer Angel, combined with out-of-state transplants Gitsie (Chloë Sevigny) and Brooke's (Natasha Lyonne) relocation to New York (more specifically to Alig's overcrowded flat), and Alig's spiraling drug abuse, result in a lethal combination that ends in murder.
Funny and scary, this wild party is worth attending just to witness Seth Greene's transfixing transformation. (B)
