The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

Or, the best way to make art about art is to make it about more than just art

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent may seem like a film about the pure magic that is Nicolas Cage, and it is, but it's also a film about self-perception, the roles we play in our own lives, and the connection we feel with people who amaze and inspire us, but who we don't actually know in real life. I also cry-laughed so hard at one point I couldn’t breathe.

In the film, Nicolas Cage plays a fictionalized version of himself, a narcissist who has a bad relationship with his daughter and ex-wife, isn't getting the roles he wants, and can no longer afford his extravagant lifestyle. So, when his agent tells him about an unusual offer, one million dollars to attend the birthday of a wealthy, eccentric super fan named Javi (played by Pedro Pascal), Cage reluctantly agrees. But as soon as he lands at Javi's estate, Cage is confronted by two US government agents who suspect Javi is more than he seems. To help them get the information they need, Nick Cage must indulge his biggest fan by putting on the ultimate performance: playing himself.

The film is a tight rope act, balancing meta-commentary, homage, action, and comedy. It slips periodically between reality and fantasy. And it delves into the true power of escapism: not that it is merely a temporary escape from reality (a common misconception), but that the distance from reality that escapism offers allows us to actually engage with real problems from a safe distance through metaphor.

Both Javi and Nick Cage are so desperate for this escape in their own lives that they indulge in a shared fantasy, allowing themselves to play better versions of themselves. And in this way, watching Javi and Nick Cage on screen reminded me of what it felt like to play with my friends as a kid. As adults, we forget how to play; we forget the power of acting out fiction in order to realize and understand our emotions and self-perception.

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Some writers believe that it is impossible to truly know your characters, suggesting that, while characters may wear masks to cope and interact with the world, there is no essential person underneath—or, if there is, that it is impossible to know for certain, so why bother trying? This argument is often made to negate the value of process stuff like creating character bios (which serve to establish who your character is) before you write your story. But it ignores the fact that, even if it is impossible to truly know one's self, that doesn't stop people from trying. In other words, characters don't come into a story empty handed.

There are other writers who swing the pendulum the other way, exhibiting complete control over who they think their characters are before putting them through a gauntlet of plot. They have them all worked out in their head.

But the great actor Willem Dafoe once presented, during a discussion with Pedro Pascal, a more balanced approach to character. Regarding his process, he said:

I think sometimes when you understand something too much, it’s done. And you don’t have the energy of discovery. But when you’re presented with something, but it’s not really you, it’s not your experience, then you have to create a relationship to that experience. And that’s one of the thrills of acting; that’s one of the thrills of being a human being! That’s where your life meets your work.

This attitude speaks to a more balanced approach to character. Prepare up to a point, but not so much that you lose the “energy of discovery.” Because characters come to the page with a set of attitudes and experiences that happened before, whether the reader is made aware of them or not. Characters have an idea of who they are and who they want to be. And, like people, are often driven by their relationship with that self-perception.

Tom Gormican, the director and co-writer of The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, said that he viewed the story from Javi’s perspective, because he is the one who is discovering the “real” Nick Cage, “where a guy who’s a massive Nicolas Cage fan is starting to see this human being who starts off as depressed start to become the guy he always imagined he would be.” Javi is the character who embodies us, the viewers, the fans of Nicolas Cage; he also embodies a central theme of the movie: the desire to find the ineffable real person behind the roles we play. This film has the viewer wondering: what aspects of this story are pulled from reality, and which are fiction?

Only in understanding who they are in the present, through action, through internal and external struggle, can they learn to move forward, drop the mask of self-perception, and just be. As Nick Cage states in the film: “I knew I should have trusted my shamanic instincts as a thespian.”

What I'm reading now:

• The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, Shannon Chakraborty

• Deathbird Songs, Harlan Ellison

• The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: Metaphor as Myth and as Religion, Joseph Campbell