SFIFF Review -- An Audience of One

Richard Gazowsky leads a small church in San Francisco; he's committed to the love of Christ, and dedicated in service to the Lord. He is also convinced that God wants him -- needs him -- to make a multi-million dollar science-fiction film called Gravity: The Shadow of Joseph that will help spread the word of the Lord. The desire to lead a church is not unprecedented; neither is the desire to make a film. Both, however, make for a fairly unusual combination. ...

Directed by Michael Jacobs, Audience of One depicts the community of worship and the collective of art -- all thanks to Gazowsky's visions and belief that this is what God wants him to do. It's easy to see a sprinkling of Ed Wood-style mania in Gazowsky -- no problem is insurmountable, no technical challenge that can't be tackled, no performance so clunky that it can't be fixed in post-production -- but he's also in service of a higher idea. Sure, it's big and bold -- he's imploring local craftpersons to donate work and time, he's taking an untested cast and crew to Italy to film for five days -- but Gazowsky says "If you ask me, this was the message of Christ: To dream big."
Jacobs doesn't intrude with voice-over or too many title cards -- he occasionally subtitles mumbled or low-level dialogue, but only for clarity's sake. Instead, he simply points his camera at Gazowsky -- who's a natural showman - and follows him from story meeting to church service, Italy to San Francisco, as he explains that the camera will be fixed, that the overseas funding is coming through, that the production has to look out for spies from other movie studios so that the Church's work on the film doesn't get stolen. ...

Of course, it's all well and good to say the investment money is coming. When it doesn't show, however, then you have some explaining to do. The group starts to bounce checks and miss payments for the film's studio building in San Francisco, and the editor of a local trade publication notes that not only is Gazowsky's project looking for unpaid work, they also owe money around town. ... But Gazowsky keeps talking about how the German funding is coming, in just a few weeks. ...

Watching An Audience of One, I kept thinking of the Broadway classic The Music Man -- where Professor Harold Hill goes town to town selling instruments and uniforms and accoutrements to form a boy's band but skips town with the cash every time since he doesn't actually know how to play music. I wasn't thinking of Harold Hill's aggressive con, but rather the one line in the play that shows Hill's heart, a forlorn admission when he's confronted by one of his students: "I always think there's gonna be a band, kid." Think what you will of Gazowsky, but he never doubts there's going to be a film. The film's finale involves Gazowsky unveiling a series of ideas to his congregation -- all of which have come to him from God -- and they grow more and more outlandish and large, but then again, he's been to Italy to make a film, so what else could been within his grasp? Jacobs has made a fascinating documentary -- unblinking but not inhuman, sympathetic but never afraid to ask questions. An Audience of One is about people who dream big, feel big, want big -- and as hard as it is to imagine one's self thinking like that, it's also hard to not envy them more than a little.